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Undone by a Hat: The Drowning of Frank J. Donahoe
On the night of June 4, 1895, a message arrived in Lowell, Massachusetts for 75-year-old Peter Fitzpatrick, informing him his 30-year-old son, Philip H. Fitzpatrick, was dead in Savannah, Georgia....
View ArticleThe Ballad of Martin Hurney
There is no song called, “The Ballad of Martin Hurney,” but there should be. if anyone had a life as woeful as that of “Oh my darling Clementine,” (who drowned in her gold digging father’s mine shaft)....
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The Insane Asylum
When I discover an ancestor who spent time in an asylum, it’s a moment for reflection and gratitude for being born into times with a more sophisticated take, and better tools to address mental health...
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Drifting to Prince Edward Island
Map of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island c. 1890 For this profile, I picked a 3rd-great-granduncle who shares my birthday (albeit about 140 years apart), James Gilbert Wiggins...
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Silver Spoons for Seven Sibels
Married couples before the twentieth century had no choice but to produce a new baby about every other year. Despite high infant mortality, families with twelve or more children were not uncommon....
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Slade Slaves in Swansey, Massachusetts
Early probate records for colonial Massachusetts show enslaved human beings, – men, women and children, in wills and estate inventories. In my last post, I promised to tell to what else, besides the...
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Arsenic and Old… Butter?
Some of my Massachusetts colonial ancestors were among the first of the westward migration, driven by the desire for land. As the grand narrative goes, Americans triumphed over Native peoples, buffalo...
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The Man Who Loved Trees
Though I never knew him, I have felt particular affection for my great-grandfather, Thomas Francis Dolan, and it’s because of a story my mother told from her childhood in the aftermath of the great...
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GROWING the IRISH IMMIGRANT TREE | Martin Dolan (1870-1926)
I am luckier than most in nailing down origins for Irish immigrant ancestors, but not all of them. I have quietly uttered impolite words on reading, “born in Ireland,” on a new-found record. My...
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Concerning Iowa Roans
It’s exciting to discover your ancestors or relatives mentioned in a publication, be it a newspaper, school yearbook, or a local history book. Ten years ago, I found an except from the original...
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