According to my “DNA Story” at ancestry.com, I am 41% Irish, with the rest being a mix of Scottish, Welsh, Flemish, French, and northern and southern Germanic. Although my Irish comes equally from both parents, my father’s Irish roots are probably based in the Connacht province of the southern, Republican side of the island. Wisely they left before the famine began. While my mother’s family … Continue reading Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
In an earlier post, I discussed the death record of my fifth great grandfather Jean Germaine Voisard, the mayor of Montécheroux, France from 1815 to 1826. In the record, Jean’s mother is named only by the initials NN. This means that neither of the witnesses knew her name. One of the men was a grandson. Her name was Jeanne Antoine Jourot, and she died when … Continue reading Ancien Régime
Jean Germain Voisard was the mayor of Montecheroux, France from 1815 to 1826. He was a fifth great grandfather on my father’s side. As the “maire” of the commune he was first and foremost a bureaucrat whose main responsibility was enforcing the regulations of the “Code civil des Français” – also known as the Napoleonic Code. Msr. Voisard was born in 1754 and he was … Continue reading The Napoleonic Code
Geneanet.org is a genealogical website headquartered in Paris, France. It differs from ancestry.com in that Geneanet is a collaborative site where the members share in the effort of building family trees and supplying transcriptions of registers, both civil and parochial. The site has been around since the mid-nineties, and I was a regular visitor twenty years ago. At Geneanet, I could connect with fellow researchers … Continue reading A Well-Regulated Militia
A few days after the Battle of Antietam, on September 22, 1862, my mother’s great-grandfather, George Spiegel, a resident of New York City, enlisted as a private in Company E of the 58th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was 23 years old at the time. According to a report published by the New York Monuments Commission in 1902, the 58th New York was known … Continue reading 58th New York Infantry Regiment
Reaching back through the space time continuum, I finally found my great-great-grandfather in time 1860s, in the space exactly where I expected him to be – on the grand island of Manhattan. I am referring to my mother’s great-grandfather, George C Spiegel, an immigrant from Germany and a cigar maker who lived in Dallas, Texas, from the 1870s until he died in 1925. He continued … Continue reading The Lost is Found
The other day, I had what I like to call a “Monk Moment.” You know that point in an episode of the TV series “Monk” where the detective Adrian Monk would smile and say, “I think I just solved the mystery.” Following this, he would reveal how the crime was committed, prefaced with the words “Here’s what happened…” Presented for your reading pleasure is my … Continue reading Here’s What Happened…
I love mining old newspapers for family history bits and pieces. Here is today’s haul. Death of an Old Lady Here is the obituary of my great, great, great-grandmother, Elise Faivre, that appeared in the Stark County Democrat (Canton, Ohio) on Thursday, October 29, 1891. Sixty-one grandchildren… Imagine that! In the text below, I have corrected misspelled surnames. Mrs. Frank Gaume died at the old … Continue reading Bits & Pieces
I have discovered more information about my O’Malley family in Minnesota. I found the source for the marriage record of my great, great-grandparents, I learned that Martin O’Malley died because of an accident, and I found a first hand account of the Dakota war from a resident of Mower County. In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had documented the marriage of Martin O’Malley … Continue reading More O’Malley
This is more on the Dakota war of 1862 and the Minnesotan white community’s response towards the uprising. My O’Malley ancestors were living in Mower County, Minnesota, then. I am trying to get a feel for how people in their community responded to the uprising by members of the Dakotan tribes. From what I have read so far it seems that the feelings of the … Continue reading A Final Solution?
Gathering Leaves 