These Rare Italian Surnames Are on the Verge of Extinction – I’ve always found the extinction of surnames fascinating, but please, someone rescue these Italian ones!

Old’aVista – Wanna time travel online? Check out Old’aVista.

Photo by A Perry on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, May 13 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Henry Johnson (World War I soldier) – So frustrating! I researched (William) Henry Johnson, a WWI hero, for his posthumous Medal of Honor award in 2015. Someone emailed today saying Ancestry told them they were a cousin. I checked. There are 25 trees for this man on Ancestry and ALL of them are wrong. ALL have an incorrect spouse and parents.

Marleka Identity Labs – I can’t believe that what I’m about to share is a thing, but there’s now a company focused specifically on analyzing *Rusyn* DNA! Yes, really!

Here’s a portion of my Dad’s results (and FYI – he’s got pan-Rusyn roots that include villages in present-day Slovakia, Ukraine and Poland).

They have an excellent website that explains everything you need to know (and will even offer some Rusyn merch soon ).

Photo by: PhilipRomanoPhoto, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The post Genealogy Roundup, May 6 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Aisne-Marne Cemetery caretaker and me as a youngster

I was born into an American military family stationed in France, and as the first child of young parents (20 and 24 at the time of my arrival), had the good fortune of being carted along on a number of European adventures during my toddler years. My father, George C. Smolenyak, was an avid photographer, and like some at the time, had a preference for slides over pictures. As a result, assorted moments from my earliest years have been preserved in these miniature transparencies.

My father was a meticulous man with a remarkable memory, so could easily rattle off locations and other specifics decades after the fact — details which inevitably matched the labels he had recorded on the slides’ edges when he first created them. Dad had a few favorites he enjoyed telling stories about, such as my first encounter with snow in the Pyrenees or that time I kept everyone in a small hotel awake with my bawling, but there was one in particular he told repeatedly.

His tidy script notes that it was the “American caretaker, Belleau Woods Cemetery, France” and the slide shows this man bending over to chat with 18-month-old me. I’m clutching a branch he had apparently just handed over.

Dad’s caption on the slide

Time and time again, Dad explained that this gentleman was an American soldier who had served in World War I, stayed in France and married a local woman, and worked at Aisne-Marne Cemetery where 2,289 Americans are buried. When my father asked him while he had remained in France, he responded simply, “To take care of my buddies.”

This moment-in-time has always been special to me — partly due to Dad’s vignette and the snippet of my history it holds, but also because it foreshadows my later experience. I’ve spent years working with the U.S. Army assisting with the on-going effort to identify our soldiers who are still unaccounted for from past conflicts ranging from World War I to Vietnam. As it happens, I recently reached a random but timely milestone of having researched 1776 soldiers as of this year, America’s 250th anniversary. In my mind, this snapshot captures the instant this amiable veteran had just passed the baton so I could one day also help take care of his buddies.

For this reason, it has tormented me that I didn’t know who this man was. I asked Dad several times hoping that his impressive memory would suddenly toss out a name, but no such luck. But I’m a professional genealogist. I should be able to unearth his name, right?

It wasn’t for lack of trying, but as those who are familiar with American records know, our twentieth century military personnel records are sketchy at best since so many went up in flames (or were swamped by water) in a 1973 fire. So how could I find him? All I knew was that he had served in WWI, married a French woman, worked at this cemetery, and was still there in the 1960s. Where to start?

Then it occurred to me. What about those record sets for Americans living abroad? Ancestry doesn’t make them prominent, but if you search their catalog for relevant collections, you’ll pop up several including the following:

U.S., Consular Reports of Marriages, 1910–1949

U.S., Consular Posts, Emergency Passport Applications, 1915–1926

U.S., Consular Registration Certificates, 1907–1918

U.S., Consular Reports of Births, 1910–1949

U.S., Consular Registration Applications, 1916–1925

U.S., Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835–1974

U.S., Registration Certificates — Widows, Divorced Women, & Minors, 1907–1914

I didn’t have a name, but did I perhaps have enough other information to ferret him out? I took a dive leaving the name fields blank and entering “Aisne” and “Belleau” instead in location and keyword fields. Most came up empty, but I eventually got some hits with the 1910–1949 birth index. Seven children had been born to six couples in the relevant vicinity and time frame. Of course, I didn’t know for sure that my mystery man had any children, but it seemed a reasonable possibility, so now it was a matter of narrowing the field.

