The Storyline
Real families. Real discoveries. Real stories.
Researching Prince Edward Island
Tracing Irish families who settled in Prince Edward Island requires navigating a unique set of records, repositories, and research strategies. This companion piece to the Kenny-Connors documentary biography series shares the methodologies developed over years of research—from the 1863 Lake Map to PEIGS cemetery transcripts—techniques applicable to any PEI genealogy project.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
“Voyageur et Agriculture”: The Dual Lives of French-Canadian Paddlers
A single phrase in a 1798 baptism record—"voyageur et agriculture"—reveals what the romantic mythology often obscures: most voyageurs were seasonal workers who returned to their farms each autumn. They weren't footloose adventurers who abandoned civilization. They were habitants who paddled. This post explores the rise and fall of the fur trade, the economics of the canoe brigades, and what the primary sources actually say about these men who lived between two worlds.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy French-Canadian Research series: Understanding the records, the context, and the lives they document.
When Newspapers Tell the Whole Story
No birth record. No marriage record. No official death record. For Terrence O'Brien, the newspapers told the whole story — his rise, his troubles, his secrets, and his death. A case study in what happens when traditional genealogy sources fail.
A Storyline Genealogy Case Study: Research Methodology From Research to Story
Scattered Stones Prologue: The Land They Left
Scattered Stones: Prologue
To understand why a family left, you must first understand what they left behind.
In the heart of Clan Robertson territory, where the Highlands meet the Lowlands, lies the parish of Bendochy—one of the oldest ecclesiastical sites in Scotland. Its parish registers begin in 1642. Two miles away, the market town of Blairgowrie sits at the edge of Strathmore valley, where rivers carve through ancient rock and the name Robertson appears in one of every twenty households.
Before we follow Duncan Robertson's descendants across the Atlantic—through Brooklyn and Georgia and New Jersey, across six generations—we must begin where they began.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies
When the American Dream Reversed: The Panic of 1873
In the 1870s, thousands of Scottish immigrants made an unexpected choice: they went home. The Panic of 1873—America's first Great Depression—triggered mass unemployment while Scotland's coal and iron industries boomed. New research from the 1881 Scottish census reveals over 1,100 return migrants, including families like the Robertsons of our Scattered Stones series. This is the story of when the tide turned both ways.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Scattered Stones: The Robertson Family of Blairgowrie
Finding the Filles du Roi in Colonial Records
The Filles du Roi left no personal diaries, but their lives are documented across colonial New France's archives. From marriage contracts to baptismal records, here's where to find the paper trail of the King's Daughters—and what those records can and cannot tell us.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: From marriage contracts to baptismal records—the documentary trail of the King's Daughters.
Occupational Tracking: When Name Searches Fail
You've searched every census. You've scoured city directories. You've analyzed DNA matches until your eyes crossed. But when your ancestor has one of the most common surnames in a city of 800,000 people—John Smith, Mary Jones, James Kelly—traditional name-based genealogy hits a wall.
For seven years, I searched for John Kenny among dozens of Brooklyn mat makers with virtually identical names. Traditional genealogy methods couldn't distinguish between them. But occupational tracking methodology could—and did. Learn how to use career progression as a unique identifier when name searches fail. This technique helped me solve a research problem that had stymied family historians for generations.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Methodology Series: Because your ancestor's career tells a story when their name cannot.
When the Record Doesn’t Exist: A Lesson in Documenting Negative Evidence
Learn how to turn "No Record Found" into valuable evidence. This case study follows Elizabeth Hamall's missing 1887 Chicago birth certificate, showing how baptism records, cemetery cards, and documented negative searches tell a complete story when vital records don't exist. A professional genealogy methodology lesson.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Series: Finding the Lost. Documenting the Found. Honoring Them All.
Three Generations of Shrinking and Expanding
The Hamall family nearly died out. From Kate's six children in the 1880s, the Thomas Henry Hamall line eventually narrowed to just one great-grandchild—Thomas Kenny. And then he had six children. That's how close this family came to extinction. That's how much one generation can change everything.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Series: proving that the stories worth telling are the ones that can be proven true.
Mothers and Sons: A Working-Class Family Pattern
Three generations. Three mothers. Three sons. Three households built together. From Kate Hamall in 1911 to Margaret Kenny Hamall in 1985, a pattern repeated across 75 years—not because of dysfunction, but because this was how working-class families survived. Understanding multi-generational households as economic strategy, not pathology.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Case Studies Series: Three Thomas Hamalls – Examining how economic reality shaped family structures across three generations of working-class Chicago families.