Monday, September 24, 2007

More About Baby Kintyre

The Toronto Star has another article on the mummified baby found buried beneath the floorboards of a house at 29 Kintyre Ave. in Toronto. This has been an ongoing story and many people in the genealogy community have spent a lot of time trying to figure out who the baby was.

Baby Kintyre

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Irish & German Immigrant Skeletons found on Staten Island

Last summer a team of archaeologists dug up skeletal bones from beneath the asphalt of a municipal parking lot in St. George, Staten Island

The bones are believed to be the remains of more than 50 19th-century European immigrants, among them victims of the Irish potato famine. There are about 10 intact adult skeletons, most of them men in their 20s and 30s. There are smaller skeletons too, but none complete as children’s bones do not survive the acidic soil.

Archaeologists have concluded that the site was a mass grave for patients quarantined at the nearby Marine Hospital. Patients died of typhus, yellow fever and other infectious diseases in the mid-1800s

More than 150 years ago the Marine Hospital was where patients were taken, and where they died in such numbers that they had to be buried in trenches, sometimes three or four bodies deep. Those were peak famine years, and most immigrants who passed through were Irish families escaping hunger and destitution and Germans fleeing political turmoil in their homeland. In 1858, the hospital burned to the ground.

Read Honoring The Bones, the story about the controversy over what should be done with these remains of Irish and other immigrants

Search for ships passenger lists carrying Irish Immigrants to America during the Famine Years. Search for German immigrants to America

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Boy in Iron Coffin Identified as William White died 1852

A body in a cast iron coffin found by utility workers in Washington in 2005, has been identified.

Dozens of individuals used census records, obituaries in newspapers and DNA Testing to identify the remains as 15-year-old William Taylor White, who died in 1852.

William Taylor White was buried in the Columbia College cemetery and it appears he was simply left behind when the cemetery was moved.

White, from Accomack, Virginia was a descendant of Anthony West, one of the Jamestown settlers

The team of scientists working on finding who was buried in the coffin found an obituary published in the Daily National Intelligencer newspaper of Washington on Jan. 28, 1852, confirming White died Jan. 24, 1852, after a short illness.

Clothing historians were able to determine that he was dressed in a shirt, vest and pants that are consistent with clothing styles of the early to mid-1850s.

Read the online story

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Sunday, September 09, 2007

415 Ancestor Coffin Plates Death Records online!

Ancestors At Rest has the largest collection of Coffin Plates with birth and death dates online.

Coffin Plates (also called Casket Plaques) usually have the name of the deceased, date of birth and date of death. AncestorsAtRest.com now has 415 of these little-known genealogy death records online!

We welcome submissions - all you need to do is send a scan of your ancestor coffin plate or death record of any kind to Brian at ancestorsatrestATnetscape.net (Change AT to @ before you hit SEND). By submitting a death record of any kind, you can help other genealogists and make connections with others searching the same family tree

You can also find funeral cards, memorial cards, wills, obituaries, cemetery recordings and more at AncestorsAtRest.com. Don't miss these death records for your ancestor!

Friday, September 07, 2007

Getting Copies of Documents on AncestorsAtRest

Genealogists frequently ask me where and how they can get copies of a genealogy document they saw listed on my Blog (AncestorsAtRest.blogspot.com) or my website AncestorsAtRest.com

Many documents such as coffin plates, funeral cards, obituaries and family bibles are submitted to me by visitors. Sometimes they want to be contacted, so I provide their email address and name. Sometimes they don't. In those cases all you will see is their name.

Some items, especially the coffin plates, are my own private collection. I probably won't sell you the coffin plate (although you can always ask).

If I don't have a name with the items, it's either mine or it was an early submission (before I was careful about putting submitter names with those items!)

I hope you have found an interesting item for your ancestor and can enjoy the items online.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Victoria County GenWeb Host

I'm the new host of Victoria County GenWeb and am looking forward to the challenge. Victoria County Genweb is part of the Ontario GenWeb Project.

The former hosts left the genealogy data online which was appreciated! I'm busy adding more so check back frequently.

Don't hesitate to write to me if you have Victoria County links or genealogy data you want added to the site! My email address is on the website