Founded in 1837, The Baltimore Sun published numerous articles characterizing local, national, and international events relating to and impacting people of color. Beginning with the Reconstruction year of 1870, Margaret D. Pagan has performed the yeoman’s task of scouring the newspaper for all such accounts and summarizing their contents through 1927. To quote historian Donna T. Hollie, who wrote the Foreword to the compilation, “The author has selected articles for this publication which provide an expansive overview of experiences chronicling the African diaspora. For example, the reader will learn of the evolution of ‘Jim Crow,’ regarding housing and interstate travel.  Also included are summaries covering sports, lynching, entertainment, and political, educational, economic and religious activities. The accomplishments of well-known activists such as Frederick Douglass, and lesser-known ones such as Henry Highland Garnet, both Maryland born, are detailed.”

Genealogists searching for Baltimore connections will appreciate that Mrs. Pagan has also included references to marriage license applicants and obituaries. Obituaries, of course, sometimes provide details about the decedent’s family and organizational connections.  Among the more than 800 entries in this chronology, researchers will find references to James B. Parker, the African American who subdued Leon Czolgosz, President McKinley’s assassin; meetings of Baltimore’s Brotherhood of Liberty, the precursor to the Niagara Movement and founding of the NAACP; and efforts to install black teachers in Baltimore’s segregated schools for African Americans. For the researcher’s convenience, the author has included a comprehensive index to names and events referenced in her chronology. For all these attributes and Mrs. Pagan’s careful attention to detail, African American News in the Baltimore Sun, 1870-1927 must certainly be the starting point for anyone interested in black history and genealogy during the era under investigation.

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The O Callaghan family is an ancient one, tracing its descent in Ireland from the tenth-century king, Cellachán of Cashel, celebrated in the annals and in the mists of legend. From their original homeland around Cashel, the O Callaghans migrated into County Cork, where they became–and remain today–one of the largest family groups.

The core of Professor O Callaghan’s narrative traces the Clan Callaghan’s fortunes from the extension of English control throughout Ireland during the course of the 16th and 17th centuries through the great Irish diaspora of the 19th and 20th centuries. For example, in 1594 the chieftain, Conor of the Rock, surrendered the clan lands to the Crown, receiving them back to be held thereafter under English law as a personal estate for himself and his immediate family.

Following the treaty of Limerick in 1691 many O Callaghan soldiers went abroad to serve in the armies of France, Spain, and Germany and to set down new roots. The failure of the potato crop and the Great Famine in the 1840s decimated Ireland’s population and stimulated emigration. Colonel John O Callaghan of Bodyke in Clare gained notoriety for hostile relations with his tenants, while the O Callaghans of Dromcummer in Cork exemplified the many who were evicted for failure to meet their rental obligation.

As the twentieth century opened, the failure to gain Home Rule dealt a severe blow to the parliamentary tradition and prompted the Easter rebellion in 1916. In the struggle for independence Michael O Callaghan, former Lord Mayor of Limerick, was assassinated by the Black and Tans, and Donal O Callaghan, Lord Mayor of Cork, represented the family. By this time, of course, the great migration of the late nineteenth century to England, America, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere was on. Seeking to escape wretchedness at home and to find better lives for themselves and their children, thousands of O Callaghans (most identified as Callaghans) took part in this diaspora. As the author documents, they or their descendants achieved a measure of prosperity unknown at home and some achieved great distinction as historians, theologians, biblical scholars, military heroes, and in nearly every other form of human endeavor.

Adding to the volume’s historical value, Professor O Callaghan has provided sixteen genealogical charts that outline numerous O Callaghan lines, including the O Callaghans of Rathmore, Clare, Tipperary, Muskerry, Banteer, Dromore, Glynn, Lismehane, Spain, and Philadelphia, the author’s place of origin. Persons with ancestors possessing the following surnames are likely to have O Callaghan connections: Barry, Butler, Callaghan, Callahan, Condon, Fitzgerald, Gillman, Gould, Grehan, Lacy, Lismore, Lombard, MacAuliffe, MacCallaghan, MacCarthy, MacSweeney, O Brien, O Connell, O Keeffe, O Mullane, O Neill,  O Sullivan, Roche, and White. Researchers will also benefit from the book’s many illustrations, vast bibliography, endnotes, and complete name index.

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Simultaneously, Cleverley has written a treatise on how to produce a family history, showing by example how family stories can be discovered, often more easily than thought, and what genealogy researchers may be able to find in today’s rich cyber world of family history.

The scope of Family Stories . . . and How I Found Mine spreads out over a millennium. The story begins with Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, before jumping to the Greene family serving in the court of Plantagenet kings from 1300 to 1500. Next come chapters devoted to Cleverley’s Puritan New England ancestors of the 1600s, their subsequent settlement in Rhode Island by the 1700s, and service at the Battle of Concord in 1775. From the 1830s to 1860s, we follow Cleverley descendants to Missouri and Kansas, where they served in the western Indian Wars, and later to Utah and Idaho. The story concludes with a stirring account of Seija Cleverley (the author’s wife) and her family’s hardships during Finland’s struggles with Soviet Russia and during the Second World War. Each chapter, including the methodological commentary, is self-contained. The reader can pick up the book at any point for a complete experience of a specific era and family members under discussion or can read the volume straight through in its entirety. Either way, this is a volume that entertains as it enlightens, and teaches as it chronicles a family history.

