19th century
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Camphor Glass Jewelry
Apr 13
You may have seen photos of some of your female ancestors wearing a piece of camphor glass jewelry or you might have inherited a piece, but did you know about this once very popular style of jewelry? Camphor glass is clear glass that has been treated with hydrofluoric acid vapors to give it a soft, lovely frosted, whitish appearance. This effect r...
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You Are Not Living Your Grandparents’ Lives
Mar 17
As you put together stories and points of interest about your ancestors, especially your grandparents and great grandparents, a good comparison to add were their daily life events that were very common for your ancestors to do that you today have no concept or experience in. It does help future generations see how life has changed and some things ...
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Ontario, Canada – BMD
Mar 15
The newest databases to search from Ancestry.com is for Births-Marriages and Deaths in Ontario, Canada. With it being on the northern border with the United States, many individuals on both sides have been in the US and / or Canada, especially in Ontario. Using the subscript-fee site with three important area – births – marriages – deaths, y...
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Finding Forgotten Photos
Feb 17
You can get frustrated when trying to locate any images of some of your ancestors. You have checked with other relatives, to see what they have, but you may need to go beyond. Unfortunately, people cleaning out estates sold off vintage family photo albums. Using the online site 'Lost Faces' may be of some assistance. They have collected many vinta...
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Weddings between Christmas and New Years Day
Dec 27
It is not always been traditional to have a June wedding. In Victorian England (from 1840s to early 1900), many weddings took place on Christmas Day and Boxing Day (a day after Chrisman Day when employers distributed money, food, cloth (material) or other valuable goods to their employees). Working class people typically worked six days a week in t...
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Handling Family Photos from Black Page Albums
Nov 29
So popular … all family albums were long narrow black sheets of paper with the treasured photos totally pasted to a page or later the use of the four corner small tabs to whole a photo in place without placing paste on the back. The album covers were leather or thick cardboard material. These type of albums dating back to the 1870s and for 50 to ...
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Voting was Wild in the 1870s and 1880s
Nov 1
Think politics and elections are wild now in the 21st century, they were crazy wild in the 1870s and 1880s in America. Yet, roughly 30 to 40% today turn out to vote. The Federal mid-term elections for your ancestors back in the 1880s had roughly 80% of the voting public turned out – now that is only white and black men since the ladies still did...
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Colonial Early Church Records
Oct 3
If you have found that some of your early ancestors in America lived in Massachusetts Colony and were of a specific church (Puritan, Congregational, and Christian denominations) you are in special luck. Now available online from the Congregational Library and Archives are the church records from many early individual churches in Massachusetts. Thes...
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Criminals Sent to Australia
Sep 19
There were about 160,000 convicts were transported to Australia in total during the 19th century – to empty out the overcrowded English jails. Many people today can claim their ancestors of those English and Irish convicts. It is an interesting story whether you had such an ancestor or not. For what reasons would a convict be sent to the wilds o...
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Antiquated American Phrases and Sayings
Aug 29
Part of learning about your ancestors' life and times is knowing more of the once common phrases and sayings they may have used. Many of them now are unknown to the present generations. Here are a few samples of American phrases no longer used: Happy cabbage – a large amount of available money to spend on one's self. From the 1880s. See th...