My thief-of-a-7th-great-grandfather’s cousin Jasper Godby (also a thief!) wrote a letter in 1756 to his parents back home in London from Maryland, where he was transported in 1747. It’s part of the Prize Papers in the National Archives, Kew. bonniegenealogy.blog/2025/12/30/w... #genealogy #ancestry
22.02.2026 14:09
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Advert for the publication of our 500th story
We've published our 500th story! Many thanks to volunteer @cotswoldtalespast.bsky.social www.fewforgottenwomen.com/post/our-500... #FamilyHistory #WomensHistory #PostOfficeHistory #Genealogy
20.02.2026 14:13
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2026 Week 8: A Big Decision
Prompt: Life is filled with choices – some easy, some life-changing. Think about a big decision an ancestor had to make. Maybe it was choosing between staying in their home or moving across the oce…
Week 8 of #52Ancestors is about big decisions -- the decision to emigrate is quite big! Here's a modified part of my dissertation about emigrants from Korczyna and Iwonicz and the reasons they left. bonniegenealogy.blog/2026/02/20/2... #genealogy #ancestry #familyhistory #Galicia #Iwonicz #Korczyna
20.02.2026 19:36
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Screenshot of the Newberry Library Digital Collections homepage featuring a pastel illustration of a polar bear on ice with mountains and a sun; a banner invites browsing the digital collections, with “Browse all” and “Recently added” thumbnails below.
Screenshot of the Newberry Transcribe homepage with a purple handwriting background; a large panel reads “Newberry Transcribe — Unlock history!” with buttons for “Learn more” and “Browse manuscripts,” and a row of project tiles below.
📌 Where to find us:
🔍 Browse our digital collections -- thousands of rare maps, manuscripts, postcards, and more, all free and online collections.newberry.org
✍️ Help us transcribe historical documents on Newberry Transcribe (no experience needed, just curiosity) nt.newberry.org
11.02.2026 17:37
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2026 Week 7: What the Census Suggests
I was researching the Yoder family from Berks County, Pennsylvania, when I came across what was likely a case where a woman had had a child with someone, later married someone else, and then that c…
Here's Week 7 of #52Ancestors about how the 1900 Census made me have to ask, "Who's your daddy?" I found the answer in a Civil War pension file, and it is way crazier than I had ever imagined. bonniegenealogy.blog/2026/02/09/2... #genealogy #ancestry #familyhistory #CivilWar
09.02.2026 19:29
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Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution | 8115002 - 03.01.1941 - 10.02.1941
Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution | 8115002 - 03.01.1941 - 10.02.1941
It was 85 years ago today that my great-grandma's brother Jan Kowalski was murdered at Mauthausen. He was 37. I can't help but see parallels with people being taken from their homes now and sent to detention centers. Let's hope it stops. #genealogy collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/...
01.02.2026 22:33
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I also got pretty much nothing on my grandfather. And I think they conflated him with someone else because it says he was divorced and he wasn’t.
21.01.2026 04:33
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Exciting! My 10x great grandparents are Cornelius Wiltse and Anna Polhemius who were in New York when it was New Amsterdam. My Wiltses ended up being Loyalists in the American Revolution and moved to Canada for a couple generations before coming back to the US. Was interesting to research!
20.01.2026 16:57
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I was quite hungry by the end of the day! I probably should have brought something :)
19.01.2026 15:00
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When I was in London a couple summers ago, I was planning to spend several days at the London Archives. After booked my hotel to be nearby, they posted that they were closing for renovations. I only had one day. I didn’t stop except to go get water occasionally!
19.01.2026 13:12
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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks or 12 Ancestors in 12 Months - 2026 Edition
Genealogy research and commentary by Marian Burk Wood, speaker and author of "Planning a Future for Your Family's Past," available from Amazon.com.
#Genealogy Have you seen Amy Johnson Crow's 2026 prompts for #52Ancestors in 52 Weeks (also 12 Ancestors in 12 Months)? The new themes are thought-provoking and inspiring, giving participants a fresh perspective on their #FamilyHistory. I'm in! More: climbingmyfamilytree.blogspot.com/2025/12/52-a...
30.12.2025 13:44
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The Dear Paul column is looking for two kinds of hidden gems this year: newspaper stories and parish register curiosities. Did your ancestor make the headlines for something unusual. Plus what did you discover hidden in those parish registers. If you’ve uncovered a story, I’d love to hear from you.
17.01.2026 09:32
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2026 Week 2: A Record that Adds Color
One of the struggles with genealogy is getting beyond the basic records, trying to learn who people really were and what their lives were like. Many look for social histories to provide some color …
Week 2 is about my great-grandma's 44 handwritten pages of reminiscences that add color to the lives of her and her family, when otherwise we'd have only been left with official records, which are all too often black and white. bonniegenealogy.blog/2026/01/14/2... #genealogy #52Ancestors #ancestry
14.01.2026 19:23
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2026 Week 1: An Ancestor I Admire
My mom’s mom’s mom, who we called Babcia, was Marianna “Mary” Kowalska Gwiazdowska Parys. She immigrated from a small village in the Russian partition of Poland a month befo…
Week 1: Ancestor I Admire: My great-grandma immigrated to the US, raised her four children mostly as a single mom since her husband left, and was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit by the Polish Government-in-Exile. #genealogy #ancestry #familyhistory #52Ancestors
bonniegenealogy.blog/2026/01/12/2...
12.01.2026 21:50
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Week 29: Cousins (John Dunnick: Part IV)
Our beloved thief, John Dunnick, (likely) had a cousin, who was also, you guessed it… a thief! Jasper Godby was (likely) John Dunnick’s second cousin and was also tried, convicted of th…
Week 29 (last of 2025 for me!) A thief cousin of my thief-of-a-7x-great-grandfather. It involves theft, convictions, captured ships, and a thwarted attempt at sending a letter across the Atlantic, only for it to end up in the National Archives at Kew. bonniegenealogy.blog/2025/12/30/w... #genealogy
31.12.2025 04:06
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The two villages I studied are both Galician — Iwonicz and Korczyna. If you find anyone from there and want any info, let me know!
19.12.2025 01:17
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I did my masters thesis for Strathclyde on Polish immigrants coming to the US, many of whom ended up in Milwaukee and Chicago, and used a bunch of religious and underused records like cadastral records in it :) Sounds like our research interests overlap a bit!
17.12.2025 02:46
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Week 28: Travel
My 3x-great-grandfather Isaac Newton Chipman embodied the complexity of colonial American heritage — he’s a great-grandson of the Patriot Ammi Chipman and a great-grandson of the Loyali…
Here's Week 28. Two of my 6x great grandfathers & their families moved to Canada. One, Benoni Wiltse, sort of "traveled for work"... as he was a Loyalist in the Revolution and moved to Canada because he fought for the British. #genealogy #ancestry #familyhistory
bonniegenealogy.blog/2025/12/16/w...
16.12.2025 22:45
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Week 27: Family Business
After immigrating to the United States in 1912, Louis worked several jobs (laborer in the sewer, at a brewery, in an auto shop) before becoming the owner of a butcher-grocery with his wife, Della. …
Here's Week 27 of #52Ancestors about my great-grandpa Louis Rajchel's butcher-grocery store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His store was an integral part of the community and was involved in less-than-legal activities during Prohibition...! #genealogy #ancestry bonniegenealogy.blog/2025/12/09/w...
09.12.2025 18:14
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