Newspapers in New Orleans and other cities carried breathless accounts Rebecca Kruttschnitt (1889-1975) wedding in 1911 to English suitor Henry C. Woodhouse. The reports focused on the resplendent venue, the glamorous dresses worn by the bride and her maids, and the bountiful flowers that adorned the scene. They missed the most interesting event. “The wedding […]
Roadblock Ahead: Tracing the Boyce Line Back to West Virginia
This amateur genealogists has spent many frustrating years trying to trace his Boyce line back to Hardy County, West Virginia, and its beginnings in North America. This dogged pursuit took me to the home of the genealogical society in Logan County Kentucky, where my third great-grandfather, J.R. Boyce, was born. When I showed the eminently […]
Charting My Jewish Roots Along a Misleading Path
I got woefully lost tracing my family’s Jewish roots. I fell into a familiar trap. Like many family history researchers on the Internet, I wanted to believe that I was related to the great Moses Levy, a New York merchant who commissioned portraits for most members of his family. My fifth grandmother was a Levy, […]
Little to Nothing Remains of Philip Benjamin’s Time in Charleston
Nothing is worse than the crushing blow of dashed expectations, especially when it comes to genealogy 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, anything — related to my fourth great grandfather, Philip Benjamin (1779-1852). My spirits rose […]
Major Life Events Probably Forced Simmers Family Moves
One thing that’s often lost in genealogy research is why families move. It’s relatively easy to find a family’s change of address using the Census or City Directories. And you may even find that the houses where your family once lived are still standing. What you can rarely figure out, unless it has been passed […]
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 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 written to an […]
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 Internet lists of who was interred there. They may even post a map to help you find the grave. Sometimes, if you are really lucky, a volunteer has taken a picture of […]
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 […]