Ruth Phair Mason

My husband has 3GGAunt named Bridget McCabe. She was born in Killashandra, County Cavan in 1828 and died in Austin, Minnesota in 1898. I thought she was two people for a while because she was called Delia. I didn’t know that was a common nickname. We have a daughter Bridget, too.

Yes, it’s VA. But a year! I submitted appeals for my requests in August but no response to those yet.

Yes. There are guidelines for a timely response but according to USCIS, they can’t comply as the volume of request has increased exponentially. NARA is better set up for archiving and processing the requests for copies, imho.

I thoroughly enjoyed this season. Thanks for another interesting set of episodes.

I submitted a request for my father’s and grandfather’s BIRLS File in December 2024. I have only received an acknowledgment that they received one request. Nothing since.

Reclaim The Records vs. United States Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) and their "Genealogy Program" - Reclaim The Records In which we explain to USCIS in great detail and with many examples why they’re horrible at mailing grandpa’s records, and why they charge you too much when they finally do

Reclaim the Records previously made an appeal to keep USCIS from increasing prices significantly. When I submitted, the cost was US$65 each for a search and for the record. I think USCIS did increase prices but not as much. www.reclaimtherecords.org/about/activi...

Reclaim the Records, a non-profit, has filed suit against the USCIS for not responding in a timely manner. My request several years ago took months to get the (expensive) record. They and other government officials do appear to be slow-walking anything that has to do with immigration.

I registered yesterday. See you there. I participated in #MyColorfulAncestry back in the day. My cousins enjoyed seeing the charts I made for them—a big win there!

Yes, exactly. WE do the research work and, for example, have AI do a needed side-task that takes us an hour to do. Even after spending a half hour checking and correcting its output, we’re still a half hour ahead. AI can be useful but we must understand what it can do fairly well and what it cannot.

Treat AI like a newly hired research assistant. Give the AI program tasks like summarize, transcribe, or look for gaps. Like with a new-hire, you must verify the work performed and then explain why and where it missed the mark.

It is clearly deeply annoying for a sociopath when a human collapses nearby and distracts attention from him.

It’s back. I just went to my Feeds, and it was there I unpinned it and pinned again.

Mine is gone also. It was there last night.

#GenHour #Ancestry Cumbria FHS, celebrating its Jubilee year, will host a three-day #FamilyHistory conference and fair from 29 July through 1 August 2026 at Carlisle. The website isn't updated yet but the information is on its Facebook page. More details coming soon.

My Cumbrians lived in the Penrith and Appleby area although my 2xg-grandmother was a servant in Matthewman Donald’s house in 1851. I’ve only spent a touristy afternoon in Carlisle when I was in the area. It will be good to chat about family history in the area with those who know more than I do.

Watch out Cumbria and Yorkshire, and London, I’m coming back! #familyhistory #genealogy #ancestry #cumbriafhs

Yes, thankfully we have the means in retirement. During our working years we lived far from our families so our leisure travels were mainly to visit our living relatives.

It was an idea for an ancestry tour that started my truly working on family history. We decided to go to Ireland for our 30th anniversary in 2013. I thought, let me do some digging, and 16 months later, we drove across Ulster visiting a good mix of ancestral, historic, and tourist locations.

#Genealogy #FamilyHistory In a late night foray into Full Text Search last week I found a couple items that confirm suspected relationships. Sometimes it’s fun to just go in and throw things at it and see what pops up. #AncestryHour

#AncestryHour, I’ve been researching speakers for my local genealogy society. For our regular 2026 meetings, I’ve engaged a speaker on researching Revolutionary War soldiers (my folk were still in their old countries) and have contacted a couple more. Our quarterly webinar series is nearly set.

I was thinking James Norton as the printer; he’s in everything now. Maybe he’s better suited to playing the local lord.

With a teenaged servant and an unmarried male lodger also in the house, I can see so many plot lines.

Oh how I wish the border offices kept more of their crossings records. At least I have newspaper articles about my maternal granddad visiting family only 100 miles away but across the border. Also, some of grandma’s southern Ontario cousins went to Michigan for work.

Glad to hear! A few years ago, I was in a non- #genealogy writing-your- #familyhistory class and one student—who didn’t dabble in genealogy—corrected the Louisianan instructor who said that her ancestors arrived at New Orleans in the 1700s, stating that “all immigrants came through Ellis Island.” 🤷‍♀️

In my limited experience, many Americans have a Canadian connection and are surprised when they find it.

I don’t think it’s rare. My four grandparents entered at Canadian-American land borders between 1893-1917. Two were born in Canada to immigrants, one lived in Canada but was born elsewhere, and one traveled through Canada as part of the journey to the US. #genealogy #familyhistory #ancestry

I do.

It searches the full text instead of an index. BNA/Findmypast’s newspaper OCR transcriptions look like they use a fairly early OCR. I imagine they are waiting for not-so-early AI software to re-run the pages. That would be a huge (!!) cost but—I know there are many hits I’m not seeing.

And yes. I just confirmed a relationship in an 1893 will; William Shannon bequeathed CDN$200 to his “niece Mary Ann Cox.” I had suspected he was her mother’s brother for at least 10 years, even before I found her mother.

I have not used it much since it first was announced and found items I already had. I know they have been adding more record sets and I should see what’s there now.