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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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, using Google maps, that the houses where your family lived are still standing. What you can rarely figure out, unless it has […]
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 […]