Genealogy Tag

24 Aug

Posted at 10:53h in Newsletter

ANCESTRY- AN URBAN MYTH LED TO SPENDING $20 BILLION OVER 25 YEARS The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, historically known as the Chicago Drainage Canal, is a 28-mile-long (45 km) canal system that connects the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. It reverses the direction of the Main Stem and the South Branch of the Chicago River, which now flows out of Lake Michigan rather than into it. The related Calumet-Saganashkee Channel does the same for the Calumet River, which is a short distance to the south, joining the Chicago Canal about halfway along its route to the Des Plaines....

10 Aug

Posted at 12:09h in Newsletter

KATE THOMPSON SMUGGLED A $200,000 STOCK RECEIPT THROUGH UNION LINES We covered the “Confederates on the Great Lakes” on July 13, 2024, Confederates on the Great Lakes and the Mystery of the Silver Teapot” in the June 29, 2024, edition Mystery of the Silver Teapot. We gave you a glimpse into the activities of Jacob Thompson, former Secretary of the Interior and Confederate representative in Canada. During the war, Jacob Thompson’s Oxford, MS home was torched by the Union Army (picture of Union Army soldiers in Oxford), even though Kate and her daughter-in-law were still living in the house. The daughter-in-law had...

27 Jul

Posted at 15:02h in Newsletter

THE QUAKER ANTI-SLAVERY MIGRATION FROM THE SOUTHEAST TO THE NORTHWEST John Woolman (1720-1772) was an American merchant, tailor, journalist, Quaker preacher, and early abolitionist during the colonial era. Based in Mount Holly, near Philadelphia, he traveled through the American frontier to preach Quaker beliefs and advocate against slavery and the slave trade, cruelty to animals, economic injustices and oppression, and conscription. Beginning in 1755, with the outbreak of the French and Indian War, Woolman urged tax resistance to deny support to the colonial military. In 1772, Woolman traveled to England, where he encouraged Quakers to support the abolition of slavery. Woolman published numerous...

14 Jul

Posted at 13:10h in Newsletter

MOTORING ON MICHIGAN HIGHWAY 185 IS IMPOSSIBLE Out of more than 4 million miles of public streets in the United States, there’s an 8.2-mile stretch of road on Mackinac Island that stands apart. M-185 is the only state highway in the country where motor vehicles are not allowed. Instead, the traffic on Mackinac Island consists of pedestrians, bicyclists and horse-drawn carriages. Horses first arrived on Mackinac Island around 1780 when the British used them to haul parts of Fort Michilimackinac from the mainland near present-day Mackinaw City over the ice to the island. By the mid-1800s, Mackinac Island was evolving into a tourist destination...

29 Jun

Posted at 23:35h in Newsletter

HAVE YOU EVER GONE CEMETERY HUNTING? Yes, it is part of Genealogy. I had come across a comment in an old newsletter saying that my 3rd Great-Grandfather, Gilbreath Falls Neill, was buried in the Neill Cemetery across the railroad tracks in Beech Bluff, TN. So, in about 2013, I was in Jackson, TN, for business, and I drove down to Beech Bluff. I checked around and asked some folks about the cemetery, and I was referred to old cemeteries, but no one seemed to know about a cemetery near the tracks, which were long gone, and there was just a railbed. I went...

15 Jun

Posted at 10:32h in Newsletter

THE ROSE OF LONG ISLAND AND HER HERITAGE Julia Gardiner was the daughter of David Gardiner, a landowner and New York State senator (1824–1828), and Juliana MacLachlan Gardiner. The Gardiners had a prestigious heritage, were a wealthy and influential family, and she was taught to value social class and advantageous marriages. She was educated at home until she was 16 years old. Julia then attended the Chagaray Institute in New York, where she studied music, French literature, ancient history, arithmetic, and composition. She was raised as a Presbyterian. As a young woman, Gardiner was a budding socialite who closely followed fashion trends and courted...

04 Jun

Posted at 13:34h in Newsletter

COULD YOU GET A PENSION FOR YOUR DESCENDANTS IF YOU HAD A JOB WITH NO SALARY? The answer is yes if you are a former First Lady. The president's wife receives no salary, but they can receive a pension. I became aware of first ladies' pensions when we visited Sherwood Forest. The former first lady Julia Gardiner Tyler, known as the "Rose of Long Island", at 22, married 52-year-old President John Tyler as his second wife and was the first to broach the subject. Tyler served as president from 1841-1845. Julia was known as a grand hostess in the Washington social scene....

18 May

Posted at 14:47h in Newsletter

ANCESTRY- THE HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRE Ancestry, The Hollywood Vampire. The Richmond Vampire (locally called the Hollywood Vampire) is a recent urban legend from Richmond, Virginia. Richmond residents claim that the mausoleum of W. W. Pool (Dated 1913) in Hollywood Cemetery holds the remains of a vampire. Supposedly, Pool was run out of England in the 19th century for being a vampire. Oral legends to this effect were circulating by the 1960s. They may be influenced by the tomb's architecture, which has Masonic and ancient Egyptian elements, and double W's look like fangs. Because this cemetery is adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University, the...

04 May

Posted at 21:42h in Newsletter

  5 MILLION PEOPLE LIVE IN IRELAND. THERE ARE 39 MILLION AMERICANS OF IRISH DESCENT WHO ARE INTERESTED IN GENEALOGY You can imagine the demand to discover Irish records for genealogy purposes; however, Ireland is one of the most challenging first-world countries to find information. Here is one of the reasons why and how it may get easier. In June 1922, the opening battle of Ireland's civil war destroyed one of Europe's great archives in a historic calamity that reduced seven centuries of documents and manuscripts to ash and dust. Once the envy of scholars worldwide, the Public Record Office at the Four Courts...

20 Apr

Posted at 15:09h in Newsletter

BEFORE THERE WAS WOKE THERE WAS WIDE AWAKE, ARE THEY PART OF YOUR ROOTS? The Wide Awakes were a youth organization and later a paramilitary organization cultivated by the Republican Party during the 1860 presidential election in the United States. The organization introduced many to political participation through popular social events, an ethos of competitive fraternity, and even promotional comic books. It proclaimed itself as the newfound voice of younger voters. The structured militant Wide Awakes appealed to a generation profoundly shaken by the partisan instability in the 1850s, offering young northerners a much-needed political identity. In early March 1860, Abraham Lincoln...

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