Nothing is worse than the crushing blow of dashed expectations, especially when it comes to ancestral research. I had high hopes that a recent visit to Charleston, S.C., would turn up something — a gravestone, a house, a place of business — related to my fourth great grandfather, Philip Benjamin (1779-1852). My spirits rose further […]
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Was King Tut’s Curse the Real Cause of W.B. Thompson’s Demise?
It’s been pretty well established that an early visit to Kit Tut’s tomb wasn’t good for your health. A long list of famous people were presumably laid low by a curse for disturbing the pharaoh’s 3,000-year repose. Maybe it’s time to add the name of William Boyce Thompson to the list. According to a letter […]
No Surprise: Isaie Gingras Was Buried in a Catholic Cemetery
It’s getting easier to figure out where a relative who died in the last 150 years is buried. The larger cemeteries often publish lists of who was interred there. They may even include a map to help you find the grave. Sometimes, if you are really lucky, a volunteer has taken a picture of the […]
Discovered: The Gingras Ancestral Lands
Luck was certainly on my side when I went searching for the mercurial Gingras ancestral lands. I had all but given up the search, when I caught a glimpse of the marker on the left. Background is certainly in order. All Gingras (pronounced Gin-Gra, bozos) in North America descend from my eighth great grandparents Charles […]