I researched each of the six men. Not surprisingly, all had married French women, but a couple had birth dates that suggested they were too old to be the fellow I was seeking. Another struck me as unlikely as he was a naturalized American citizen from Romania, and my father, hailing from a Slavic family himself would have inevitably remarked on the man’s origins and accent. But all this was a bit speculative. Fortunately, I was able to eliminate several because U.S. records showed that they had moved back to the States well before the 1960s. I was soon down to two. What could I use as a tie-breaker? Maybe passport photos? Yes! Both had photos taken in the 1920s. One of them was almost bald even as a young man, so it had to be the other one.

I was now looking at Charles William Anderson along with his wife and daughter. After all this time, I finally knew his name, and it made me smile to have spotted him with his own toddler.

Passport photos as seen on Ancestry

I’ll detour for a moment for those who might be new to research to mention that it’s often worth checking whether a particular resource is available in more than one site as a quick look into FamilySearch’s full-text collection turned up a much cleaner version of this same image.

Same photos as seen in FamilySearch’s full-text collection

I was confident I had the right man, but genealogists can never get enough substantiation, so the final leg of my research was tracing his family forward and reaching out to his descendants. One of them — surprised, but pleased to be contacted out of the blue — responded and confirmed that the man in the slide was indeed Charles W. Anderson, a fellow she recalled as her kindly grandfather.

It had taken much longer than I would have wished, but my own unknown soldier now has a name. If Dad were still with us, today would have been his 90th birthday, and while he’s not here to tell, I’d like to think that somehow he and Charles know. Happy birthday, Dad, and thanks for indulging this one-time toddler, Charles.

Note: While I occasionally use AI for image-generation, all my articles are written by me and AI images will be identified as such.

The post Identifying the Mystery Man in My Baby Photo appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Rob Mac travels back to the 1700s for Ancestry.com commercial – So here’s a partnership I didn’t see coming: Ancestry and Wrexham AFC.

The Quest for Annie Moore of Ellis Island – Kind words from Mags Gaulden for “The Quest for Annie Moore of Ellis Island.”

Photo by danyl russo on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, April 29 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Searching for Sisters: A Guide to Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States – All genealogists with any Catholic heritage will want to swallow this book as soon as possible. In “Searching for Sisters,” Sunny McClellan Morton unlocks the key to the long-neglected treasure trove of records pertaining to sisters and nuns. You’ll learn how to find and request them, what to expect, and how to use what you’ve discovered to both tell their stories and push your family’s research forward. A handful of case studies walk you through the process and reveal the kind of gems that can be uncovered. Add it to your library today!

80 million people globally claim Irish ancestry – why the release of 1926 Irish census records is so momentous – Countdown!

Photo Credit: Public Domain

The post Genealogy Roundup, April 22 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

The Quest for Annie Moore of Ellis Island – As this is the last day of March which is both Women’s History Month and Irish-American Heritage Month, I’m sharing links for my book about Annie Moore, the Irish teenager who was the first to arrive at Ellis Island. If you enjoy sleuthing for pockets of history, I think this might appeal to you!

The Woman Who Refuses to Let History Disappear – Whoa! So grateful for this lovely profile by Christina Stanton! Henceforce, please refer to me as “the woman who refuses to let history disappear”!

Photo by Nahrizul Kadri on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, April 1 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

This case was tough because the soldier was both an immigrant and foster child, but I did indeed find relatives from his birth family who could provide DNA reference samples, so I think there’s probably more to the story than is shared here.

Regardless, welcome home Sgt. Roger Laurent Raoul Duquesne. Honored to have researched your family. #hero #KoreanWar

Photo by Joe Richmond on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, March 11 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

After 70 years overseas, he returns to complete the genealogy – Way back on the first TV show I ever worked on, I got to tackle a story involving a Chinese woman who had a family tree that went back 4000 years! This is an article about finding the *recent* missing piece of the puzzle! Fun video, too.

Green-Wood Merchandise Design Contest – If you’ve got some artistic flair, here’s a chance to design for Green-Wood, an amazing cemetery!

Photo by Alyssa Coulter on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, February 18 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

WWII soldier missing since Bataan Death March identified, finally returning home – Local news piece about one the soldiers I researched who’s been identified. While I appreciate that they told this story, it sort of insinuates that the family couldn’t be found or wasn’t all that involved, and I can tell you that they definitely were and are. My guess is that they couldn’t get one of them to interview so took this fellow-veteran approach, and while that’s fine, I wish they had mentioned that James McKinley Walker’s family is very much in the mix. In fact, they were the ones who decided to bury him there. #genealogy

Reclaim The Records Year in Review 2025 – Worth taking a few minutes to see all that Reclaim the Records has done for us just in 2025! #genealogy

Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, January 7 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

‘The hidden engine room’: how amateur historians are powering genealogical research – A salute to dedicated genealogists who create resources for all of us!

Christmas on Ellis Island.

Marriage and the Maiden Name – Interesting discussion

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, December 31 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.