The Peabody Essex Museum's Phillips Library collections: a timeline from 1799 to 2018

Inside the Phillips Library in Salem, Massachusetts, 1885

One of the oldest research libraries in the country, Phillips Library contains more than 400,000 rare books and 117,000 square feet of manuscripts, original papers, photographic images, and prints from Salem and Essex county, Massachusetts, to places around the world. It's probably best known as the repository for the 1692 Salem witch trials documents; letters and manuscripts from Nathaniel Hawthorne and his literary circle; plus ships' logs and maritime journals documenting travels to the Far East. 

Of particular interest are local family histories and town records, military records, original genealogical papers, newspapers and city directories, charts and maps, business and social records, papers of notable Americans, works of regional authors, broadsides and ephemera, publications from literary and historical societies, art and architecture books, history books, and materials related to its museum collections.

For more than 200 years, the Phillips Library collection has been an integral part of Salem. The timeline, below, shows how the Phillips Library started and grew—and where it's headed next.

1799 East India Marine Society founded for creating a library on navigation and seafaring topics and collecting curiosities from native cultures of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia.

1821 Essex Historical Society founded.

1833 Essex County Natural History Society founded.

1848 Essex Institute formed by the union of the Essex Historical Society and Essex County Natural History Society; focus on literary, historical, and scientific pursuits; museum library, historic houses, educational programs, scholarly publications.

1857 Plummer Hall built for Salem Athenaeum with money provided in the 1845 will of Caroline Plummer; Essex Institute rented rooms at Plummer Hall for library and collections.

1867-1868 Peabody Academy of Science formed with the purchase of the East India Marine Hall along with the historic and ethnological collections of East India Marine Society. Essex Institute permanently transferred its natural history collections, originally collected by the Essex County Natural History Society, to the Peabody Academy. The Peabody Academy permanently transferred its historical collections to the Essex Institute, which concentrated its focus on local history, genealogy, and art.

1885 Essex Institute acquired the Daland house for the Phillips Library.

1905 Essex Institute bought Plummer Hall from Salem Athenaeum.

1915 Peabody Academy of Science changed its name to Peabody Museum of Salem, with its focus on maritime history of New England, Pacific and Japanese ethnology, and natural history of Essex county.

1972 National Register of Historic Places approves formation of the Essex Institute Historic District formed within the bounds of the Armory, Essex Street, Washington Square West, and Brown Street.

1992 Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) founded through consolidation of Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute. Within a few years, PEM changed its focus to become an arts and culture museum.   

1997 PEM’s Phillips Library closed for “massive restoration project, including climate control and modern archival storage” (closed 9 months).

2004 reduced hours and limited access to Phillips Library after laying off all but one librarian. At the same time, PEM said it would put “part of its 400,000 volumes and 2 million manuscript papers on the Internet.” Already 26,000 records had been scanned.

2011 Phillips Library is closed during “preservation and renovation work on Plummer Hall and Daland House (expected completion 2013)” (closed 19 months). During part of the closure, PEM exhibited 35 rare items as part of its Unbound, Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM exhibit. 

2013 Phillips Library collection moved to temporary collection center in Peabody, with limited access to the library's resources. 

2015 PEM announced “$20 million renovation and improvement of PEM’s Phillips Library....housed in two noted 1850s architectural treasures, the John Tucker Daland House and Plummer Hall, both of which are being renovated by Schwartz/Silver Architects.” Part of the funds were used to digitally catalog the collections in PhilCat.

2017 Peabody Essex Museum purchased building in Rowley for its new Collections Center.

2018 Phillips Library moved to Collections Center in Rowley (closed Sept. 2017 to mid-June 2018). 

Finding the right man with the wrong photo

When something doesn't add up (Ancestry.com trees)

Recently, Ancestry.com redesigned its web site to provide “a whole new way to bring your ancestors’ stories to life.” Incorporated into this redesign is the new Facts View on Ancestry online trees, which visually and literally connects sources to support the family tree’s relationships and life facts. It’s easy to check sources by clicking the links to viewable documents within Ancestry.com’s database.

