Surname Saturday: Cecil

We have reached another Saturday, and that means another surname study.  Today the links begin with my eleventh great grandmother, Margaret Cecil.  The connection to this line is still a bit tenuous as it has only been averred in Ancestral File entries, but here's what I know so far.

Whoa, a new look!

Yup, it's time to update the look of the blog.  I've upgraded to one of the new Blogger templates, but that unfortunately means that the scrolling list of tags in the right hand bar is gone for the moment.  I hope to have a good solution for this soon.  However, the new template allows me to expand the width of the content area a little, so I'll be able to show larger pictures there.  I've kept a similar color scheme, so the new look isn't too terribly different.  Time to get back to adding real content...

Surname Saturday: Boss

Today's surname study connects to the family with my wife's eighth great grandmother, Barbara Boss.  As with several other surname posts so far, I only know one person in my research with this surname.  Here's what I do know...

Surname Saturday: Carstarphen

Today's Surname Saturday post is a bit of a puzzle.  I am not entirely certain that it connects in the way that I have it in my database right now, and the more I look at it, the more likely it is that I have the connection wrong and I may be linking to another family entirely.  In any case, we'll take a look today at the family leading back from what I have currently listed as my fourth-great grandmother, Nancy Elizabeth Carstarphen.

Surname Saturday: Bircher

Now that the holiday rush is past, it's time to get back into regular updates again.  We pick up where we left off with a line on my wife's side again.  This is another case where I only know of one person with this surname.  It is her eighth-great grandmother, Verene Bircher.

Domestic partners in 1930

Okay, so I'm doing a little more indexing tonight before bed, and I come across this interesting gem.  In the 1930 U.S. census for La Crosse County, Wisconsin, there was the Molstead household.  Take a close look at the two highlighted lines...
In this case, the head of household was Myrtle Molstead, a 23-year-old single woman.  She lived with her 21-year-old sister Ella and a 25-year-old single woman named Amanda Belkey who is listed as the partner of the head of household.  Families like this might not have been discussed freely in the 1930s, but here is one documented case where it occurred.

A hundred years ago today....

So after a crazy busy December (which is why I haven't updated in the last few weeks), I'm doing a little bit of indexing while I finish my glass of Sweet Rebecca wine after a quiet celebration at home of the new year today.  Yeah, I'm a nerd, but what genealogist isn't a bit of a nerd?  Anyway, I'm indexing marriage records from Washington, D.C., and I come across this one...
On 1 January 1911, Guiseppe Carradi and Anna Cavalieri were married by Nicholas Yaselli at St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C.  As far as I know, this couple is not related to anyone that I've found in my family, but I thought it was a nice coincidence with indexing today that I get a record from exactly 100 years ago.