-
·
The Lost Soldier: Private Robert McLellan and the Battle of Ypres
In the early days of World War I, three Scottish brothers marched off to war, each serving in a different regiment of the British Army. Among them was Private Robert McLellan, a 19-year-old assistant overseer in a mill, who had enlisted in the 1st Battalion of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment). His brothers, Walter…
-
·
Nellie is Helen, I knew it!
So excited today! I finally laid my hands on a marriage document that totally confirms what I suspected all along – Nellie Brown, the woman listed as the wife of William E and the mother of Margaret C in the New Jersey 1905 census, is undeniably Helen MacDonald. This is how I pieced it all…
-
·
Perspectives Over Time
Did I manage to find a photo of Slater House? Maybe I will know soon. Recently, while checking to see how far away Emilee Morrison*, my 1c3r (first cousin three times removed) lived from Slater House when she was born, I made an important discovery in regards to my Slater House research project. In all…
-
·
James F Devenney, Hero of Slater House
In the late 1890’s, Slater House was home to my Scottish and Irish ancestors. James F Devenney married my great grand aunt, Elizabeth Brown (1898-1973). Elizabeth lived in Slater house as early as 1905, when she was 7 years old. Although James and Elizabeth were married in 1918, their first son Thomas was not born…
-
·
Passaic Falls
The Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park is a 6/10 of a mile away from Slater House. Paterson was planned and designed to be an industrial town. Alexander Hamilton started an organization called The Society for Useful Manufacturing which cast a vision of an entire city that made everything a growing country’s population needed. Some…
-
·
Slater House Ancestors
I wasn’t planning to share this story here, because it wasn’t supposed to be related to the Slater House project. And it’s still not, to be fair. Starting at the beginning: Snow is finally melting here in Minneapolis after SEVEN MONTHS of winter. First snowfall came in September and it’s only now starting to warm…
-
·
How Young was “Young” in 1935?
It might sound like an age-bashing question, but this newspaper clipping is from 1935. I saw that Thomas Graham, Jr was the driver of the vehicle, and at 23 I think it’s still safe to call him young but the reporter didn’t list anyone else’s age. Let’s fact check the youth of the rest of…
-
·
Married & Buried in One Week
George Clark wasn’t one of my ancestors (in fact it seems he might not have had time to make descendants), but the newspaper clipping from 13 Feb 1924, paints a picture of poor Ruby Mackentosh grieving her brand new husband in the very living room where she married him, only a week prior! I don’t…
-
·
Timeline of Events at Slater House
Timeline of events at Slater House March 22, 2023|Genealogy research tips, Slater House, Storytelling with genealogy I’ve been using Airtable* to gather data and keep it organized. I love being able to annotate files in a grid like this. The image below contains mostly City Directory listings, and already the file has hundreds of rows. I’m…
-
·
What is Slater House
Slater House is a super fun investigative rabbit hole that my pandemic self hyper-fixated on. Now that the world has reopened, it’s just a mild but lingering obsession. In 1900, Ireland-born John Steven MacDonald and his wife Elizabeth (my great-great-great-grandparents) lived at 114 Slater St. with three of their four daughters: Agnes, Mary, and Nellie.…