Genealogy Archives - The Silicon Underground

Remembering Private McAdow

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 27 May 2013 11:00:31 +0000

I had numerous ancestors who fought in the U.S. Civil War. On my mom’s side, one of my direct ancestors was a Union spy during the war. He was captured three times. We joke sometimes that he was better at

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My connection to the new center of the U.S. population

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:33:56 +0000

The new population center of the United States is a town I’m sure you’ve never heard of before, though I have. It’s Plato, Mo., a town 22 winding miles southwest of Fort Leonard Wood. The population is 109, up from

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The American Dream vs. the American Greed

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 02:38:49 +0000

Last week at church, our newly-installed vicar preached about greed vs. generosity, and he ripped a little on the American Dream, which he defined as each generation having better stuff and living more comfortably than their parents did.

I think he's right, letting that consume you definitely leads to problems. But I was taught that the American Dream was more about opportunity than it was about materialism. And maybe that's where we've gone wrong.

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Striking royalty.

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:32:38 +0000

It wasn't what I set out to do, and it definitely wasn't what I expected to do. But genealogical breakthroughs rarely are either, it seems.

My mother and I have now collected more than 9,000 relatives in our genealogy. Needless to say, you literally need a computer to keep track of all of that. There are three families I feel the greatest affinity for. Two of them are Scottish, and Highlander families at that.

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Why study genealogy?

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:16:44 +0000

Mom made one of those rare but very valuable genealogical finds recently: A cache of information about a family line that's more complete than what we had. It seems like the longer you do this, the less often it happens, but the more you appreciate it.

It got me thinking about why these kinds of finds are exciting. Indeed, to a non-genealogist, it probably seems weird.

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Odd genealogy fact of the day: Bush and Kerry are cousins

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:24:00 +0000

Yes, George W. Bush and John Kerry are cousins. Ninth cousins twice removed, but still cousins.

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Visiting the house where my ancestors grew up

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 03:00:38 +0000

I went to a family reunion this past weekend. You typically need rosters at my family's family reunions, because my grandmother had 13 brothers and sisters. I don't know why, but before I got into genealogy, I just couldn't keep everyone straight.

Now that I know how people are connected to one another, it's somehow easier to keep it straight.

At the end of the day, my aunt drove me out to the house where my grandmother grew up.

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Useful online Genealogy databases

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 14:36:42 +0000

I found some useful links today. It's from a genealogy blog that copied verbatim one of my entries from a few months ago (but with attribution, at least), so turnabout is fair play.

For links to online passenger lists, see this entry in the Genealogy Blog. Looking through it, I see names of ships I know I've seen before but I can't remember when.

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In honor of Charlemagne\’s birthday…

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 22:51:40 +0000

I have posted my genealogy, including Charlemagne, online.

As for why a Scot is making a big deal about Charlemagne's birthday, well, I'm descended from him. But I guess I could have said I did this to celebrate Walter Percy Chrysler's birthday. Or William Austin, but you probably haven't heard of him.

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Beware the -ing

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 05 Jan 2004 02:11:10 +0000

For some reason, both of my grandmothers' genealogies have always been somewhat of a dead end. It took me about 30 seconds to trace my grandfathers back into the 1600s, but I could only go back a couple of generations on my grandmothers.

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