Have you heard of the Blue-Eyed Indians that wrecked havoc in Schoharie County, New York during the Revolutionary War?  They weren’t really Indians.  Sympathetic to the Tory cause, they were brothers united to stir up trouble against the American Patriots. They were my family.  (Guess that explains the rebel in me).  You can read more [...]

“’Twas a dark and stormy night when my Nellie went away. I’ll never forget to my dying day.  She was just 16, the village queen, …” (“Little Nell,” from old vaudeville). Many of you have stories of ancestors who have disappeared in the night, like the daughter of an earl who fell in love with [...]

If you think economic times are hard now, think about what your ancestors had to live through! Let me give you three examples: 1.  “The Summer That Never Was,” 1816, may have been caused by an Indonesian volcano that erupted April 1815 spewing 100 miles of cubic ash and dust into the atmosphere.  During the [...]

In 1792 Joseph Chaplin moved his family from Berkshire County, Massachusetts, to Cortland County, New York. His son, Daniel Chaplin, moved from Cortland County, New York, to Jones County, Iowa in 1838. About 1860 Daniel’s son, Daniel Chaplin, moved his family from Jones County, Iowa, to Plumas County, California, then to Butte County, California, by [...]