Category Archives: Genealogy

For posts about genealogical pursuits.

Ascutney Fork

Traveling north on the interstate along the west bank of our Great River, it is near the large green Bellows Falls sign where, under clear skies, pointed Mt. Ascutney first calls — its distant, faded peak towering above nearer foothills. Long before roads existed, this distinctive Vermont peak served as an important landmark for approaching […]

Fortitude

Strawberries are ripe, hayfields are scalped and the sweet smell of wild rose fills the meadow air … along with a personal sense of accomplishment following a fruitful weekend trip to The Fort at No. 4. There, in historic Charlestown, N.H., participants from far and wide converged for an entertaining French & Indian War battle […]

Common Ground

Sporting the white, cotton, “Old Hawley Common” T-shirt with red letters that I bought Sunday at the common’s unveiling—hint of bear scent wafting through cool, clear mountain air—inspired inquiries from some folks I bumped into this week in my travels. “Oh, you went to that?” was a question by some who had seen the event […]

A Snow Discovery

New genealogical discoveries pull things into focus from time to time, helping to explain who you are and why you live where you do. I made such a discovery two weeks ago, gaining from it new appreciation for a classic upland landscape I’ve frequented for more than a decade, be it walking my dogs, my […]

Building Bridges

Colrain historian Muriel Russell put a bug in my ear this week about a subject she knows I’m fond of, that being my third great-grandfather, Asaph Willis Snow, a carriage-maker who farmed some 350 acres surrounding the old Fort Lucas site of French & Indian War fame. Russell, a phone pal with whom I share […]

Family Ties

I spent a nice evening last week with about 25 members of the Whately Historical Society, people who share my interest in old homes, old barns, old taverns and old relics from a kinder day. Among my guests was the new owner of a home where my displaced ancestors once lived briefly after a July […]

Chapman/Pierson highboy

Discovery is exciting, precisely what keeps people hunting through moldy cellars, dusty attics and decaying barns, yard sales and crack-of-dawn flea markets. Collecting’s a disease, one that can be highly contagious, a fever that grips you … which reminds me of a recent visit to my Greenfield, Ma., home, one that bore sweet, salubrious fruit, […]

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