The main Celtic traditions for genealogy are the Irish, the Scottish and the Welsh. Complicating matters, Irish settlers brought Gaelic from

Why do some family names end in -son and some in -sen?

We’d talked about how much the German dialects vary, looking at dialect forms of the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s compare High German and Dutch.

AUGH! It’s not just a cry of distress, it’s an anglicization. Why do we see lots of names ending in -augh? Baugh, Grumbaugh, Brumbaugh?

Why were there piles of Christmas cards from 1960 sent from around the world to a young girl in Virginia?

Sewing, in addition to laundry, used to be a responsibility that almost every woman had. And yet it can be tough to get insights into this p

The tribes that coalesced into Germans spoke 'the people’s/ popular language’ as opposed to Latin

Not long ago, a friend asked me why we say Germany when the Germans use the word Deutschland. The words aren't even related! Good quest

What on earth is going on with those letters? The s looks like an f !It sure does. I hope you never need those last couple of sentences. Old

Here are a couple tricks to help decipher old German handwriting, Kurrent or Suetterlin, especially important with old family letters.

German and English both mostly use h the same, as that puff of air at the start of a word: hello/hallo, here/hier, horn But what’s that h do

Just a head's up for those looking up dates further back (generally prior or 1752) or from some other countries cultures: People used di

A series of correspondence to and ​​from the same people opens up a whole new understanding about them. Old Swedish postcards from greater

English can be all over the map in how you’re supposed to pronounce any given set of letters: you polish the Polish silverware, you wait for

We thought it would be fun to conclude our week celebrating  the magic of handwriting with a light-hearted Christmas note that arrived one F

Eliese Trede, my mother's grandmother, immigrated in 1908, leaving her loving parents on a journey across the Atlantic. This is her 1925

This is an 1843 letter from my 3rd great grandfather, to his son telling him to hurry home from the army before his mother dies. We have a l

Day 2 to highlight the Art of Handwriting and your Family through January 23rd, National Handwriting Day. Share a favorite family hand-writt

Post your family handwritten letters to celebrate National Handwriting Day.

If you happen to be in an area where many Germans immigrated in the late 19th or early 20th century and you wander into an older cemetery, y