William Scholes (1814-1864), a cotton carder in one of the "dark Satanic mills" of the Industrial Revolution in England, won a workers' lottery on New Year's Day 1849. That fall, he and wife Ann Mills (1814-1875) and their children arrived in central Wisconsin with high hopes and few skills. In 37 chapters, "The Lottery of Life" follows the ancestral couple and their descendants -- among them teachers, telegraphers, engineers, homesteaders, active union members, farmers, inventors (from farm equipment to recycling fluorescent lights), an encyclopedia manager, and a world authority on gla ..read more

 The first installment of my "Ackersons Across America: Descendants of John and Rachel (Lowe) Ackerson in New York and California" is fresh from the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record for October 2020. It starts with an indirect-evidence proof that Rachel Lowe the daughter of Segar Lowe was indeed Rachel Lowe the wife of John Ackerson, and then we're into the life stories. Thanks to editor Laura Murphy DeGrazia for keeping me on track.  Next installment in the January issue: John Walter Ackerson goes to the California Gold Rush and gets rich on trees and real estate, and h ..read more

 https://www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/access-alert?utm_source=enews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=records+access ..read more

 My second family history book is available now at lulu.com: Midwestern Methodists: Four Thrall Generations from Bone Gap, Illinois, 1809-2018. It follows Worthy Thrall (1809-1851) and his wife Hannah James (1809-1874) and their four children, 16 grandchildren, and 38 great-grandchildren -- the 8th, 9th, and 10th generations from immigrant ancestor William Thrall of Connecticut (and presumably from England, although he has yet to be found there in the late 1500s or early 1600s). Price is $28.99 (430 pages) but lulu.com has 10% off through the 18th of September. I have not figured out whet ..read more

 [Mozley Migrations and Memories by Harold Henderson CG for sale at lulu.com] Table of Contents Introduction. 1 Leaving Home. 3 Family Overview.. 5 The Pre-Emigrant Generation Chapter 1. RichardA Mozley–Mary Marshall Family.. 9 Map 1: Mozley–Harrison Migration, June–August 1833, Collingham to Erie. . . 12   First Generation          (1785-1870, presidents Washington to Grant) Chapter 2. Henry1 Mozley–Susanna Pilley Family. 13 Map 2: Townships of Erie County, Pennsylvania  ..read more

 After more than a year of silence I will make this a spot where folks can find notice of my recent genealogy articles and books. Earlier this year, with the help of Lisa Alzo, I published the first of what I hope will be a series of family histories. Mozley Migrations and Memories is a chronicle of the Mozley and Harrison families who emigrated from England to settle in or near Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1833. I'll post the table of contents tomorrow if this works. The book is available by way of the lulu.com bookstore. Just type "Mozley" in the search box and you should be there ..read more

Sunny Jane Morton and I have just published How To Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records: A Genealogist's Guide, with specific resources for major Christian denominations before 1900 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2019). It includes five chapters on family history research in these records in general, and twelve more on specific denominations or groups of denominations: Anglican/Episcopal, Baptist, Congregational, Dutch Reformed/Reformed Church in America, German Churches: Reformed and Sectarian, Latter-Day Saint (Mormon), Lutheran, Mennonite and Amish, Methodist, Quaker ..read more

Historian Adam H. Domby (College of Charleston) reports that Ancestry has recently changed its search engine in ways that make it more difficult to learn about slavery from basic genealogical inquiries. "When searching for an individual’s name, Ancestry.com stopped including results from the 1850 or 1860 United States Census Slave Schedules." Some improvements have been made but reportedly the search function is still not back to what it was. Read much more here. His article appears in "Black Perspectives," the award-winning blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS ..read more

FIRST AIRPLANE PASSES OVER WILLIAMSBURG A large airplane coming from the southwest and going northeast passed over Williamsburg about 4:30 Saturday afternoon [30 November 1918]. This is the first airplane which has been near here, and people in and around the vicinity were able to get a good view of it, as it was going rather slowly. No report has been seen of it, so no one know why it was traveling over here. (Williamsburg Star [Kansas], Thursday 5 December 1918, page 1, column 2 ..read more

"Smart is the ability to solve hard problems, which can be done many ways. Stupid is a tendency to not comprehend easy problems."  So writes Morgan Housel at the Collaborative Fund's blog. While the examples tend to focus on finance and economics, the lessons can be applied in many ways . . .  For instance, one way of being stupid is "Discounting the views of people who aren’t as credentialed as you are, underestimating the special knowledge they have since they’ve experienced a world you haven’t ..read more