One Ancestry.com family tree included a photo of a husband and wife, which referred to a 1920 passport as the source. What a find! I hadn’t thought to look past the immigrant ship manifests to see if anyone in the family traveled back to the mother country to visit relatives. I couldn’t wait to tell my uncle I found a picture of his grandparents online. Luckily, I checked the source first.

It turns out that the pictured couple is not my uncle’s grandparents but another passport applicant and his wife (#16380). By 1918, a passport application for naturalized citizens was a two-sided form. The front of the application included the person’s name, birth date, emigration and naturalization dates, home address, occupation, travel plans, and oath of allegiance. The back included a description of the applicant, an affidavit of an identifying witness, and a photograph. These original papers were bound together in book form and scanned. 

Obviously, the family tree poster saw the couple’s photograph on the left and assumed it belonged to the applicant on the right. And since the couple’s application was accompanied by a letter-sized note from the man’s employer, it covered up the back side of their legal-sized application—except for their photo. My uncle’s grandfather (#16381) also had a letter from a business associate explaining the reason for the trip overseas and on the scanned page, visible below that letter, is a third passport applicant’s oath of allegiance (#16382). 

Although I couldn’t swap the couple’s photo with the correct grandfather’s face on the family tree posted at Ancestry.com, I did add a note about the misidentified image to prevent others from making the same mistake. And, thanks to that online tree, I was able to share with my uncle his grandfather’s passport application and photo. 

For sources, it’s important to check the pages or images before and after the one that you’re looking for—in case you misinterpret or miss information that you need.

The house where witchcraft started

In 1892, Salem—which basked in its architectural splendor, its rich maritime history, and its scientific and educational pursuits—wanted to bury its dark past. But as the 200^th anniversary of the Salem Witch Trials approached, publishers and businessmen stirred up the pot by producing newspaper articles, travelogues, books, pamphlets, photographic prints, and even witch spoons. Taking advantage of the renewed interest, many of these printed items relied on town histories, Charles W. Upham’s Salem Witchcraft (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2), Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fiction, and unsubstantiated traditions.

One such book, Witchcraft Illustrated, Witchcraft to be Understood: Facts, Theories and Incidents with a Glance at Old and New Salem and its Historical Resources, includes images of Salem and Danvers interspersed between stories of witchcraft near and far. One curious photograph, identified as “The House Where Witchcraft Started, Now Danvers, Mass.,” also appears on Wikipedia and Find a Grave, but not in the many witch-hunt history books that have been published. The photo caption clearly is referring to the parsonage, home of Reverend Samuel Parris (1653-1720) when his daughter Betty Parris and niece Abigail Williams showed symptoms of being “under an Evil hand” in 1692. This same photo is featured on postcards captioned “the Old Parris House,” of which a colorized version, available at CardCow.com, is postmarked 1914.

Photo from Henrietta D. Kimball’s Witchcraft Illustrated (1892)

What a find! But, wait. If this is “the parsonage in Salem Village as photographed in the late 19^th century” (as labeled on Wikipedia), why didn’t historians include the image in their books?

The Parsonage

The first minister of Salem Village, Rev. James Bayley (1650-1707), kept his own house, though the village promised a few times to build a parsonage. It wasn’t completed until after the second minister, George Burroughs (1650-1692), arrived, for in February 1681, the town voted: “We will Build a House for the Ministry and provid convenient Land For that end: the Dementions of the House are as followeth: 42 foot long twenty foot Broad: thirteen foot stude: fouer chimleis no gable ends” (“Salem Village Book of Records 1672-1697,” SWP No. d1e711).

