Browsing somewhere online the other day, my eye jumped to a newly-published regimental history of the 10th Kentucky Infantry in the Civil War. This was the regiment of my great-great-grandfather Samuel Matlack (1815-1881), regimental quartermaster, then lieutenant and aide-de-camp on the staff of Brig. General Speed S. Fry, at Camp Nelson, Kentucky.
Samuel and [...]
I’ve now found confirmation of Captain (later General) William Crosbie’s place in the Anglo-Irish gentry Crosbie family which bore the swords-and-snake crest found on the pistols traditionally identified as Major Pitcairn’s (see my previous post, linked here). I had suggested that he belonged somewhere in the Ardfert Crosbie family found in Burke’s 1866 Dormant, [...]
The first spoils of the Revolutionary War are surely the handsome pair of Murdoch pistols long attributed to Major John Pitcairn, who is said to have lost them on April 19 1775 during the harrowing return from Concord to Boston (they were variously said to have been in the baggage train, or on his [...]
I just rediscovered the digitized microforms of the Revolutionary War pension files (pensions granted from 1832 onward) available from ‘HeritageQuest’ via many subscription libraries (including the Boston Public Library, for Massachusetts Residents, and many other public libraries throughout the US). By my count my children have 39 ancestors listed in the DAR Patriot Index, [...]
John Ross Delafield (1874-1964), a scion of New York’s pre-Gilded Age oligarchy, appears to have been the man who invented the 20th-century practice of honorary grants of arms by the College of Arms for the use of Americans of English (or British) descent.
Delafield as a general; frontispiece to
Delafield: The Family History, vol. 2 (1945)
The [...]
I’ve finally made some progress on the family of my great-aunt Natalie, wife of my great uncle George A. Smith (born Schmitt) of Louisville and New York City. Smith, an actor on stage and screen, married Natalie, a New York socialite when they were both in their late 40s, during the war in 1944; [...]
One thing that surprised me in the days following Sarah Palin’s emergence in September was the number of folks from among her base who did not recognize the pin she wore at the GOP convention and on her meet-world-leaders day at the U.N.: many wondered if she was wearing an Israeli flag pin, when actually [...]
OK, after a marathon session online I’ve identified most of the odd bits of militaria in the previous post, except for the small star pin which I’m reposting by itself here:
Any ideas?
OK, I’ve come to the bottom of my family militaria barrel but hope to identify things. This is a batch of things, of obviously mixed provenance, kept by my mother. A few messages to rec.heraldry helped narrow down the cardinals: likely something from WWII and hence from cousin Wilbur (army air forces) rather [...]
Here’s another piece of WWI memorabilia from the family, this time something I cannot identify.
They are a pair of enamel cardinal pins, found with a cache of WWI and WWII material of mixed provenance (a WWI victory medal & ‘honorable discharge’ pin from my mother’s father, a WWII Sustineo Alas AAF Air Services [...]
