I’ve spent so much time writing about my paternal side of the family for 52 Ancestors that this week offers the perfect topic to shift the focus to my maternal side. When DNA testing first emerged as commercially-available, I got an mtDNA test from Family Tree DNA. The autosomal testing was less of a thing, so I thought this was the… Read More
When we break through a brick wall, it’s not always one “Ah-ha!” moment that leads to the discovery we’ve been seeking. It’s often a trail of clues that helps us find the one we need to prove a hypothesis, and that is what I would like to talk about in Week 7 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. When I… Read More
I was a little stumped for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Week 6. The only idea that came to mind was how much I loved looking at maps as a child when we went on our annual summer vacation, usually to a campground in New Hampshire or Vermont. But I couldn’t think of a genealogical context until my mother and… Read More
This week’s topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “Branching Out” and I would like to look, not at my family, but people who were forced into a connection with my family: the people my ancestors enslaved. Richard Howett of Tyrrell County, North Carolina In a post from last year, I wrote about my Unexpected Southern Ancestors. My ancestor,… Read More
This week’s theme for Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “Curious” and it took a few days to consider how I would delve into this. There are so many things I’m curious about, so many things I want to discover, but I think the main one is the name of my ex-husband’s paternal immigrant ancestors… who I’ve… Read More
This is another post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks where you’ll recognize what I’m talking about if you’ve been here in the past. My favorite photo is the one that really started my genealogy journey, the July 4th picnic in Middleborough, Massachusetts between the Blake and Vaughan families. The people in this photograph are my great-grandmother, Nina Blake, crouching… Read More