According to the plaque at the parsonage site, “The house faced south and included a half-cellar on its west side which was composed of dry-laid fieldstones, and which was entered by means of a stairway from the porch (front entry). The east side of the house did not include a cellar, the house sills resting on ground stones. The first floor consisted of two rooms separated by the front entry and a massive brick chimney structure. Two bed chambers were located on the second floor. Each of the house’s four rooms included a fireplace. By 1692 a saltbox lean-to was attached to the rear of the house, and used as a kitchen.” 

Addition and Demolition

Rev. Peter Clark (1696-1768), who served as the Salem Village minister from 1717 to 1768, had the town build an addition to the original building. In January 1734, “it was then voted that ‘we will demollesh all ye Lenture behind ye parsonage house, and will build a new house of three and twenty feet long and eighteen feet broad and fifteen feet stud with a seller [cellar] under it and set it behind the west room of our parsonage house.’ This new addition was two and one-half stories high, included a side door which faced the west and a roof which ran perpendicular to the 1681 parsonage. The cellar foundation was composed of cut and faced stones and included a jog for a chimney” (from 1734 Addition marker).

Over the ensuing decades, the parsonage continued its decline, but the townspeople could not afford to build a new parsonage nor repair the old one. In 1784, Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth (1750-1826) was given “an acre of land, bordering upon the road, for a house-lot. And upon this lot, the bounds of which may now be traced, he built for himself, about twenty rods west of the old site, the spacious house which is still standing” (Proceedings at the Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the First Parish at Salem Village: Now Danvers, October 8, 1872, p. 91). Afterwards, the original 1681 parsonage was demolished and the 1734 addition was moved to Sylvan Street.

By 1872, Charles Baker Rice describes the 1734 addition on Sylvan Street “in a condition next to ruinous, and occupied by hay, squashes, old barrels, and pigs” (p. 91). Rice continues, “It will thus be seen that this building, contrary to the report that has had some currency, was not in reality any part of the original parsonage, and was never occupied by Mr. Parris or any of his witches. It was not in existence until nearly forty years after he had left the place; and it has no other flavor of witchcraft upon it than what it may have absorbed in standing for half a century in contact with the older and once infected building” (p. 92).

Righting a Wrong

67 Centre Street, Danvers

In his footnote, Rice refers to mistakes in J.W. Hanson’s History of the Town of Danvers, from its Early Settlement to 1848 (a sketch on p. 276) and John W. Proctor’s Centennial Celebration at Danvers, Mass., June 16, 1852 (on p. 13). Rice says: “Mr. Hanson has given, in his history, a view of the building now standing as of ‘a portion of the old Parris house.’ John W. Proctor also was misled in the same manner, though he speaks less confidently, and only as from report. But the measurements are conclusive. The present building corresponds to the dimensions of the addition of 1734, while it bears no likeness to the original house of 1681, or to any practicable section of it. The difference in height to the plates, for one item, is three feet. Due inquiry would have shown, too, that the more trustworthy tradition does not identify the buildings; while the fact of the removal of the present structure from the old site will readily account for the mistaken notion of some concerning it” (p. 92).

Richard B. Trask, town archivist at the Danvers Archival Center, also says the 1734 addition moved to Sylvan Street “acquired an incorrect but much touted witchcraft connection during the 19^th century” (Postcard History Series: Danvers, p. 20). That mistaken belief persisted long after the 1734 addition was torn down in the 1870s, and now has cropped up again, thanks to digital reproductions of the photo, postcards, and old books.

Recovering the Past

1681 Salem Village parsonage site (2014)

In time, the parsonage cellar hole filled in and by 1898 only “a rough stone on the slight elevation in the field off the street...helps to identify the place where the Parris house stood,” Edwin Monroe Bacon writes in Historic Pilgrimages in New England. After all, he explains, “Upham says there was a ‘general desire to obliterate the memory of the calamity’” (p. 178). 

The place where the witchcraft outbreak started was almost lost to history until 1970, when Trask, then a history student, asked the property owners about excavating the land. Today, visitors can see the stone outline of the original parsonage, with a few interpretive markers adding context. Artifacts from the archaeological dig are located at the Danvers Archival Center. 

