I’m still working on the extended Lincoln lineage book, but I ran across a story of loss among the Lincoln family of Mills County in 1896.
Scarlet fever took three of George Washington Lincoln’s children in March of that year.
Read about the family’s bad week in March at Medium.
Whether they were created by marriage alliances or political arrangements, names were important legacies to medieval aristocratic English families. They laid claim to lands, castles, positions of prestige, and/or lordships, even more so than they laid claim to their own children.
Read more about Aristocratic Pendulum and Effects on Lineages and Names in GenTales.
On Medium I recently asked, Who was Cornelia Martin? And in answering that question, I found a good example of the type of loss suffered by families in 19th century America.
While working on an upcoming book on the Lincoln line of Windham, Connecticut, I found the children of Nathaniel Martin listed in his will. I was able to find his daughter Cornelia’s birth record, but then she’s gone.
I couldn’t find any other vital records, though her siblings’ fates were all well documented. But I did find a woman of the same name in an asylum in Vermont. Was that her?
New in GenTales on Medium, I offer a case study in carefully navigating family stories and anecdotal evidence. The myth of Pocahontas’ daughter Ka-okee has been the subject of debate for 20 years. Which is part of the problem. In 400 years of history, we only just now learn about a child? Read more in GenTales.
New in GenTales on Medium: The Life and Death of Orilla Lincoln Ellis
She was a pioneer girl, married off at 14 to suffer through the ill fates of her children and poverty, only to spend her final days asking her neighbors to put her out of her misery. The puzzle pieces of her story don’t make the way things were seem like the Good Ol’ Days
New in GenTales on Medium – From Rags to Riches and Back Again
While writing the lineage books on my family, I noticed an interesting trend…
New in GenTales on Medium – The Livery and Merchants’ Guilds of London: My ancestors’ roles in trade and colonization. With mention of ancestors from My Lineage from the Roots Up, vol. 2.
New in GenTales is a discussion about hoarding history. The value is not in hiding sentimental keepsakes away, it’s in the glimpse they offer of the past.
New in Maeflowers is a short review of the causes of Aicardi syndrome, a rare genetic disorder in which the brain does not fully develop. The exact mechanism that causes it is still unclear, but the theories are leading somewhere. Read about them here.
New in GenTales on Medium – Surnames Vary by Region
There are many factors to consider when attempting to follow a lineage via surname. There are also many types of surnames depending on which region you’re working in.
When tracing surnames, it may be a simple process of following the name through the generations. But if you hit a wall, consider where and who you’re investigating, as it may require a bit of detective work to uncover a name change either between generations or for the person of interest themself.