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Guidepost to Safe Places with the ‘Underground Railroad’
Jun 17
Many individuals have seen the 'black lawn jockey holding a lantern' in someone's front yard but did they really know the possible history of this ornament? Its meaning signified that the home with such an ornament in the 1850s and 1860s, was a stop on the Underground Railroad. These were largely a northern thing, and weren't commonly found ...
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MyHeritage Introduced Cross-Language Record Matches
Jun 16
MyHeritage has introduced Cross-Language Record Matches. MyHeritage is already translated into 42 languages, and has become the most popular and heavily-used genealogy website in most non-English speaking countries, in addition to its popularity in the English-speaking world. MyHeritage announced that their Global Name Translation Technol...
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Haint Blue
Jun 15
An unusual phrase but one with a lot of meaning and tradition especially in certain US regions. Haint blue is a collection of pale shades of blue-green that are traditionally used to paint porch ceilings in the southern United States. The tradition originated with the Gullah in Georgia and South Carolina, mostly lowlands where many former A...
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Map Puzzles
Jun 13
You and your family may be part of the new wave of home entertainment – jigsaw puzzles. It was figured that U.S. sales leaped by 300 percent or more compared to the same time last year. The puzzle images can be anything but one of the long time popular ones having been map puzzles. Their popularity goes back for centuries. What made...
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Effect of the Erie Canal
Jun 11
You may not realize what new technology, method of transportation, invention or new social idea could have had a direct effect on any of your ancestors. An example would be the invention and expansion of the American railroad system. That could have served as the very reason an ancestor decided to travel to a new region in America because t...
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Findmypast Adds British Military Records from World War II
Jun 11
Findmypast has been adding new British military records from World War II. You can find out more about these newly added collections on their blog every Friday. One of the newly added collections is for people who have ancestors who served in the Royal Air Force, Royal Engineers, or Coldstream Guards. The British Army Service records coll...
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Your Ancestors Knew These Facts
Jun 9
Sometimes there are everyday items that today we don't understand why it happens. Yet, our ancestors generally, even if uneducated knew the reason and why. Here are some examples of some interesting facts known by your ancestors: Three items: Juicy Fruit gum, an early version of Cracker Jack, and the Ferris Wheel all made their debuts a...
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Study About Parkinson’s Includes Data from 23andMe
Jun 9
A new study about Parkinson's Disease, that was published in the journal Nature Medicine, relied on data from more than four million 23andMe customers. The results of the study may help speed efforts to find drug targets for treating Parkinson's disease. Working with researchers at 23andMe, scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harva...
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Mid-Term 1918 Elections
Jun 7
There can be made many comparisons to life and events that shaped our ancestors' lives in 1918 to present-day times. One major was the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, with the first wave in America in the spring of 1918 then the far more deadly second wave in the Fall of 1918. For example, just in the month of October 1918, some 195,000 Americ...
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Native Americans Helping the Irish
Jun 5
The 1840s was a very difficult time in Ireland due to the potato famine. It caused poor tenant subsistence farmers, to die due to hunger or disease from 1845 to 1849, and 1.5 million to emigrate in that period or shortly afterward to other locations, especially to America. If you have been about to track your family lineage back to the 1840s...
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MyHeritage Added Exclusive German Record Collection
Jun 4
MyHeritage announced the addition of an exclusive death records collection from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, from 1874 through 1938. This collection is part of civil registration death records which have been made available by the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen. The Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia, Death Index 1874-1938...
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Silhouettes
Jun 3
The invention of photography did not come about until the 1840s. So the only method to preserve an image of a loved one was by having an artist paint a portrait or make a sculpture (very costly) or to have a silhouette (a profile outline) of the person done by a silhouette artist (less expensive). This artist could paint the black facial and...
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NGS has Free Genealogy Resources
Jun 2
The National Genealogical Society (NGS) has free genealogy resources that can be accessed through their website. One of their main goals is to educate the public about family history research. Their free genealogy resources section includes genealogy charts, templates, and tutorials. NGS has organized helpful tips, articles, and resources t...
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Bank for the Ladies in 1880s
Jun 1
If you had female ancestors in Boston in the 1880s, they may have been a member of a unique establishment for the times. This unique establishment started in April 1879 by Sarah E. Howe was the Ladies' Deposit Company (a bank) located in Boston. Sarah was unique herself, a former fortune teller, once married but now single in 1877. She saw ...
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Time Capsule
May 31
Many groups, schools, families, cities, and organizations have created a 'time capsule' to be put away or placed in a building's cornerstone, not to be opened for 50, 75 or 100 years. What treasure to see first-hand what one generation thought was important for the future generations to see and examine. To find such a capsule years from now ...
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