Thanks to Pie Ball and others who replied on my Facebook page, for helping me resolve this photo identification—once again.

Envisioning ancestors’ neighborhoods: National resources Part 4

After you've checked deeds, probate records, censuses, tax records, and/or city directories, you may want to learn more about your ancestors’ neighborhood and what their dwellings may have looked like. If your family wasn’t from Lexington or Massachusetts (like the study in the previous three posts), you’ll find the strategies are similar but the resources may be different.

Historic Places to Visit

Collins Log Cabin (1818), Columbia, Missouri; photo: HornColumbia

If you’ll be in the neighborhood, check out USA.gov’s links to state travel and tourism web sites. From there, you can drill down by region, county, or town, or do a Google search for a local tourist bureau. You’ll find historic places to visit and a calendar of events. In all likelihood, you won't find your ancestral home, but you may find similar building styles and household furnishings pertaining to the time frame you’re interested in.

The American Alliance of Museums’ directory lists museums from A to Z (aquariums to zoos), including history museums, historic sites, and museum associations that make up its membership. You can search by name, city, state, or museum type.

PreservationDirectory.com offers several databases for the U.S. and Canada, including historical societies by state/province, region, or keyword; historic house museums, living history museums, and specialty museums by category; and historic tours by category.  

Learning about Architecture

If you didn’t take art history and architecture in school, you may want to brush up on some building styles and time periods to put your ancestors’ era in the correct context. For the Lexington, Massachusetts, study, I referred to Historic New England’s architectural style guide, but different regions tend to create buildings more in line with their landscapes.

Jeffery Howe, a professor at Boston College, put together a Digital Archive of American Architecture for his students. He includes a chronology, description, and examples of architectural styles. The web site hasn’t been updated in a while, but it’s still useful. Or pick up a book on architectural history.

The Anatomy of a Historic House

Maybe you’re lucky and your ancestral house has a National Register (NR) designation for being connected with a famous person or event, or for being culturally or architecturally significant. If not, you can learn about NR buildings in your ancestors’ community and surrounding towns. Some of them are private property, but their NR paperwork is available. 

In the 1960s, there was a big push for the U.S. government to recognize and preserve historic buildings. That’s why National Register of Historic Places seeks to “identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archaeological resources.” Some states have their NR documentation posted online, with photos, floor plans, descriptions, and house histories. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, contact the State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPO).

The Library of Congress also has a search online for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)/Historic American Engineering Record (HAER)/Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) database.

Location, Location, Location

Realtors know the importance of location. You may want to compare historic maps with Google Maps and Google Earth to get a bird’s-eye view to see why your ancestors may have chosen a specific location and how it’s changed over the years. Check out these collections:

• American Memory: Map Collections 
• David Rumsey Map Collection 16^th to 20^th century
• Norman B. Leventhal Map Center 15^th century to present
• Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps 
• U.S. Geological Survey maps

Every Picture Tells a Story

Carlyle House in 1909, Alexandria, Virginia
William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine,
Vol.18, No.1., pp.1-17.

It almost goes without saying, but check your photographs and ask relatives if they have pictures of the old homestead. If not, you may be able to find pictures of your ancestral houses or neighborhoods. 

Public and secondary education libraries sometimes have archival collections online, such as the Archive of Photographic Documentation of Early Massachusetts Architecture at Boston Public Library, which includes late 19^th century photographs and engravings of 17th and 18th century buildings in Eastern Massachusetts. Connect with state libraries, public libraries, academic libraries, and federal libraries for collections.

Old and new town histories usually have photographs of buildings, so do a search on Google Books, Internet Archive, HathiTrust digital library, or other digital providers. You also could go to your local library and check their collections or interlibrary loan.

