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Brooklyn Parish Records and the Promise of a Breakthrough
Five letters are already waiting in Brooklyn. Two Irish families, the Dowlings and the Plunketts, and two marriages I still can’t locate: William Dowling and Ellen McAuliffe, and…
4 min read
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When Neighbors Become Family: A Duplex Love Story
In 1940, the Dowling family lived upstairs in a Brooklyn duplex while the Panchak family lived downstairs. Two young people, Gwendolyn Dowling and William Panchak, grew up one…
4 min read
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You Ache for One Ordinary Day of Theirs. Take Mine.
I spend my days reconstructing the lives of people who left me almost nothing. A name, a date, if I am lucky a single line in a parish…
4 min read
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My Growth Opportunity – An Advanced Genealogy Course
Week 30 of the 52 Ancestors challenge is Free Space, so I am writing about a work still in progress: me. I am 39 percent into an advanced…
4 min read
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An OMPF Mini Reconstruction File – A Source I Want to Understand Better
When most of your grandfather’s military file burned in the 1973 NPRC fire, what you get back is not a personnel file at all. It is an OMPF…
4 min read
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Leisure Time: Twelve Strikes and a Lifetime of Memories
When I think about leisure time in my family, I think of bowling. This is the story of my dad’s love of the game: Friday night leagues, a…
4 min read
