Don’t Wear That Plaid – or Else!

While working on my Scots ancestry this week, I spent a little time looking at my Scottish made ties and caps that represent the tartans of my various Scottish ancestral clans.
We all know that it is difficult to prove true ancestry to any of the famous clan surnames back to the distant past because early [...]

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The Kirke’s (Churches) of Bornholm Island – Denmark

Technorati Tags: Patronymics,Research Tips,Bornholm,Danish Census

One branch of my ancestry lived on Bornholm Island in the North Sea for hundreds of years.   The island is located east of Denmark, north of Poland and South of Sweden, covers 227 square miles and the language is a dialect of Danish called “bornhlmsk”.
Because of the small land size and [...]

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Embedded History

Standing in line with other fourth graders, I dropped my lunch ticket and bent over to pick it up from the floor.   The fellow behind me had two newly sharpened pencils sticking out of his pocket and turned to talk to some one just as my head went down.   I’ve had a one-eighth inch piece [...]

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If Wishes Were…..

We all have certain presents we’d like to receive for Christmas but know that they’ll probably never actually appear.
In 1986 I made slight detour coming home from business meetings in northern California and stopped in Angel’s Camp, California to meet a long lost cousin.   When I arrived, I found him teaching tennis to some youth [...]

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No Passport. No Reservations.

I stopped living on a jet nine years ago and don’t miss the constant hassle of airports, hotels and lost hours from home and family.   The only trips I really enjoyed were those that involved family history research or visiting Disney.   Why Disney didn’t build a large complex in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, I’ll never know, [...]

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