This Mother’s Day I’ve been thinking of all the mothers, grandmothers, aunts and mother figures in my family. Mothers play a unique part in every family. Here’s a quick tribute and thank you to the mothers in my family!
Mothers will always think of you as her little baby…
Sometimes I’m amazed at how often certain dates repeat themselves in my family tree. For instance, five living members of my family have birthdays in July, three of which are on consecutive days. My birthday is within a week of my sister’s and my grandfather’s consecutive birthdays, and sometimes we would have a triple birthday party together! My paternal grandparents and cousin share birthdays within 5 days of each other in November. My husband’s family also have birthdays within a few days of members of my family. Further back on my family tree, certain generations will have close birthdays as well.
Although our birthdays were close together, my mom would always make sure that each of our days was special. But some of my fondest birthday memories are the birthday parties with three delicious cakes- especially Papa’s favorite, German Chocolate cake! Continue reading “It runs in the family… Birthdays”
During the past few weeks I have been busy working with a genealogical peerage from 16th century Spain, named Nobiliario genealógico de varias casas de España. It is a handwritten manuscript that describes noble families in the Iberian Peninsula, and includes drawings of each family’s coats of arms. Through the years, many people have used it, as evidenced by all of the notes and comments written in the margins! It is currently in safe keeping at the Newberry Library in Chicago. It is such a thrill to be working with such a unique and colorful book!
The art of tracing one’s ancestors is not a new pastime. For many centuries families have kept track of their family histories. Your lineage would have been an important part of your identity. Even religious texts like the Old Testament and the Qur’an contain lineages of important religious figures! Genealogies (or peerages, as this book is called) were recorded in medieval and early modern Europe for a variety of reasons, but typically only for families from the upper classes. Continue reading “Genealogy through the ages”
I am a future librarian who is also a family historian. I am a heavy library user, especially for genealogical purposes. Many libraries also host genealogy presentations and workshops, which can be very valuable, even to more experienced genealogists! This post highlights one of my many recent encounters with genealogy at the library.
I recently attended a genealogy presentation at the library called “Finding your Chicago Ancestors.” The presenter was Grace DuMelle, who has published a book by the same name. She hosts many presentations in the Chicago area, and shared some valuable research tips for finding my ancestors in Chicago! Her presentation (and her book) highlighted many resources in Chicago and online that allow you to dig deeper in your research. I’ve struggled to do research for my Chicago ancestors because they had fairly common names and it was hard to trace them by searching by name in the common resources (census, BMD records and such). The presentation was a real eye-opener to different strategies that I should be using in my research. The resources that she shared were specific to Chicago, but the strategies could also be applied to my other urban ancestors. Continue reading “At the Library: Finding your Chicago Ancestors”
Look at these cuties! My dad and his sister with their grandma, Dorothy (nee Mueller) Jordan in 1962.
The Family History Librarian 