cornerofgenealogy.com Posts

I’ve written many times about my husband’s ancestors from the tiny Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis, including the use of surnames as middle names in his Mallalieu tree. This can be very helpful in looking for the names of ancestors going further back. His great-grandfather, John Nicholas Faxivo…

I have looked in the past at the documents and background details surrounding the manumission of two young enslaved people, whose freedom was purchased by my husband’s 3rd great-grandfather, Frederick Walton Mallalieu of St Kitts. No relationship is specified between Frederick and the two young people. In my research into…

My maternal grandfather Frank F Jordan (1895-1975) grew up in Volant, Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the army in 1917 and was assigned to the 324th Signal Corps. He trained at Fort Meade in Maryland, but never fought overseas. Searching Pennsylvania newspapers from the period, I learned that he was actually…

Everyone has skeletons in their family history closet, known and unknown. Some can seem quaint and even funny to us today, like my Coles ancestor who had to wear a scarlett “D” for drinking more alcohol than his puritan neighbors liked. But other skeletons can be viewed through current eyes…

In 1791, Alexander Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury in the brand new United States of America. Hamilton proposed a tax on distilled spirits production to help pay down the national debt incurred during the Revolutionary War. In spite of opposition from people like Thomas Jefferson, congress approved the…

In the current pandemic era, countries worldwide have developed policies to prevent the introduction of the Corona virus. St Kitts and Nevis has its own version; they are now allowing passengers from a limited number of cruise ships to enter their country for short, strictly regulated visits referred to as…

“Six degrees of separation” is an esoteric math concept that began with a short story written in 1929. The idea is that in an ever shrinking world, the connections between any two people might be reduced to no more than six associations. A popular exercise is to find six degrees…

In researching my husband’s Cannonier ancestors from St Kitts, I have come across connections to Cannoniers from Montserrat. I’ve also found one Cannonier who appears on the small West Indian island of Dominica. Originally populated by the native Ortoroid, Arawak and then Kalinago (also known as Carib) peoples, it was…