Several web sites invite people to add their images, both old and new, to online maps. Check out HistoryPin.com and WhatWasThere.com. The Clio and Waymarking.com tag historic buildings and much more—with photos and descriptions.

Arcadia Publishing specializes in local books filled with old photographs, often compiled by town historians or using historical society collections.

You’d be surprised what turns up on postcards. I have a postcard of Mirror Lake taken from the exact location where my parents built their house 30 years later, before any buildings existed on the property. I bought the postcard from eBay. I’ve also purchased historic house cards from CardCow.

Building a Foundation

Researching how people lived will give you a better understanding of your family in their neighborhood setting. Envisioning their homes, the everyday tools they used and chores they did, their status in the community, the luxuries they had, and the hardships they faced will help you appreciate your forebears and the choices they made.

And, now that you’ve gone beyond birth and death dates by filling in the space between, you should consider writing down what you’ve discovered and sharing it with your family. 

Read previous posts, “Envisioning ancestors’ neighborhoods: A study of Lexington, Massachusetts”

Part 1: history, historical sites

Part 2: books, photos, maps

Part 3: historical property data

Envisioning ancestors’ neighborhoods: A study of Lexington, Massachusetts, part 3

How can you picture how your ancestors lived and what their home may have looked like, if the original structure and photos do not exist? 

For this study, we’re using the year 1775 in Lexington, Massachusetts, as an example. Part 1 set the scene, with events and historic sites. In part 2, we covered books, maps, and photos. Now let’s add historical property data into the mix. 

The National Register of Historic Places (NR) seeks to “identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archaeological resources.” However, Massachusetts is one of those states that hasn’t had its paperwork digitized yet. Fortunately, there’s the State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPO), and in the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS), which provides information on Lexington. (Again, not all towns are digitized.)

First, let’s search the MACRIS database by location and time period. Select Lexington, and on the next screen, type <1775 under Construction Year (as in less than 1775). Thirty properties show up in the results, including the Lexington Old Burying Ground (c. 1690) and 1775 Traces of the Battle Road (c. 1636), since we did not select Resource Type (area, building, burial ground, object, structure). Objects include historic markers and monuments while Structures include walls, bridges, streets, wells, cow pens—much more than we want. By selecting Buildings, <1775, the results are 27 properties.

For each property, the onscreen spreadsheet shows the inventory number (Inv. No.), property name, street address, town, approximate year built (circa or range of dates), whether the house is listed on the State Register of Historic Places (SR), whether the National Register nomination has been digitized (NR), and (INV) for the scanned inventory file. For record detail, click on Inv. No.; for the scanned nomination paperwork, click on INV to download the PDF. 

Architectural Styles

MACRIS lets you select from many different kinds of architectural styles, including “altered beyond recognition.” However, the web site does not provide descriptions for these styles online. So let’s go to Historic New England, which divides architectural building styles before the 20th century into the following categories: 

• First Period (Post-medieval English): 1600-1700
• Georgian: 1700-1780
• Federal (Adam): 1780-1820
• Greek Revival: 1825-1860
• Gothic Revival: 1840-1880
• Italianate: 1840-1885
• Second Empire: 1855-1885
• Stick: 1860-1890
• Queen Anne: 1880-1910
• Shingle: 1880-1900
• Colonial Revival: 1880-1955

Georgian Style

Let’s say an ancestor built a home in Lexington circa 1750 that no longer exists and we want to look at a home of a similar age and style. Houses dating from 1700 to 1780 were often Georgian in style, with the center entry flanked with an equal number of double-hung sash windows balancing each side. One or two stories high, these clapboard or shingled wood-framed homes had center chimneys (if built before 1750) or double chimneys on each end of the gable roof. The box floor plan was two rooms deep with a central hallway.

