by Sharon Hall | Mar 14, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers
I often run across some of the most unusual names while researching either my own family or a client’s. I have to say, though, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a set of children named so “uniquely”. They were all kin, as in related (brothers), but were also all...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 7, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers
I ran across this particular “way to go in days of old” while researching a Surname Saturday blog article several years ago about the Pimple surname (after seeing the name in a list of Revolutionary War veterans). As I researched the unusual surname, I came across...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 28, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers
As genealogists we have all come across terms which are unfamiliar for one reason or another. Many times the word or terminology is obsolete, or it might mean something altogether different in the twenty-first century. Such was the case as I was recently researching...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 21, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers
If you’ve researched Southern slave-holding ancestors, you may be aware of the term “manumission”. If not, it simply means the act of freeing one’s slave(s). As such, manumission differed from emancipation set forth by government proclamation, Abraham Lincoln’s 1863...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 14, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers
The premise may seem unbelievable, given what our history books have always taught us. It is true – there were free men and women of color who owned slaves. The question is, why would someone previously enslaved choose to enslave others? In 1790 in the St. Phillip’s...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 7, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers
Seawillow Seawillow is a rather lyrical and poetic sounding name isn’t it? I ran across this name while researching a friend’s African American ancestry. Where in the world did this name come from? Wouldn’t you just know – there’s a story behind it! A search for the...
