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Christmas greetings, 2021
We are grateful this year for fifty years of marriage and for more time with family, friends, and our community of faith. May the Prince of Peace be with you at Christmas and…
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Teasers and curiosities in old Rochester, New York newspapers
When Dee and I visited Rochester, New York for the first time in 2006 we dabbled in land records, held Staats Springsteen’s 1825 will in our hands, found card catalog indexes to newspaper…
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More recent memories
I posted an article a few months ago that looked back at our ancestors 150 years ago. We didn’t have a Case and Springsteen family reunion this year, but here is a glimpse…
- Aden Springsteen's heritage, Coyne Kidder's heritage, Emma Hrobar's heritage, Joseph Dlouhy's heritage, Marie Fisher's heritage, Richard Van Zandt's heritage, Rose Karel's heritage, Verda Case's heritage
1871—a waypoint in ancestral journeys
One hundred fifty years have come and gone since 1871. In terms of change, it must seem like light-years. Where were our ancestors living then? What was their world like? How many things…
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Springsteen family survey, forty years on
We tend to be focused on our family surname when considering ancestry. We are, however, a product of many families and origins. Nevertheless, our paternal ancestry holds the appeal of surname as a…
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Ready to turn a new page?
We’ve come through a lot together this year, haven’t we? This is a time for empathy and compassion and a new understanding of ourselves. Dee and I moved back to old turf early…
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Crossing the pond—Jan and Anna Macek’s family
My decades-long search for the people of my past has often been perplexing, but at least these ancestors have been in America for centuries. My most recent European-born ancestors were three German great-great…
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Jacob and Margaret Springsteen
In the early years of my interest in family history, I had no knowledge of my great-great grandfather John S. Springsteen’s parents. That door was opened when I received a copy of a…
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A different reunion
Aden Springsteen and Verda Case were married in the closing weeks of World War I, known then as The Great War. Their wedding also occurred soon after the deadliest outbreak of the 1918…
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Independence and high ideals
This Independence Day is unlike any we have yet experienced. Our country is struggling with serious challenges to public health, economic opportunity, political decency and social fairness. We are a nation established on…