Henry Harrington - Dr. Joseph Fiske house (LEX.710)

In MACRIS, we search Lexington, Georgian and find 21 matches, including the Henry Harrington - Dr. Joseph Fiske house (LEX.710) at 70 East Street. Besides its architectural significance, it has an interesting history, being commonly known as the Lexington Pest House, and a long association with the Fiske family. The Lexington Historical Commission nominated the single-family dwelling as historically important in March 1998. The paperwork, downloadable as a PDF, includes a photo, a map showing location and footprint, an architectural description, a historical narrative, and—what every genealogist likes to see—a bibliography and/or references. 

Considered “one of the best-preserved of the 21 Georgian houses still standing in Lexington, the original house was rectangular with an integral lean-to, 2-1/2 stories, five-by-one bays, and side-gabled with a large center chimney and an exterior chimney at the west end of lean-to.... The original house has a center entrance with a surround composed of a projecting molded cornice and fluted pilasters; the 6/9 windows in this house have molded window heads on the first floor and are framed into the cornice on the second.” Major alterations include a “shed attached to house, rear addition, attached garage (1979).” 

House Genealogy

Although this file does not include a floor plan, it has genealogical and architectural value. Cary Library in Lexington includes notes from Fiske descendant, Mary Abbie Fiske, suggesting the house was built in 1745 by Henry Harrington (1712-1791) and three of his sons were born there. However, the house nomination paperwork questions the date since sons John was born in 1739 and Jonathan in 1744. By 1790, Dr. Joseph Fiske (1752-1837) acquired the house from Henry Harrington’s son John. Probably during an epidemic in 1792, Dr. Fiske was treating 32 smallpox patients at 70 East Street—hence the name pest house. In 1809, Dr. Fiske moved to the old Fiske house (LEX.735) at 63 Hancock Street after his father’s death, though several generations of the doctor’s family continued to live at the Harrington-Fiske house until the 1940s.

By studying the Georgian homes in the Lexington area, you can gain insight into how your ancestors lived at the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

Read:

Part 1: history, historical sites

Part 2: books, photos, maps
Part 4: national resources

Finding romance in genealogy

Do you know your parents’ or grandparents’ love story? How they met and where and when? Did they ever take you on side trips to show you the memorable places and events in their lives, such as where they went on a first date, where they became engaged, where they were married, where they first lived as newlyweds?

To me, it’s a mystery how my parents met, since my father was a few years older and they attended high schools in different towns. Although I don’t know the stories, I have snapshots and memorabilia from those early days, lovingly placed in a scrapbook my mother made. The Broadway playbills, the cocktail napkins from jazz clubs, the movie tickets, even a bar of soap from their honeymoon hotel—all of these cherished items create almost a timeline of their first years together. Flipping through the pages gives me a totally romantic, even glamorous vision of their lives, before children came into the picture.

Maybe you don’t have a scrapbook that tells the story. But if you cannot ask the actual couple—or the people who knew them—look for other sources. Maybe you’ll find a stack of Valentine’s Day, holiday, anniversary, or birthday cards wrapped in a ribbon. Or, better yet, old letters. John Adams (1735-1826) and his wife Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818) wrote more than a thousand letters to each other. You can read them on the Massachusetts Historical Society web site. Even if you’re not related to the president’s family, you can glean much about family life, politics, history, and amour of the times.

If you or your relatives don’t possess the actual pages, you can look for letters, day books, journals, diaries, postcards, photographs, ephemera—even oral histories—at libraries, historical societies, museums, private collections, and even eBay.

Sometimes, romantic or familial thoughts come when envelopes and stationary are not available. One of my collateral great greats wrote a short family history in his old account book, the text of which appeared in the History of the Town of New Marlborough, Massachusetts by Harry D. Sisson (1937). Apparently, in 1859 his aunt was visiting from Michigan and Noah Gibson wanted to scribble her stories somewhere handy before he forgot. Unfortunately, Aunt Alice gave a romantic twist to the family history, turning my 6th great grandfather into an immigrant sea captain (two things he was not) and his son into a minuteman tragically dying at the Battle of Lexington (he died a few years earlier, in 1757 to be exact).

