How to research your New Hampshire Ancestor, even if you are nowhere near the Granite State

With permanent European settlement that started in 1623, New Hampshire has a long history.  It is also one of the thirteen original English colonies that revolted against King George in the American Revolution.  There are a plethora of documents, records and archives to explore if your American ancestry started in New Hampshire, or passed through here on their way to other states.  Here is a list of ways to access those resources from your home.

Places you can search online:

FamilySearch.org – This website has NH births from 1714 – 1904, Deaths from 1654 – 1949, Marriages from 1637 – 1959, several county probate files, and town clerk records.  Many are complete with scanned images.  There are 18,960 books that came up when I searched for the words “New Hampshire”.   All Federal Census records 1790 – 1940 (except for 1890) are available here. Their research wiki for the state of New Hampshire is: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/New_Hampshire

Cyndi’s List of New Hampshire resources - http://cyndislist.com/us/nh/

The Lane Library, Hampton, NH- Hampton was founded in 1638 and has a wonderful collection of online resources that include many of the original seacoast communities in Rockingham County.  See this page for their genealogy page: http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/genealogy.htm

Linkpendium New Hampshire links:  http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA/NH/

New Hampshire Deeds Online http://www.nhdeeds.com/  dating from the 1620s to the present

NH Search Roots website http://www.nh.searchroots.com/

The Pelham Historical Society Online Library – from Pelham, NH, this is a wonderful, little known resource of local history records online http://www.pelhamnhhistory.org/library/onlinelibrary.html

Where to Write for New Hampshire Vital Records http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/w2w/new_hampshire.htm

Good books:

Documents and Records Relating to New Hampshire (known as the NH Provincial and State Papers) in 40 Volumes available online at http://www.library.unh.edu/diglib/bookshelf/NHPapers/volume.shtml  the links lead to Internet Archive, and you can read online (searchable) or download several versions of files.  These papers are the accumulated documents from the settlement of New Hampshire to the year 1800.

Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, by Charles T. Libbey, 1928  available online at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3166&cj=1&netid=cj&o_xid=0001231185&o_lid=0001231185&o_sch=Affiliate+External  searchable and browsable with paid subscription

Genealogists Handbook for New England Research, 5^th edition, edited by Michael Leclerc, NEHGS, 2012

Index to Genealogies in New Hampshire Town Histories, by William Copely, 1988

The New Hampshire Genealogical Record, the journal produced by the New Hampshire Genealogical Society from 1900 to the present.

Social Networking  and Message Boards:

All Things History- Rockingham County, NH on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/200460270133276/

Descendants of the First Families of New Hampshire on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NHFirstFamilies/

New Hampshire Mayflower Society on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NHMayflower/

New Hampshire Roots at Yahoo  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/newhampshireroots/info

NH Genealogy, Digging New Hampshire Roots on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/DiggingNHRoots/

New Hampshire Genealogy Network on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/205180789528062/

(don’t forget that many New Hampshire historical societies have websites and Facebook groups, and some even have Twitter accounts)

Societies:

American Canadian Genealogical Society    www.acgs.org

Association of Historical Societies in NH   www.historicalsocietiesnh.org

Manchester, NH Historic Association   www.manchesterhistoric.org

New England Historic Genealogical Society  www.americanancestors.org

New Hampshire Historical Society   www.nhhistory.org

New Hampshire Mayflower Society  www.nhmayflower.org

New Hampshire Society of Genealogists   http://nhsog.org

Order of the First Families of New Hampshire   http://offnh.homestead.com/

Strafford County Genealogical Society   www.straffgen.org

Places that can help you by fee:

American Canadian Genealogical Society – located in Manchester, NH, this is the largest resource facility for French-Canadian research in the United States.  See this webpage for their research services http://acgs.org/research/services/

National Archives at Boston, located in Waltham, Massachusetts.  The staff will provide reference assistance to you but also maintains a list of researchers for hire at this link:  http://www.archives.gov/research/hire-help/

The New England Historic Genealogical Society – Located in Boston, it is the oldest genealogical society in the world.  You can reach their research Services department at this link: http://www.americanancestors.org/research-services/

The New Hampshire Historical Society Library- located in Concord, NH, their research services can be ordered online and by telephone or mail.  For details see the page http://www.nhhistory.org/research-services.html or call the reference staff at 603-856-0641.  Photocopies are 35 cents per page for non-members and 25 cents for members, plus $7 for mailing or fax.

The Portsmouth Atheneum – This private library dates from 1817, and is the repository of hundreds of family papers, manuscripts, photographs, and ephemera from New Hampshire and New England.  It is located in Market Square in Portsmouth, NH, and the staff will do quick reference requests as time allows, and in-depth research requests for $30/hour with a 1 hour minimum.  See this link for more information: http://www.portsmouthathenaeum.org/collections.html

And…

Don’t forget your local Family History Library.  You can order microfilms from their website to be delivered to your local Family History Library, and you can look at them there for a small fee. If you need assistance, the volunteers will even help you to search for the records online and help you place your order.  

Basic Nova Scotia Genealogy Research for New England Yankees

Like many other Americans with New England ancestry, I have some ancestral lines that went from New England, to Nova Scotia and back to New England with “The Planter Movement”.  This migration happened after the Acadian Expulsion of 1755, when the French Protestants were forced to leave Nova Scotia.  The area was re-populated with foreign Protestants and New Englanders.  Some New England Loyalists removed to Nova Scotia after the American War of Independence.   Other New Englanders of French extraction had their ancestors leave Nova Scotia after 1755 and arrive in the “Boston States”.   Later, some of these Planter families came back to New England after several generations.  The migrations back and forth, or from one country to the other continue until present times. 

If you look at the maps of New England and the Canadian Maritime provinces, you can see that traveling by water made these two regions very easily accessible to each other. I had ancestors from Cape Cod, Connecticut and Boston’s North Shore travel to Nova Scotia by water.  In 2007 I traveled from Bar Harbor, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia by ferry to trace my roots.  My route was the same one traveled by my ancestors, although they used coastal sailing vessels instead of a modern catamaran ferry.

If you have ancestors from Nova Scotia, or if you area resident of Nova Scotia with New England roots, it pays to become acquainted with the history of the two regions.   There are basic outlines of the Planter Movement, the Acadian Expulsions, the Revolutionary War Loyalists and Ulster Scots migrations online starting with short sketches at Wikipedia to more lengthy records at the Nova Scotia Archives website. 

You don’t have to travel to Nova Scotia to trace your roots.  Here is a list of helpful steps:

      1)       Try online searches at websites such as FamilySearch.org and Cyndislist.com to become familiar with the databases available for free and for subscription on the web

      2)      Search out genealogy societies such as the Canadian American Genealogical Society in Manchester, New Hampshire or local genealogy clubs

      3)      There are many websites and blogs available for Nova Scotia research such as Lucie LeBlanc Consentino’s “Acandia Ancestral Home” blog or check out the forums on Facebook for Nova Scotia genealogy

      4)      There are books on Loyalists, Acadians, Planters and I listed some below

If you would like to plan a "genea-jaunt" (research trip) to Nova Scotia you should try to do as much research at home ahead of time.  Map out the villages where you ancestors lived so you can plan your driving route, and research the times and hours of the local repositories of records.  Most archives will be closed on a Sunday, but we planned to be at the Baptist church in Billtown on that day, where my 2nd great grandfather, Reverend Ingraham Ebenezer Bill, had been the minister, or use that day for cemetery hunting (cemeteries don't close on Sundays).  Don't forget to photograph where your ancestors lived, worshipped, went to school,  and all the local landmarks.  

The Billtown, Nova Scotia Baptist Church
where my 2nd great grandfather was the pastor.
We drove our car and traveled by ferry to get here in 2007

Nova Scotia is accessible by air to Halifax, or by ferry from Portland, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  Driving is a long trip, through Maine and New Brunswick, but a worthwhile route if you also have New Brunswick ancestors.  We decided to drive one way (because Reverend Bill was buried in St. John, New Brunswick), and to take the ferry the other way because I had many ancestors in Yarmouth as well as in Billtown and Lunenburg.   We also visited Louisburg because I had many ancestors fight in the several attempts by New Englanders to overtake the French fort there.  

Sources:

Dictionnaire Genealogique des Families Acadiennes by Stephen A. White, 2 volumes, 1999

Planter Nova Scotia 1760 – 1815, by Julian Gwyn, 2010

New England Planters in Maritime Provincial Canada, by Judith Norton, 1993

Nova Scotia Archives   http://novascotia.ca/archives/   (formerly Public Archives of Nova Scotia)

The New England Planters website http://www.cyberus.ca/~bharvey/planters.shtml

The New Englanders in Nova Scotia database at the New England Historic Genealogical Society website (membership needed).  This database has 48,155 names from more than 650 families of Planters and Loyalists  http://www.americanancestors.org/search.aspx?Ca=096&Da=398

Nova Scotia GenWeb Project  http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canns/

Planters Studies Centre, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada

Chair: Stephen Henderson Email stephen.henderson@acadiau.ca

http://libguides.acadiau.ca/content.php?pid=4546&sid=27820

Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia http://novascotiaancestors.ca/   and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NovaScotiaAncestors

Family Search Nova Scotia Genealogy Records https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Nova_Scotia_Online_Genealogy_Records

American Canadian Genealogy Society, Manchester, New Hampshire   http://www.acgs.org/ 

Lucie LeBlanc Consentino’s “Acadian Ancestral Home” blog

 http://acadian-ancestral-home.blogspot.com/

Gail Dever’s “Genealogy a la Carte” blog    http://genealogyalacarte.ca/

Lorine McGinnis Schulze’s “The Olive Tree Genealogy” website, Nova Scotia resources page

http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/can/ns.shtml

Nova Scotia Genealogy on Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/groups/novascotiagenealogy/

Hello from New Hampshire, USA

Hello!  My name is Heather Wilkinson Rojo.  I've lived for 30 years in New Hampshire, and  I grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts where many of my ancestors lived since the 1630s. I also spent my school years in central Massachusetts in the adorably quintessential New England town of Holden.   I had one set of 5^th great grandparents who were married there in Holden, in the same church where my husband and were married.  Centuries of my ancestors were baptized in the Congregational church in Beverly, where I was baptized, too.

Four years ago I started a blog called Nutfield Genealogy, named for the original grant of land where the first Ulster Presbyterians first settled in 1719.  They renamed it Londonderry in honor of the county in Northern Ireland where they came from.  Their pastor, Reverend James MacGregor of Aghadowey, brought his flock of Scots Irish settlers to Nutfield, and I've learned a lot about them over the past 30 years.  I even learned that I had two Scots Irish minister ancestors, too, but they were in Massachusetts.

I started doing genealogy as a young teen in Holden.  I didn't know any of my ancestors, nor did my parents.  The lucky thing about starting my genealogy young was that I was able to interview my grandparents and their siblings.  My grandmother remembered her grandfather, who was in the Civil War!  I took a few genealogy classes, but I was already hooked on family history. 

In the past 35 years or so I have found a dozen Mayflower ancestors,  several ancestors hung as witches in Salem in 1692, traveled to Europe, Nova Scotia and Hawaii for research, read tons of books, and squinted at miles of microfilm.  I have pages and pages of notes, and many terabits of information and images saved.  It’s now time to take all that information and write up the stories.

Blogging is the perfect platform for a beginning writer.  You need only post a few paragraphs each day.  You can skip days and no one will care, but your followers will care enough to bug you if you take too much time off.  Cousin connections and collaborations with other researchers happen automatically, often by pure serendipity as soon as your blog posts appear in search engines.  All this has happened by luck, even without any planned “cousin bait” blog posts.   

As I write about my New England ancestors, I find deep connections to the area where I live.  It is impossible to drive far without seeing an ancestor’s surname on a street sign or in a cemetery.  Weddings and funerals of friends and relatives are often at churches where my ancestors were married, or in burial grounds where they are interred, too.  After nearly 400 years in just a few counties of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine I feel rooted in time and history.  But I often think about those voyages across the Atlantic from Europe in the 1600s, and of connecting to my roots abroad.

On the other hand, I married a first generation American.  When I visit his parents’ villages in Spain I feel a deeper connection.  My father-in-law was baptized in a church built over 1200 years ago, and  generations of his family lived in that same spot.  My mother-in-law came from a military family on the border with Portugal where for hundreds, maybe thousands of years the political borders moved back and forth but the people stayed in place as the names of the villages changed.  It truly gives me a feeling that all our family histories go back millenniums as we all get our DNA results and find we are connected.  Even my very British New England Yankee family shares haplogroup H with my Spanish mother-in-law.  Perhaps many millenniums ago we were cousins?

And so according to our Ancestry.com DNA results, my husband has more British ancestry than me, and I have more Iberian ancestry than him.  He has more Irish ancestry than I do, and where did I get Viking DNA? 

That is worldwide genealogy!

So You Wanna Take a Genealogy Research Trip to Vermont?

 Have you been considering making a genealogy research trip to Vermont? I can’t say that I blame you! Vermont is an excellent place for genealogy research. There is a state-wide open records policy, meaning you can go into just about any town or city clerk and say, “Hey, I’m here to do genealogy,” and you’ll be lead to the archive vault. No questions asked. Occasionally you will find a town clerk who is a bit protective with their records and will want to bring you the books directly, though I have found this to be an uncommon occurrence.

Vermont Historical Society (Credit: commons.wikimedia.org)

 The first step in planning your research trip is searching online databases for your Vermont ancestors. FamilySearch.org, a free database, has many of the same records that are found at the Vermont State Archives & Records Administration in Middlesex. Do as much research online as you can so that you will have more time to focus on looking for records not available online once you get to Vermont. At this point you may be asking yourself if it is worthwhile to pay a visit to the state’s archives building since so many records are available online for free. Unfortunately, I don’t have a definitive answer. If you have the time, then it could very well be worthwhile to pay a visit and see if you can uncover new vital records. You may also be interested in exploring the other resources that are available, such as naturalization records, probate court records, and military records (a more complete list of records is available at the Vermont state archives’ website at www.vermont-archives.org).

If you know which town a record is located, or have a pretty good hunch, I recommend you plan a visit to the town clerk. As I previously stated, you will usually be granted unrestricted access to the archives vault at most all town clerk’s offices throughout Vermont, and most often it won’t cost you a dime (unless you want to make photocopies). There are some town clerks that charge a small fee for researching, but it’s not much more than $1 or $2 per hour. Because Vermont is such a rural state with lots of very (VERY) small towns, there is often only one person working at a town clerk’s office, and as such, the town clerk may not always be open during posted business hours. It’s a wise idea to call ahead and make sure someone will be around to let you in (I once drove almost an hour and a half to the tiny little town of Belvidere only to discover the town clerk wasn’t open due to staff shortage).

 

Ethan Allen Homestead, Near Burlington, Vermont (Credit: Doc Searls, Flickr.com)

Be sure to take some time to explore each town you visit. Vermont is filled with interesting museums, parks, and historical landmarks. You may want to pay a visit to the local historical society, where you may even discover more records about your ancestors, the cemetery where your ancestor is buried, or the town’s library to thumb for information in old newspapers or local history books. Take a walk through Main Street and strike up conversations with the locals (many Vermonters love to share their stories of yesteryear, and you never know who may even remember your ancestors).

Some genealogy points of interest in Vermont:

State of Vermont Archives 7 Records Administration

1078 Route 2, Middlesex
Montpelier, Vermont 05633-7701

Phone:  (802) 828-3700

Website: www.vermont-archives.org

Reference Room Hours:  Tuesday – Friday, 9:00am– 4:00pm

Fees: Free

Leahy Library of the Vermont Historical Society

60 Washington Street
Barre, Vermont 05641-4209

Phone: (802) 479-8509

Website: http://vermonthistory.org/research/leahy-library

Hours: Tuesday–Friday 9:00am-4:00; Wednesday 9:00am-8:00pm ; Second Saturdays 9:00am-4:00pm

Fees: $5 for non-members, Free for members

Vermont French-Canadian Genealogical Society

377 Hegeman Ave. (Across from St Police)
Fort Ethan Allen
Colchester, Vermont

Phone: (802) 482-3075

Website: http://www.vt-fcgs.org/

Library Hours:  Tuesday 3:00pm-9:00pm, Saturday 10:00am-4:00pm, and by appointment

Fees: $5 for non-members, Free for members

Six Little-Known Fun Facts About Boston Patriot, Paul Revere

1

Paul Revere

1)      Paul Revere’s father, Apollos Rivoire, a French Huguenot, immigrated from France in 1715 at the age of 13. Desiring an anglicized name, he later changed his name to Paul Revere. It is evident that Paul Revere Jr. did not take pride in his French heritage. He never learned to read or write the French language, and he volunteered to fight against the French during the French and Indian War in 1756.

2)      Paul Revere was a jack of many trades, one of which being crafting false teeth from animal tusks and teeth. In 1776, he identified the body of his friend, Joseph Warren (a revolutionary soldier who died at the Battle of Bunker Hill), by the wiring Revere used on Warren’s false tooth. This little known fact made Revere the first person to practice forensic dentistry.

The Boston home of Paul Revere is open for tours today.

3)      Paul Revere did not ride alone during his famous midnight ride. British patrols had been set up along the roads so that if one messenger couldn’t make it through, another would be dispatched to carry on. On the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren (who was mentioned in the previous fact) was tipped off that the British were coming to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock. He brought the news to William Dawes, instructing him to head to Lexington by way of Roxbury, Cambridge, and Menotomy (now Arlington). Next Warren instructed Revere to head to go to Lexington by way of the Charles River. The men would alert towns along the way of the impending threat. Revere arrived in Lexington about a half hour before Dawes.

Once in Lexington, it was determined that the British’s actual plan may have been to attack supplies at Concord, Dawes and Revere headed to alert Concord together. On their way to Concord, they met a doctor, Samuel Prescott, who offered his help in spreading the word of the British’s intentions.

4)      Paul Revere, or either of the other riders, never shouted the famed phrased, “The British are Coming!” Firstly, the men’s mission was meant to be discreet as there were British soldiers hiding throughout the towns and countryside. Yelling any phrase would defeat their goal in remaining secretive. Secondly, before the Revolution, colonial Americans still considered themselves to be British. If the men said anything, it is more likely they quietly warned that Regulars - a term used for British soldiers - were coming.

5)      Paul Revere’s first job was as a bell ringer at the Christ Church, more commonly referred to as the Old North Church. The Christ Church is Boston’s oldest church, and still holds Episcopalian services, the same as when it was first built in 1723. In 1749, Revere, along with a small group of his friends, entered into a formal contract with the church in which they would be responsible for ringing the church’s 8 massive bells. Years later, on the night of Revere’s midnight ride, a lantern was placed in the church’s steeple to warn townspeople of the impending British attack.

Another note of interest regarding the church: Paul Revere was not a member of it. His family believed in the Congregationalist religion, which derived from Puritanism. 

Statue Depiction of Paul Revere that stands in front of the Old North Church

6)      Paul Revere is known for producing beautiful copper plate engravings, his most famous being his depiction of the 1770 Boston Massacre. Apparently Revere was not confident in his skill as an engraver because his works were actually traced from paintings done by other artists. The famous Boston Massacre engraving was traced from a painting by Henry Pelham. Paul Revere’s engraving was already flooding the market before Pelham’s prints were made available for sale.

Alse Young: America’s First Executed Witch

Little is known about the life and family of Alse Young, but she has a spot in history as the first person to be executed for the crime of witchcraft in America. Records from her trial are no longer in existence, though two short journal entries mention the event: The journal of John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, reads for “late May of 1647”, “One [blank] of Windsor arraigned and executed at Hartford for a witch." Matthew Grant, Town Clerk of Windsor, writes “May 26. 47 Alse Young was hanged.” Alse’s execution occurred almost 45 years before the start of the infamous Salem, Massachusetts witch hysteria. While the Salem witch hysteria has become the most well known of Americas early witch hysterias, by its beginning in 1692, it was certainly nothing new in colonial New England.

Salem Witch Trials

The first known witch hysteria to occur in America began in 1647, possibly with the accusation of our Alse Young. Before this first wave of witch hysteria ended in 1663, at least 79 people were accused of witchcraft, about 33 were tried, and 15 were convicted and hanged. While accusations of witchery appeared in other New England states, Connecticut help the most convictions and executions.

Historians believe that Alse was born in England around 1600, and her maiden name was possibly Stokes. While it is not known when she came to America, her marriage record to John Young puts her in Windsor, Connecticut during the 1630s. John and Alse had a daughter, Alice Young Beamon, who was accused, but never executed, of witchcraft in Springfield, Massachusetts about 30 year after her mother’s execution.

Alse Young was hung in Hartford, Connecticut on 26 May 1647. There are two highly possibly locations of her execution: the first was at Gallows Hill, as it was formerly called, and is today where Trinity College now stands. The other location was at Meeting House Square where the Old State House now stands.

Throughout the rest of the seventeenth century, dozens more men and women (mostly women) were executed on convictions of witchcraft. Most executions occurred during the witch hysterias of Hartford Connecticut and later Salem, Massachusetts.

Are you a descendant of an accused/convicted witch?

