A stamp collector recently listed an envelope on eBay for its postal cancellation. As a genealogist, I saw it more specifically as an envelope that happened to still have a letter from 1875 still inside. As serendipity usually has it with these things, the story told by a visitor to Northborough, MA has an intriguing plot, curious characters, and an ending that could only have been written this afternoon by myself and a willing fellow mystery-solver. 

Mrs. Viola Holbrook, staying at the home of her Aunt Susan's husband Cyrus Gale, wrote to her own husband back home in New York City about such quaint things as slipper orders and glove sizes. She also recounted what she learned in several letters she had received over a very short time: that her Aunt Nellie's fiancé had cheated on her and called off the wedding that was to happen within the month. Nellie had fled to a hotel in NYC to escape her shame and hide her sorrow. Viola, having none of that, instructed her husband to find Nellie and console her in Viola's stead.

Who was Viola Holbrook and why was she visiting a small town in MA, so far from the social buzz of Manhattan? Who was Nellie and how exactly was she related to the Holbrooks? Did Nellie ever marry…and whom?

The strategy: (1) Read the letter. Many times. Make note of places, names, and possible relationships. (2) Sketch out the family trees of each identifiable person mentioned in the letter. (3) Research each person on the trees to locate correlating evidence and establish how the people are related. 

Tips: (1) Nicknames (such as "Nellie") aren't always used in historical documents. Search using the more formal version of common nicknames for better results. (2) Family relationships (references to "aunt" or "Mother") may be for a spouse's family as well. 

The bonus: Ask the question "What happened next?" to initiate another research plan. In this case, we found that the scorned bride-to-be took back her philandering fiancé to eventually live in North Carolina with their servants. Who knew a simple census enumeration could tell such a complicated story about betrayal, sorrow, forgiveness, and deep devotion?

Taking a break from my inside job, I went on another field trip of sorts to a gravestone rubbing workshop offered by the Gravestone Girls at a local cemetery. What was different about this trip was that it wasn't important WHO was there but WHAT .

If you live in New England, chances are pretty darned good that somewhere in your town is a very old, and possibly neglected, early colonial burial ground. It is there that your earliest settlers buried their families quickly and went back to the  task of survival in the wild new land.

The cemeteries of that era are not particularly inviting and pretty, but within that utilitarian piece of historical land is an amazing amount of art and poetry.  If you have ever had the chance to wander the landscape of an old burial place and read a few inscriptions, you know exactly what I mean.

One headstone in the Howard Street Old Burial Ground (Northborough, MA) for a town hero who fought in the War of the Revolution, is inscribed as follows:

ERECTED
in memory of
Colonel LEVI BRIGHAM,
who departed this life
February 1st 1787 :
Aged 70 Years.

There were several common symbols chosen by families to express a specific message regarding the passing of their loved ones.  For example, the artwork of the capstone for Col. Brigham includes an angel (the wings are a dead giveaway...pun intended), which was the symbol of the messenger between man and God. Additionally, the text added to the stone often provided insight into the character or demeanor of the deceased, offering a message for the living to heed as they headed toward their own  Judgement Day. Iconography of these early stones is very interesting, and more information can be found at The Association for Gravestone Studies. 

Gravestone rubbings serve many purposes, depending on what interests you. The image of a stone is like a photograph, documenting the genealogical information about an ancestor. Or you might find the iconography or inscription interesting and want to preserve it as a objet d'art. With specific care and methods, a rubbing can be done without harming the original stone, and some common sense and a little homework ahead of time can help make your project a success. (Tip from the workshop: place a sheet of plastic or plastic bag over the surface of the stone and secure with masking tape prior to applying the paper layer. This protects the stone from the rubbing medium accidentally touching the stone through a tear in the paper.)

The rubbing in the photo above, while not done by me personally, was given to me at the end of the workshop. The Brigham gentleman that belongs to this stone was a soldier in the War of the Revolution and descendant of the town's first settler, John Brigham.

What made the gift special? The artist who thoughtfully let me take her debut work home is also a Mrs. Brigham ...from the same family who has lived in the town of Northborough from day 1. To me, she is my new local hero. And you can now understand more why I truly love "Finding New Stories in Old Places!" 

I have been working with a friend who is searching for her family in census records and she asked me, "What is that Family Search website all about?"  The answer is very simple: while you have to pay to use some popular genealogy research sites, like Ancestry.com or Fold3.com, there is a free place to go to look for information about your family.

God bless the Mormons, literally and figuratively.  You see, the core principle of the religion is that we are all related, back to Adam and Eve.  And wouldn’t you know that the collective work of the members is to prove just that.  

Members have been creating family trees for all of us...as well as photographing birth, marriage, and death records from all over the world for decades.  Images on microfilm are actually stored in a mountain vault in Salt Lake City, Utah. One way to view the records is  to hop on a plane for Utah.  Another is by ordering them through a local Family Search Center run by the church. 

Wonderfully, technological advances with computers and the internet have spurred on a herculean effort by the Mormon Church to digitize the microfilmed records and eventually make them all available on their own website. In the case where an original document has yet be digitally scanned (or the image is only available through a  paid partner site like Ancestry.com), the general information found in the record has been added to the searchable database. Using the different search filters (name, date, life event - like birth, or residence place) you can try to find a census record, or church records that were photographed by a team of Mormons taking over a town for a week.

You can find Family Search at www.familysearch.org.