Here is the successful breach of a brick wall, with some unusual documentary evidence, leading to a goose-chase for a ‘Mr Wright’. The starting point is my wife’s XY line, which, as I noted in the last post, went back to Whiting B. Dudley (1823-1882) and then stopped. Here is what I knew: A family […]
Besides our agnate (male-line) ancestry, and our matrilineal ancestry (also called the umbilical or mitochondrial line, to indicate the uterine mother-child bond or the exclusively maternal inheritance of mitochondrial DNA), what specific lines have any distinction, in an abstract sense, in the vast swath of the pedigree chart that lies between these two bookends? The […]
Quite by accident I found it. I was scanning my local branch library for editions of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe when I saw The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant (Simon & Schuster, 2006). Pulling it off the shelf doubtfully (there are many Dogtowns) I was surprised to see that it was indeed about my […]
Following yesterday’s post on the romantic Stirling of Glorat story, I put together a royal descent (probably the closest one) for the American branch of the Stirlings of Glorat, as follows: 1. James V, King of Scots (d. 1542). 2. (illegitimate by Catherine, daughter of Sir John Carmichael) John Stewart, Commendator of Coldingham, Lord Darnley […]
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
From the papers, the fascinating story of the (apparent) heir to the Scottish baronetcy of Stirling of Glorat (William J. Booher, “Tracing Family Tree Turns into a Title Search: Greenwood man has some details to confirm before becoming baronet,” Indianapolis Star, 19 March 2009). Coat of arms from the frontispiece to Bain (1883). The coat […]
Hwaet! Unto us this day is born, in the city of Pawtucket, in the state of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations, our fourth child and second son, Simon Lane Taylor. Like genograms but for soccer moms rather than therapists, those self-satisfied minivan decals have emerged as the latest diagrammatic lexicon for identifying one’s family. […]
Friday, February 13, 2009
In the Rhode Island Historical Society library is a strange heraldic treasure — a grant of arms, from 1631, to a George Thorold of Boston, Lincolnshire. It is a copy, probably from the beginning of the 18th century, darkened and greasy with long handling and haphazard storage. The copy is inexpert—the lettering is unstudied, and […]
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, of […]
So here I am in Savannah, on a rare occasion when I’ve accompanied my wife to an academic conference but we have not brought any children. Aside from blessed sleep, I’ve been able to be a genealogical tourist when on my own. As it turns out my wife has distant roots in Savannah, her ancestor […]
Saturday, January 24, 2009
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 […]
