Suggested Girl’s Names from our Family Tree

I sometimes think about which baby names would be meaningful from our family history.  So this post is primarily addressed to younger family members as well as any future family who are thinking about names for their babies.  This was prompted…

Solved! The Fate of Maren Olsdatter Bønsmoen

In my last blog post (here), I told the story of an 1880s autograph album owned by my great-grandfather Bernt O. Bonn (1856-1937).  In Norway, he was known as Bernt Olsen Bønsmoen.  The album revealed that Bernt went back to Norway over a…

Autograph Album Reveals Bernt Bonn Trip to Norway

It’s another discovery from my Mother’s cache of memorabilia.  I found a small autograph book from the 1880s belonging to my great-grandfather, Bernt Olsen Bønsmoen (1856-1937).  He was born and raised at the Bønsmoen cotter farm…

Road Trip to Quincy Township

Lucia and I paid a visit in July to my Aunt Susie in Rochester, Minnesota.  On a beautiful, but hot summer day, we drove over together to Quincy Township, about 20 miles east.  We were hoping to find the farm where our ancestors, Avery Vermilya…

2020 Ethnicity Estimate Update

Well, here we go again.  AncestryDNA recently released a new ethnicity update, apparently an annual exercise at this point.  The company keeps adding new samples to their reference populations and updating the logarithms that define ethnic…

Photo Discovery: 2GGs John K. & Alice Vermilyea

In plodding through my Mother's personal effects, I recently came across a 1921 family reunion photo involving several Vermilyea brothers and their relations.  It's 99 years old!  One of the brothers in the photograph is John Knickerbocker…
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Display Your Ancestry Over the Fireplace!

There are lots of ways to display your family tree, but here's one I bet you never heard of.  My father, Nelson Jonnes, had the idea 20 years ago to create a fireplace mantel that displayed the key surnames in his ancestry.  He asked his good…
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Charcoal Drawings of Bernt & Bertha Bonn

In a previous post (here), I unveiled new photographs of Bernt Olsen Bonn (1856-1937) and Bertha Pettersdatter Aaberge (1865-1936) which were obtained last year from our Norwegian cousins in the Sogndal area. This summer, we brought…
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Harriet Kennelly Was Orphaned at a Young Age

My very first breakthrough when I started working on the family tree a decade ago came in my Kennelly line of ancestors. My Father's 1995 genealogy report went back no further than Harriet Kennelly (1835-1906), his great-grandmother and my…

Gravestone Discovery: 4GG Henry King

In a 2018 post, I detailed the case for Henry King as the father of 3GG Stephen W. King (1824-1865).  See it here.  The conclusion was that Henry was a good candidate, but more evidence was required to be sure of the relationship.  The analysis…