Waking the Tree
If my people are your people too, welcome!
This is a collection of translations, transcriptions and histories that I’ve generated over many years of research. The people I write about are little people, working people, often women – the ones you wouldn’t read about in school.
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Smiths of Euxton
This tracks the English Catholic line of the Smiths in Lancashire back to 1823. It’s hard to go back any further in a country where being a Catholic could get you executed – record keeping was dangerous.
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Brintzinghoffers. 1650-1950
My grandfather, James Henry Brintzinghoffer, was very proud of his German roots and his family’s long history in America. He once told me they came over on the Mayflower – which wasn’t quite true – but it was closer to true than any of us realized until long after he was gone.
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The Browns of Newark
My great-grandmother, Honora Brown, was baptized ‘Honora’ in Newark, NJ in 1872. She was called ‘Lenora’, then ‘Eleanora’, and finally ‘Eleanor’. Her granddaughter and 2nd great-granddaughter are both named Eleanor.
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A Farm at ‘Lake’ Hamilton
The O’Mullan family, including my 3rd great-grandfather William O’Mullan, leased a fair bit of acreage in Mount Hamilton – but it looks as though they had to drain a lake to get it. They rented portions of what was a lake in 1832, drained it, and brought it entirely under plough by 1837.
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The Formans. 1508-1913
The first ‘Forman’ in America is an Englishman named Robert Engle Forman who arrived with his wife, Johanna Pore, in 1645. Robert and the 12 generations that follow him are well documented and undisputed – but the 4 preceding English generations are a bit in question.
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Margaret Teresa Costello
My grandmother, Margaret Teresa Costello, was born to John J. Costello, a blacksmith, and Honora Brown in Newark, NJ on the 3rd of August 1903. Her father would died of kidney failure when she was not yet 3 years old, and she grew up in her mother’s boarding house on Plum St. in Newark.