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By 1930, despite a number of economic setbacks, Derry still retained its maritime importance as both a gateway to North West Ireland (i.e., counties Derry, Donegal, and Tyrone) and as a corridor across the Atlantic linking Western Europe with North America.

For genealogists, the Derry Almanac and Directory of 1930 names 9,084 heads of household and family businesses in Derry city. This list of inhabitants, in alphabetical order by surname, contains these 5 fields: Surname of Head of Household, First Name of Head of Household, Street Address, House Number, and Page Number of the listing. Author Brian Mitchell has re-arranged the contents of the 1930 almanac in a convenient tabular alphabetical format, so researchers can access this vital information with relative ease.

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For the first time, the DVD series Generations presents these ex-slave narratives with critical genealogical evidence pertaining to each interviewee. While varying from one ex-slave to another, Generations’ genealogical content includes census record extracts, death certificates, probate records, plantation records, pictures of plantations, and biographical information on slave owners. When available, pictures of the ex-slaves–such as the two depicted on the cover of this DVD–are also included. By linking these sources with the recollections of hundreds of former slaves, Generations affords African-American genealogists the rare opportunity to surmount the brick wall of the 1870 U.S. census, the first federal census to identify all blacks by their full names.

This work discusses ex-slaves who were either born in Virginia, or who had parents or grandparents born in Virginia. While a minority of these freedmen continued to reside there, by 1937-38 most of the individuals found on this DVD had migrated to one of the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, or Texas. In each case Dr. Rose and his collaborators trace the former slave to his/her origins in the Cavalier State. The appendixes to Generations: Volume I, moreover, include an article by and video commentary with one of the ex-slave’s descendants. Finally, the appendixes to the DVD contain genealogical findings on former slaves living in Alabama and Georgia who did not have Virginia origins.

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Based upon extensive research in primary sources and featuring numerous illustrations, Little Compton Families is Benjamin Franklin Wilbour’s legacy to the descendants of the following 200 families, many of whom are traced back to the middle of the 17th century: Albert, Allen, Almy, Amory, Astle, Athington, Austin, Bailey, Barker, Beebe, Bennett, Bertram, Billings, Bixby, Blackman, Bliss, Bone, Borden, Bosworth, Brayton, Brennan, Briggs, Brigham, Brightman, Brown, Brownell, Buckley, Bullock, Bundy, Burchard, Burgess, Burleigh, Burlingame, Butler, Butts, Campbell, Canfield, Carr, Carroll, Carter, Carton, Base, Castino, Chase, Church, Clapp, Clark(e), Closson, Cobb, Coe, Coggeshalle, Collins, Cook, Coombs, Cooper, Cordeira, Corey, Cornell, Cowen, Cozzens, Crandall, Crandon, Crosby Crossman, Cuthbert, Davenport, Davis, Davol, DeAzevedo, Dennis, Dimon, Douglas, Dring, Drowne, Durfee, Durkee, Dye, Dyer, Earle, Ellis, Elwell, Elmery, Field, Fisher, Fobes, Foote, Forrester, Fortner, Fowler, Francis, Gibbs, Gifford, Grant, Gray, Grinnell, Groves, Hambly, Hart, Hathaway, Hatton, Head, Heyward, Hickey, Hicks, Hilliard, Horswell, House, Howard, Howland, Hoxie, Hunt, Irish, Jackson, Jameson, Jenney, Jennings, Jewell, Jones, Joy, Kaye, Kelly, Kempton, Kirby, Ladd, Lake, Lavarre, Lawton, Leary, Lemunion, Lewis, Linnekin, Little, Longley, Lynd, McFadden, MacFarland, Magnuski, Manchester, Manley, Manton, Martin, Mias, Moore, Morse, Mosher, Negus, Newton, Ormsby, Pabodie, Paine, Palmer, Pearce, Peckham, Perkins, Phillips, Pope, Potter, Price, Records, Richmond, Robinson, Rouse, Sabins, Salisbury, Sanford, Sawyer, Seabury, Searles, Seibel, Shaley, Shaw, Sheehan, Shepard, Shethar, Sherer, Shrieve, Sherman, Shurtleff, Simmons, Sisson, Slocum, Smith, Snell, Snow, Soule, Southworth, Springer, Staples, Stoddard, Sylvia, Tabor, Tallman, Taylor, Thomas, Thompson, Thurston, Timberlake, Tomlin, Tompkins, Tripp, Veray, Warden, Warren, Watts, West, Whalley, Wheeler, White, Whitney, Wilbor, Wilcox, Wilkie, Williston, Wimer, Winslow, Wood, Woodman, Woodworth, Wordell, and Yettman.

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Each of the lineage records contains the names of all ancestors in the direct line of descent from the original immigrant, each with dates of birth, marriage, and death. Readers should be advised that the term “Pilgrim” in the context of this book refers to travelers to all parts of the Colonies, not just New England. For the researcher’s edification, we should mention here that the index contains about 28,000 names!

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