ROOTS & BRANCHES

In last week’s “Roots & Branches” column, I made another return to the Daub family, which had been a major brick wall for starting in the 1980s, not long after I had been researching my genealogy. It took a lot of indirect evidence to break the brick wall and I’m sure I’m neither the first …

I don’t think there’s any genealogist who doesn’t like solving a mystery regarding an ancestor. Take Mimi Reed from State College. She wrote to me recently about the deposition for a Revolutionary War pension given by her George Fister, which mentioned guard duty at the Tile Church in Windsor Township, Berks. County. “I have searched …

Last week’s “Roots & Branches” column groused a bit about how information my late mother’s surname line has been mangled in American publications for more than a century. Which is a shame because the Germans have had the Hiester / Hüster line figured out well back to the 1500s, using a variety of records, some …

“But it’s better to have that recollection verified by documentary proof.” So read the coda to last week’s installment of “Roots & Branches.” And whether it was the whim of deity or pure coincidence, an example of what happens when anyone relies on less than “documentary proof” was delivered into my hands. By way of …

A photo that has come down in my family – truthfully, I believe it’s the oldest photo showing my direct-line ancestors that can be conclusively dated – was taken in 1897 and bears the title “Our Home” and the imprint of the “United States View Co.” Shown in the photo are a pair of my …