Don’t overlook the possibility that someone published something your ancestors wrote. For instance, when Judge Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) wrote in his diaries, he had no idea people would be reading them hundreds of years later. His writings say much about his love for his family and the little details that made up their everyday life. As a widower, he even shared in his diary his attempts to woo a lady—and her eventual rejection.

People don’t have to be famous to be published either. Soldiers from Massachusetts who fought in the Civil War often had their letters to parents, siblings, sweethearts, and wives published in the local newspaper, The Quincy Patriot. Numerous soldier letters have been printed or are available online.

Speaking of newspapers, you may find a treasure trove of love stories, from golden anniversary articles, mentions in the local gossip column, and obituaries to letters, poetry, and stories. And if you descend from high school or college sweethearts, look for yearbooks and alumni publications.

Preserving keepsake memories

A cherished ornament.

Whether they have pride of place on your mantle or are tucked away in a drawer out of sight, all of us have keepsakes or even family heirlooms with stories to tell. As genealogists, we focus on people, places, events, and relationships. Objects have history too.

For example, you have an old Punch and Judy tea set. Your mother’s uncle owned a storage and moving company. After a family didn’t pick up the tea set, the uncle gave it to your mother. The tea spout has been imperfectly glued back together and the old-fashioned pattern doesn’t appeal to kids these days, but its charm is that your mother played with it as a girl. You can tuck the story of its provenance inside that teapot.

Your grandfather built dollhouse furniture for all of his grandchildren, or at least for all of the girls. Your grandmother painted all the pieces, from beds and dressers to tables, rocking chairs, and grandfather clocks. Although the dollhouse didn’t survive and some of the furniture has broken or gone missing, what remains are pieces of your childhood. Look through your photo albums for pictures of you playing with the dollhouse. You may be able to date when the furniture was made by looking at pictures, but at least you’ll be able to pass on who made it and why. Write a note and attach a photo to place in one of the drawers.

If you collect Christmas ornaments, you can photograph them as you’re taking down the tree. Use one of the online photo gift companies such as Shutterfly to create a photo book. You can include captions under each picture, telling about the special memories attached to each ornament. 

Paper Goods

If you collect postcards, you can write something on the back about the place, why it was special, and the date you visited. If you keep holiday newsletters written by family members (or yourself), you can compile them in a three-ring binder, putting the individual pages in sheet protectors back to back so you can read it like a book. If you save greeting cards, you can group ones that match a theme (say, Valentine’s Day, summer, or cards from Germany), then mount and frame them. If you hold onto holiday photo cards, you can store them in a box, using dividers to separate the years. And, it goes without saying, if you have photographs, label them all!

Massachusetts genealogy and history blogs part 2

History of Massachusetts blog

Below are more blogs to bookmark, covering historic Massachusetts in stories and photos as well as its graveyards, Redcoats, and folklore.

• And This Is Good Old Boston. "Boston history - sort of." Mark B. tells stories and shares photos of Boston, enhanced with maps to pinpoint the landmarks.
• Retro Boston Remembered. "Charles Boston’s scrumptious scrapbook of events and places from good old Retro Boston." A blog by the cultural historian who created Shopping Days in Retro Boston blog.
• History of Massachusetts by Rebecca Brooks. Articles, animated timelines, photos, scanned books, and puzzles covering 17th to 20th century Massachusetts history, with an emphasis on 1692 witch trials and the American Revolution.
• The Old Colony Graveyard Rabbit. "A blog devoted mainly to the cemeteries of Southeastern Massachusetts with occasional forays elsewhere in New England. A member of the Association of Graveyard Rabbits."
• New England Folklore. Peter Muise is an "avid folklore fan and New England native" who likes "exploring and writing about New England legends, folklore, and traditions." Sites like these can help you understand some of your ancestral quirks and odd beliefs.
• Muddy River Musings. Join Ken Liss on his "meanderings through the thickets of Brookline's past." A "researcher and amateur historian," he offers "an idiosyncratic assortment: people, places, and events, big and small, ... interesting, amusing, poignant, or peculiar, or that otherwise caught [his] eye."
• British Soldiers, American Revolution. "A place for information about British soldiers who served during the American Revolution, 1775-1783. Thousands of soldiers wore red coats, but little is known about them as individuals. This site will change that, soldier by soldier."

