Archives

FILLING IN THE BLANKS: Researching the Story of How They Met

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 […]

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Locating Immigration Records: As luck would have it from Norway to Chicago in 1852

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 […]

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How My Forty Year Old Brick Wall Was Broken: The Benevolence of Strangers and the Problem with Names

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 […]

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Nicholas BROME & the Three Murders: Part Five

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 […]

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NICHOLAS BROME & the Three Murders: Part Four

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 […]

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NICHOLAS BROME & the Three Murders: Part Two

“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, […]

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NICHOLAS BROME & the Three Murders: Part One

Back in 2019, I was doing some genealogical research, before a trip to Warwickshire and it led to the discovery of Nicholas BROME, my 13th great-grandpa. I was researching all the possible connections I had in the area which led from my grandmother Helen Mildred SHELDON to her 3rd great grandmother Sylvia SHERMAN and her […]

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The Intersection of Gardening and Genealogy

The idea for this post came after my recent migration from the “bird site not to be named’” taken over by a megalomaniac, to the much pleasanter and helpful, not for profit, social media site Mastodon. While this blog post is not about Mastodon I do want to put in a plug to fellow genealogists […]

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New Speculations on the Origins of Robert WHEATON: Part One

Many years ago I wrote an article TItled Conjectures on the Origins of Robert WHEATON. At that time all of the indications were that he was descended from the Wheatons of Devon. This turned out to be 5 different DNA WHEATON/WHEADON/WHIDDEN lines in Devon, England: Wheaton of Sidmouth; Wheadon of Axminster; Whidden of Buckfastleigh; Wheaton […]

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Genealogy: What’s It All About?

“What’s It All About Alfie?” Song title Burt Bacharach & Hal David In genealogy we use lots of metaphors for what we are trying to do when faced with a dearth of evidence, and often what we have is circumstantial at best. After nearly half a century I am quite familiar with all of them […]

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