Or, Subtitled: “A Woman’s Lot“ The collage above, which shows the three generations of female ancestors prior to me, happened to be on my Ancestry page when I opened it on International Women’s Day (8 March). Ancestry had prepared this collage from photos in my tree, and, though I doubt that Ancestry did this to … More A Woman’s Lot: Three Generations of Maternal Forebears
Or, Subtitled: “May her soul rest in peis.” This posting tells a story. It tells a story about a story, one told to me in my formative years. It also tells a story about how sudden genealogical surprises can either confirm or disprove our long-cherished family traditions. So that we do well to keep ourselves … More Family Stories and Surprising Ways New Documentation Can Confirm Them: The Story of Robert Allen Sumrall and Margaret and Catherine Ryan
And, Subtitled: “Let us now praise famous women, and our mothers that begat us” In a few days, I’ll resume my project of following family lines down from the earliest proven ancestor in my Brooks family, Mary Brooks, who died testate in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1787, and whose maiden surname I don’t know, as I … More Notes on Identifying Old Family Photos as a Genealogical Project: A “Gathering” of Batchelor Family Photos (3)
Or, Subtitled: Mystery Photos of Two WWI Soldiers I’m going to take a short break from my current project of chronicling family lines descending from Thomas Brooks (abt. 1745 – 1805) and wife Margaret (probably Beaumont/Beamon) of Frederick and Wythe Counties, Virginia, to talk about another project on which I’ve recently been working. It’s a … More Notes on Identifying Old Family Photos as a Genealogical Project: A “Gathering” of Batchelor Family Photos
This will be my final posting in this series about Patrick Ryan (1846-1893) and his Civil War pension file. If you’re just discovering this blog, you may want to read the whole series of which this is the final piece. What I want to do now is provide some footnotes to previous postings in the … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (9)
I’m floundering a bit as I try to draw to a close this series of postings about Pat and Delilah Rinehart Ryan and their pension applications for Pat’s Civil War service and injuries. The problem is that the deeper I reach into the treasure trove of information this file contains, the more connections I’m spotting … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (8)
More tying up loose ends from the Civil War pension files of my grandmother’s uncle Patrick Ryan and his wife Delilah Rinehart (if you’re just now seeing this series of posting, this is #7 in the series; you may want to click and read the preceding postings for background):
As I ended my last posting about the Civil War pension claims filed by Patrick Ryan and his widow Delilah Rinehart Ryan in Grant County, Arkansas, I mentioned that one of the threads tying together the network of families represented in these combined pension files is that men from several of these families were Union … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (6)
And now to that missing eye: though I have not spelled this out, it has probably become obvious to you if you’ve read the first two installments in this series that it is, in part, an extended essay about the importance of family stories in genealogical research. It’s a foray into understanding how family stories … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (3)
BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS 