Digging History

03/07/2026

Latest blog post . . . a look at one of the myriad "ways to go in days of old" . . .

I ran across this particular “way to go in days of old” while researching a Surname Saturday blog article several years ago about the Pimple surname (after seeing the name in a list of Revolutionar…

02/28/2026

Genealogy isn't just about finding records and tracking down dead people. Sometimes you run across unfamiliar terms which may no longer be in usage today. Such is the case with these early American civic duties . . . .

As genealogists we have all come across terms which are unfamiliar for one reason or another. Many times the word or terminology is obsolete, or it might mean something altogether different in the …

02/21/2026

If you’ve researched Southern slave-holding ancestors, you may be aware of the term “manumission”. If not, it simply means the act of freeing one’s slave(s). As such, manumission differed from emancipation set forth by government proclamation, Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation being a prime example.

If you’ve researched Southern slave-holding ancestors, you may be aware of the term “manumission”. If not, it simply means the act of freeing one’s slave(s). As such, manumission differed from eman…

02/19/2026

For all my genealogy and history-loving friends . . . I discovered this documentary through Crista Cowan's ("The Barefoot Genealogist") podcast. If you're a fan of Finding Your Roots on PBS, you will love this documentary which highlights an interesting (and moving -- bring your tissues!) piece of American immigration history. You can watch for free on Tubi or rent through PBS on Amazon.

By the way, Crista has a series, "Stories That Live in Us", which is currently highlighting all states in a lead-up to America's 250th birthday. The series started with Hawaii, the 50th, and is working back to America's beginnings. This week was Mississippi. You can find her podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/. Very interesting and informative series!

https://tubitv.com/movies/100010791/far-east-deep-south

The racially complex history of the early Chinese in the segregated South comes into focus for a family on a road trip to visit its ancestors’ graves.

02/14/2026

https://digging-history.com/2026/02/14/free-to-enslave/

The premise may seem unbelievable, given what our history books have always taught us. It is true – there were free men and women of color who owned slaves. The question is, why would someone previ…

02/07/2026

In honor of Black History Month and the recent passing of my friend Vicki Nelson. This was a story about her great grandmother, Seawillow Hubert.

Seawillow Seawillow is a rather lyrical and poetic sounding name isn’t it? I ran across this name while researching a friend’s African American ancestry. Where in the world did this name come from…

02/03/2026

Keep on keeping on . . . .

I was recently reviewing stats for the blog, a gauge of how effective my recent return to regularly posting articles has been. I saw a stat for an article I wrote in 2018 on the occasion of the 25…

01/31/2026

One of genealogy's most frustrating "black holes" . . . .

Family Tree Magazine (May/June 2018) called them “Holes in History” – destructive fires throughout United States history with far-reaching effects on modern-day genealogical research. It might have…

01/24/2026

In the midst of another "snowmageddon", this 2020 article is worth a re-post . . .

Where I live we are “bracing” for a winter storm. People are raiding grocery store shelves like there will be no tomorrow. Trust me, it won’t be as big a deal as everyone is makin…

01/24/2026

Latest blog post . . . a "crazy" one . . .

Here’s an excerpt from a “Mining Genealogical Gold” article in a Digging History Magazine issue featuring Colorado. The article in its entirety was originally published in the May…

01/18/2026

Finding our ancestors gets rather complicated if they, for one reason or another, decided he/she needed to change their name . . . the latest blog post. . . .
https://digging-history.com/.../legal-nefarious-and.../

01/10/2026

The latest blog post, an article from a 2019 issue of Digging History Magazine. It's a personal one about my fourth great-grandmother, Sarah (Phillips) Connelly. She endured quite an ordeal to secure a widow's War of 1812 pension.

Here’s a look back at a 2019 article published in Digging History Magazine, a personal one, from an issue which featured the War of 1812: I hadn’t looked at this particular line for some time…