Research Category
Old Rehoboth, Massachusetts & the Ring of Green: Mapping the Past on Greenwood Ave, East Providence, Rhode Island
Posted on October 16, 2023 12 Comments
Background Two years ago in the lead up to visiting Rehoboth and Swansea, Massachusetts I contacted the East Providence Historical Society and I asked for help in locating the original home lot of Robert WHEATON on the Ring of Green. Sandra Turgeon and I exchanged emails and arranged to meet at the East Providence Historical […]
Mind The Gap: Making the Connection to the Royal STEWARTs of Scotland
Posted on August 17, 2023 12 Comments
Sometimes you can prove a connection without being able to flesh out the in-between. Thus like the announcements at the train station “Mind the Gap.” Sometimes people grasp at anything to make the connection and falsify the record in doing so. This is part of a cautionary tale to be careful even when evaluating something […]
We Can’t Write What We Don’t Know: A Journey from the Fjords of Norway to the Shores of New York Mid 19th Century
Posted on August 8, 2023 2 Comments
If you decide you want to write about an ancestor be prepared to go down many gopher holes you never dreamed of visiting. Almost every time I decide to dig deeper into an ancestor’s story I end up researching things I never knew anything about. My last blog post Deep Diving: Water Wheels and Papermaking […]
Deep Diving: Water Wheels and Paper Making in 19th Century Sweden
Posted on July 29, 2023 3 Comments
Researching is really about deep diving. It is the only way to flesh out an ancestor’s life. For me it almost always starts with a question. In this case why was my 2nd great grandfather Carl Gustaf Vantsrum [originally Wenernström] born in Fässberg, Jönköping Sweden, which was 100 miles west of where his family had […]
FILLING IN THE BLANKS: Researching the Story of How They Met
Posted on July 25, 2023 1 Comment
See How my Forty Year old Brick Wall was Broken and Locating Immigration Records for the earlier part of this story. It is amazing how much you can find to fill in pieces of the story. For this part I searched for early maps of Chicago at the Library of Congress. Searched for histories of […]
Locating Immigration Records: As luck would have it from Norway to Chicago in 1852
Posted on July 20, 2023 2 Comments
Retracing the steps of our ancestors is a time consuming research challenge, but it is almost always worth the effort. Like most of my blog posts, although this is about a specific ancestor, the process is what is important. If you happen to have Norwegian ancestry a search of Norway Heritage is in order to […]
How My Forty Year Old Brick Wall Was Broken: The Benevolence of Strangers and the Problem with Names
Posted on July 13, 2023 7 Comments
This is a brick wall that my Aunt Dorothy and I began working on in the 1970’s and it took Forty Years to solve! Sadly it was solved 17 years after my aunt passed. And it happened over ten years ago! I have written several drafts but I am hoping to properly thank those genealogists […]
Nicholas BROME & the Three Murders: Part Five
Posted on March 6, 2023 Leave a Comment
ST JAMES now ST MICHAEL at BADDESLEY CLINTON The above window at St Michael Baddesley Clinton [previously St James] gives some important details of Nicholas BROOME’s life: ” Nicholas BROME Esq. Lord & owner of Baddesley Clinton. Married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Rawfre ARUNDELL of Eggleshole in the County of Cornwall, Knight Anno Domini 1473 […]
NICHOLAS BROME & the Three Murders: Part Four
Posted on March 3, 2023 2 Comments
When last we left Nicholas BROME we had fixed on the approximate date of the murder of the priest as about 1485. One of the challenges of trying to understand Nicholas is to understand the time and the circumstance in which he lived. Trying to do so with someone who lived 500 years ago presents […]
NICHOLAS BROME & the Three Murders: Part Two
Posted on February 12, 2023 2 Comments
“This late dissension grown betwixt the peersBurns under feigned ashes of forg’d love,And will at last break out into a flame:As festered members rot but by degree,Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,So will this base and envious discord breed.” William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 1 When last we left young Nicholas BROME in 1468, […]
Wheaton Wood 