Finding Ancestors Overseas: Cynthia Borgman’s Death in China

As someone who began her simple life in a large, bilingual family–the child of Dutch immigrants to Iowa–Cynthia Clara Borgman’s adulthood might seem an easily predictable vision of a typical, early-nineteenth-century Midwestern life.

It wasn’t.

Cynthia traveled far and died young (in her 20s) in Amoy, China while serving as a missionary for the Dutch Reformed Church. When I first heard the story, I wondered: How exactly did she die? Where was she buried? What kind of work did she do while she was in China? Why did she travel so far away from home?

As always, I turned to genealogy for the answers. It did not disappoint.Continue reading “Finding Ancestors Overseas: Cynthia Borgman’s Death in China”

My Ancestor’s Struggles with the Civil War Pension Office

Newell Elijah Gile before receiving his Civil War wounds
Newell Elijah Gile before receiving his Civil War wounds and his fight with the Civil War Pension Office.

As I write our series of tips about how to do Civil War genealogy, I think regularly about my own ancestors in the Civil War. My great great grandfather, Newell Elijah Gile, comes to my mind very often. He fought hard to receive an adequate pension for wounds he received during the conflict. I imagine his struggle with the US Pension Office will be very familiar to many veterans out there trying to get VA benefits. So, this post is for him and for all his fellow vets who find themselves in similar circumstances.Continue reading “My Ancestor’s Struggles with the Civil War Pension Office”

Protecting Your Privacy on GEDmatch

Gedmatch Genealogy DNA image
Knowing your GEDmatch privacy options can help you protect your DNA data

See also our blog post Protecting Your Privacy on Ancestry

GEDmatch has been in the news a great deal lately. Last week, authorities in California announced the arrest of alleged serial burglar, rapist, and murderer known as the “Golden State Killer,” Joseph James DeAngelo, Jr. Officials on the case stated that investigators used GEDmatch to find the killer using genetic genealogy techniques.

Unsurprisingly, in the wake of this news, many are concerned about balancing the need to protect their privacy with the desire to take advantage of the powerful genealogical research tools GEDmatch has to offer. In this post, I will outline some of the many features GEDmatch provides that give you greater control over who sees your kit in their DNA matches. The reality is that GEDmatch offers its users more privacy options than any other major DNA website, including MyHeritage and Ancestry. It is simply a matter of taking advantage of them in a way that is right for you.Continue reading “Protecting Your Privacy on GEDmatch”

Family History Lessons from Disney’s “Coco”

Spoiler Warning: The following post contains spoilers from the Disney movie Coco. If you have not watched the movie yet, please do yourself a favor and watch it before scrolling down and reading this post!

I absolutely loved the movie Coco because it is all about family history. There are many things we can learn from Coco about how to do genealogy and how not to do genealogy. It also explores some of the reasons why so many people feel compelled to learn about their ancestors. Read on for my explanation of family history lessons learned from the movie Coco:Continue reading “Family History Lessons from Disney’s “Coco””

Researching Your Civil War Ancestors, Part III: Finding Your Ancestor’s Military Unit Using Pension Payment Cards

As I pointed out in Part II, you can often find out which unit your ancestor served in by using the Civil War Soldiers Index. Sometimes, however, we need to conduct further research to verify things. One excellent way to pinpoint your ancestor’s unit is by searching for them in federal and state pension indexes. These indexes are available on FamilySearch, Ancestry, and Fold3, and can lead to loads of further information on your ancestor’s service, far beyond the name of his unit alone. We will discuss that more later. For now, let’s focus on further verifying in which unit your ancestor served using Civil War Pension Payment Cards.Continue reading “Researching Your Civil War Ancestors, Part III: Finding Your Ancestor’s Military Unit Using Pension Payment Cards”

What to do When You Hit a Brick Wall

A genealogy brick wall
What do you do when you hit a genealogy brick wall?

Do you have a “brick wall” in your family tree? You’ve been able to trace most of your family lines pretty far back in time, but there is that one line that you just can’t figure out. You have an empty spot on your family tree. You are just itching to fill it in, but you have searched for that ancestor in so many places, you don’t know where else to look.

When you hit a genealogy brick wall, don’t panic! Instead, think logically: you must gather together all the information you have and make a specific plan to move forward. Read on for five steps to accomplish this:Continue reading “What to do When You Hit a Brick Wall”

Fold3 Offering Free Access to Civil War Records Until April 15!

civil-war-004

Great news! Fold3 is offering free access to Civil War records in its database until April 15. Fold3 is an excellent site for researching ancestors who may have been a part of the U. S. Military. You can access these records at https://go.fold3.com/civilwar/

You can get further help finding your Civil War ancestors by looking at our ongoing Researching Your Civil War Ancestors series. This series will outline ways to find out more about your Civil War ancestors, starting with basic methods and from there proceeding to more advanced ways of finding out as much as possible about their stories.

Lastly, The Handwritten Past provides professional research services to find the stories of your Civil War ancestors at hourly rates. To get a free quote, contact us at research@thehandwrittenpast.com.

Happy hunting!

 

 

Giveaway Winner And Easter Sale Announcement!

Michelle Parrish is the giveaway winner of our drawing for five free hours of family history research. Congratulations! Thank you to all who participated.

We are happy to announce a SPECIAL EASTER DEAL on our professional genealogy research services! Contact us via Facebook message to get ONE FREE HOUR of research with any order of three hours or more. Offer ends April 2, 2018.

Giveaway winner announcement photo

Researching Civil War Ancestors, Part II: What Was Your Ancestor’s Military Unit?

Civil War photo: Engineer camp, 8th N.Y. State Militia
Civil War soldiers: Engineer camp, 8th N.Y. State Militia. Is your ancestor in this photo?

This is Part II of a series on finding and researching your Civil War ancestors. See “Part I: Did Any of Your Ancestors Fight?” here.

Once you have set aside ancestors of yours who are likely to have fought in the Civil War, the next step is to discover their military unit. When you have this information, you have the key to a treasure trove of documents, letters, and stories related to their service. So how do you do it?Continue reading “Researching Civil War Ancestors, Part II: What Was Your Ancestor’s Military Unit?”