You can find more than 3,000 genealogy blogs listed on the Geneabloggers site and on the blogfinder at Genealogue. New England GeneaBloggers have a Facebook page. (To see a list of members and links to their blogs, click on the "about" tab.) And when you find a blog you like, check its blog roll for other interesting sites the blogger follows.

In case you want to delve into blogging yourself, Geneabloggers includes blog resources and daily blogging prompts.

See also:

• Massachusetts genealogy and history blogs part 1
• Massachusetts society and library blogs

October is family history month

Numerous U.S. states recognize October as Family History Month. Plan ahead before Thanksgiving and the winter holidays give you ample opportunities to interview family members, share stories, and identify photographs together. Here are some guidelines to help you make the most of your time.

1. If you're new to genealogical research, learn the basics before you visit Great Aunt Bertha. Bring along a pedigree chart and family group records to put your research in perspective and to provide an overview of vital record facts.

2. Create a family photo book to give visual prompts to potential storytellers. You may even want to purchase a handheld scanner to collect images from relatives. Once you've collected a bunch of digital images, organize the photos in such a way that you know the subjects, the time period, and who you scanned the images from.

3. Do you have any questions based on details from birth, marriage, and death records you've found, like why were those specific witnesses chosen to sign the marriage certificate? Or what's the relationship between the deceased and the death certificate's informant? Write down your list of questions and bring along copies of the vital records for backup.

4.  Do you have newspaper clippings with fascinating tidbits of sports records, school achievements, injuries and accidents, social outings, court proceedings, wedding announcements, retirement parties, obituaries, church meetings, reunions, and the like? Bring copies to share so you can get the full story.

5. Have you found your family on the 1940 census? Although copying the census pages may be unwieldy, consider bringing along your laptop with the census images already saved. People like to see themselves in historical records. You could learn about the home they lived in, who lived with them, what jobs they had, who the neighbors were, and more. 

6. Did your relatives live through big, historical events like President Kennedy's assassination or the Blizzard of 1978? Ask them what they remember of the event to put their lives in historical perspective. 

7. Have you found a troubling pattern of illnesses and causes of death? Consider putting together a family health pedigree and asking your family for input. 

Make the most of your family time. Be prepared. Know what you want to learn. Bring images and records to serve as prompts. See where the path leads. You may be surprised. 

Genealogy goals: Beyond research

As genealogists, we often have short-term goals (such as find the obituary, gravestone, burial record, will, etc., to provide an end date for an ancestor). But what about long-term goals? Have you considered how to share your years of research with your family?

You can start small, with a genealogy photo book or a collection of family stories. Perhaps you have your great aunt's war-time journal, which you could transcribe and annotate. Or you'd like to write a multi-volume series, covering each of your grandparents' lines. There are plenty of genealogy projects to do.

Tools for Writing

To help you get started, here are a few suggestions for tools to help with writing:

RootsMagic's Personal Historian software

Guide to Genealogical Writing by Penelope Stratton and Henry B. Hoff (NEHGS)

Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian by Elizabeth Shown Mills

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Colonial America, 1607-1783 by Dale Taylor (and other books in the series)

Writing/Publishing

Check out my writing/publishing series for genealogists:

• Top 10 reasons to publish your research
• Top 10 reasons to publish on paper
• Top 10 projects to publish
• Top 10 writing tips
• Publishing terms for the genealogist
• Top 10 marketing tips for publishing your genealogy
• Creating a genealogy photo book