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…
Published February 1, 2022
My husband’s great-grandmother was Margaret Johanna Cannonier (1868-1940) of St Kitts. Documenting her family tree back past her father John Henry Cannonier (abt. 1832-1868) has presented a brick wall. There were a number of Cannoniers in St Kitts in the first half of the 19th century, but their relationship to…
Read More Tracing the Cannonier family tree further back – Pirates of the Caribbean?
Published December 27, 2021
My husband’s grandmother was a Macauley. Her father grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the late 1800s. His was a middle class Irish Catholic family, with an income likely coming primarily from their linen manufacturing business on Linenhall Street in Belfast, called Macauley & Sons. It seems that their…
Read More Social and political activities of a middle class Irish Catholic family in 1900
Published December 4, 2021
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…
Read More The whiskey rebellion – defying Alexander Hamilton
Published November 6, 2021
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…
Published October 2, 2021
“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…
Published August 18, 2021
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…
Published June 27, 2021
Period newspapers can provide some very interesting reading as historical backgrounds for family research. My husband’s great-great-grandmother, Lillian Gracey Macauley (abt. 1836-1920) was a comfortably situated, upper middle class, Irish Catholic housewife living in Belfast in the 19th century. I found an article from the Belfast Morning News from November…
Published May 13, 2021
An online book selling marketplace is offering for sale a letter written in 1831 to my husband’s 3rd great-grandfather from St Kitts, Frederick Walton Mallalieu. In the letter, a London banker named William Wilson is pushing the services of his newly formed firm of Hankeys, Plummer & Wilson, in the…
Published February 19, 2021
The Washington Post uses a rating system for statements made by politicians – the more Pinocchios earned, the less truthful the statement. That kind of analysis might be used in genealogy, to rate the accuracy of old family lore passed down through the generations. Is the old story completely wrong…