I never knew my great uncle Jonas Swank as he died before I was born. I was curious what I might be able to find out about him. I turned to the census and a few other documents to glean details about Jonas’ life. Continue reading
Rider
Family Reunions: Past and Present
September is Brown family reunion time. A couple of weeks ago my family gathered for our annual gathering in Indiana County PA. Despite the cool rainy start of the day, almost 40 descendants of Charles and Lucy Brown were in attendance. This marked the 24th consecutive year, excluding 2020 when it was cancelled due to Covid. Continue reading
Cousin Connections: Carmen
For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of genealogy is the people I meet exploring similar family lines. The type of involvement varies. Sometimes it is limited to an exchange of one or two letters with a cousin who shares a few items about the family. With a few, it has been a flurry of emails over a short period of time as we intensely investigate a particular family together. Then there are those occasional contacts that move beyond genealogy into a friendship, like my correspondence with Carmen Hill. Continue reading
World War One Selective Service
2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the United States entering the Great War, more commonly known as World War I, which impacted many of our ancestors. It began on June 28, 1914 when a Serbian nationalist assassinated Austrian Archduke Ferdinand; a month later Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia. A few weeks later this regional conflict had escalated into a full scale war as most European countries had entered the fray, with the larger powers of Germany, Britain and France bearing much of the burden and casualties. Over the next three years as the war raged on with no end in sight, the possibility loomed that America might be pulled into it. Continue reading
Cemetery Citings: Stone Heap
When I was in college—before my passion for genealogy developed—my walks to town took a shortcut through a cemetery. However, I ended up lingering to read the inscriptions on the stones, identifying who was related and imagining what these people’s lives might have been like. I remember a row of markers from the 1860s for one family: a father, a mother and several of their infant children who died within a few years of each other. I considered the sorrow this family felt and wondered whether illness or accident caused the children’s deaths. Continue reading
Cousin Connections: Blanche
One of the joys of genealogy has been connecting with cousins, close and distant, who share an interest in researching the family. Over the years, I have made a number of wonderful connections on both sides of my family, with relatives as well as non-relatives with whom I have joined forces to fill in gaps on a mutual tree. Thinking about some of the family associations I’ve made, one special person comes to mind, my cousin Blanche. Continue reading
Relatively Speaking Blog 