● The Night the Stars Fell (and other eerie events which scared the bejeebers out of our ancestors): American history is full of stories like these – eerie events, real or imagined, which at the time these events occurred went unexplained due to a lack of advanced scientific knowledge. Might your ancestors have experienced one of these?

● Avoiding the Rabbit Holes of Genealogical Research: If you have been researching your family history for any length of time, you very well may have spent time in what I call the “rabbit hole”, à la Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. “Going down the rabbit hole” is, unfortunately, not uncommon, given what we sometimes rely on to document our research. Over the years I’ve written about a number of the pitfalls, including genealogical fraud, inheritance scams and family legends and lore. This article is a compilation of past articles, a good reminder for all of us.

● The Dash: Pardon Tillinghast (1622-1718). This article is a compilation of a series I did at the Digging History blog several years ago about the Tillinghast family. I was reminded of one of these stories, New England’s Great Airship Hoax, as I concluded the feature article, ”The Night the Stars Fell”. I begin with the Tillinghast surname, followed by the story of the family’s American progenitor, the fifth great-grandfather of the perpetrator of the infamous Great Airship Hoax, Wallace Tillinghast.

NOTE: See the last two pages for a special supplement, the “Anjou List” referred to in the “Rabbit Holes” article.
I hope you enjoy the issue! I plan to feature records (and stories) to be gleaned from territorial census records, the Territorial Papers of the United States, and more in the concluding issue of 2023. The first two (or perhaps three) issues of 2024 will feature the 1930s and the Great Depression – lots of records to be discovered and lots of stories!