Irish Immigration to New England via Canada

Approximately a quarter million Irish, 75% of them being Catholic, immigrated to America between 1815 and 1870. A significant portion of these immigrants came to New England, by way of the then British-ruled Canada, for job opportunities on railroads, canals, sewers and other construction sites, and in mills, such as those in various Massachusetts towns. But why come in to North America through Canada and not directly to the United States? It really boils down to money.

The Irish fled their homeland due to poor economic conditions that began with the recession that followed French Revolution. During wartime, Irish agriculture boomed as their beef and dairy products fed British troops; however, when the wars ended, so did Irish agricultural prosperity. From 1815 to 1845, about ¾ million to one million Irishmen left Ireland for North America, but the population leaving Ireland during this time period would be surpassed by about 1-1/2 million Irishmen during and following the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852.

The Great Irish Famine was brought about by blight in the potato crops throughout Ireland. During the famine, landlords evicted an estimated ½ million Irishmen from their homes for owing back-rent. The man of the family would be ordered to jail while his wife and children would be forced onto the streets. With the threat of jail time and homelessness, many families fled Ireland before having to appear in court. Other landlords provided passage to their tenants, combined with false promises that there would be an agent who would greet them with food, clothing, and shelter upon their arrival to Canada. Of course, there were never any agents.

Fare passage to Canada was much more inexpensive to Canada than it was to America. For one, the British government kept the fares low in order to encourage the Irish to emigrate to Quebec rather than Britain. Secondly, many Canadian vessels carrying lumber to Britain began offering cheap passage aboard the would-be empty vessels back to Canada. Many Irishmen took this opportunity.

Travel to Canada found many Irish immigrants sick with typhus and many did not survive the 3,000 mile journey. Ships entering the Saint Lawrence River would be inspected and any sick passengers would be quarantined in facilities on Grosse Isle, a small island on the river. The worse outbreak of Typhus aboard what became known as coffin ships occurred during the spring and summer of 1847. The inspection facility quickly became overwhelmed with the number of typhus-infected passengers aboard ships. It took days for passengers to see a doctor, and a 15-day general quarantine was imposed for all passengers, during which time many uninfected passengers became infected. The death rate was so high that hundreds of bodies were being disposed of in the river.

Many Irish immigrants who were fortunate to survive their journey to Canada made their way to America, often on foot or by canal. There were not as many job opportunities for them in Canada, and Canada was still under the rule of Britain, whom the Irish was escaping their homeland from. Due to its proximity to Lower Canada, many of these Irish came to settle in New England.

Once in New England, Irish men sought out construction jobs, such as for the railroad. Irish women sometimes settled in mill towns around Massachusetts or took jobs as maids in hotels or private residences. The Irish were the poorest immigrant group to the United States during the 19^th century and they were willing to work for extremely low wages, making them more desirable to hire than other ethnic groups.

Irish immigrants suffered many hardships when they arrived in New England. They were discriminated against because of their religion (many were Catholic, and America was a dominantly Protestant nation at the time) and poorness. They were often stereotyped as being alcoholics, lazy violent, and criminal. However, despite illness, poverty, stereotypes and prejudices, the descendants of these Irish immigrants have long since flourished in America.

Hello From New England

Hey all! My name is Jacky Gamble and I am wicked excited to be here (a little New England slang for you). I have been researching genealogy since 2003, both personally and professionally. In 2008 I began writing about genealogy (as well as other topics) on several Internet sites, and I have also been published in Family Chronicle, a nationwide genealogy magazine.

I currently run two genealogy blogs:

Tracing my New England Roots is mainly for my personal genealogy, although I sometimes blog about other New England genealogy-related issues.

The Graveyard Rabbit of Vermont is my latest endeavor, though I have been planning for years to establish a cemetery-themed blog. It's still very new, so please bare with me.

When I'm not researching genealogy or writing, I am working my regular job as an office manager for a small IT company. I reside in Barre, Vermont with my boyfriend, two children, two kitties, and a bearded dragon. Barre is a small, New England town located next door to our state's capital of Montpelier (did you know Montpelier is the only state capital in the United States without a McDonalds?).

I am fortunate to live in New England. This area is filled with so much American history. New England is where the pilgrim's first landed, where the famous witch hysteria of Salem took place, where many battles of the American Revolution was fought, and where the Boston Tea Party took place. I plan to use my access to so many amazing historical landmarks as the basis for creating fun and interesting blog posts for you.

I am happy to try and answer any of your New England-related genealogy questions, so please don't hesitate to ask!