Archival Notes, February 2016

Why would you think that if you saw a census head of household listing with the name Packard in 1850; Pechaw in 1860; Pekoy in 1870; Rucor in 1880 and Pecor in 1900 to be the same man? It was, and his name was actually Picard! He was French living in a non-French area and […]

I was reminded this week why it is so important to know the first names of the family group while searching census records. Don’t believe it when you can’t find your relatives in the index. Poor penmanship by the census taker and the person transcribing the index who is totally unfamiliar with the ethnic names […]

From a Feb.5, 2016 BDN obit page article from the Buffalo News: A woman named Hannah Palmer who died 76 years ago finally got her obituary. She had been buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave. Her family finally connected all the dots of her life and death. It was quite an interesting article. It also […]

Gleanings from the NEHGS e-newsletter… The NEHGS along with the Congregational Library and Archives, the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum and the Conn Conference of the United Church of Christ have received a grant to digitize early NE Congregational Church records and make them available on line. This would include church members, VR, […]

This Old Tree, February 2016

This month’s column is a combined effort of Brenda Bourgoine and Dennis Prue. It pays to skim through genealogy books of church records as there could be an entry that might catch your eye. That is what happened to me one evening. The rest of story is below: Dennis called this finding Serendipity- that it […]

President’s Message, February 2016

Do you get asked “Aren’t you done tracing/chasing your ancestors yet?” The uninformed persons ask these questions obviously. If they only knew, for every question answered, more appear. A birth date or place not found, a death date unknown-just part of a person’s life-enough to keep us looking for the answers. For example, on my […]