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 A precolonization map of the Northeast, showing Abenaki homeland, at the Musee des Abenakis.

Review of Records Fails to Support Local Leaders’ Claims of Abenaki Ancestry

Questions are swirling in New Hampshire around attempts by two local groups to gain tribal recognition.
Petroglyphs in southern Wyoming, probably dating to the early 17th century, include well-preserved images of horses and riders, depicted with riding equipment and shields.

Horse Nations

After the Spanish conquest, horses transformed Native American tribes much earlier than historians thought.
A courtroom or public civic room full of people, with white and black people sitting on opposite sides of a railing.

When Tribal Nations Expel Their Black Members

Clashes between sovereignty rights and civil rights reveal an uncomfortable and complicated story about race and belonging in America.
Graph of immigrants showing a peak of western/Northern Europe in 1860, a peak of southern/Eastern Europe in 1910, and a peak of all other locations ca. 2018.

Today’s Newcomers Succeed Just As Quickly As Ellis Island Immigrants

Using records digitized in part by amateur genealogists, economists have upended conventional wisdom about which immigrants succeed and why.
Family register sampler sewed by Abigail Barnard, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1833.
Exhibit

Finding Ancestors

The many ways of knowing those who came before us.

Statue of a man reading to children: the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial, Annapolis, Maryland.

Black Genealogy After Alex Haley’s Roots

"A lot has been hidden from Black Americans. And so there is always a longing to know who you are and where you come from.”
DNA strand.

Finding Our Roots? History and DNA

DNA tests have become popular tools to rediscover lost ties to the past, but the links they forge do not always stand up to historical scrutiny.
Joe Biden

How Joe Biden Became Irish

The president has skillfully played up his Irish roots, but the story of his ancestry is more complicated.
Hungerford Deed

New Analysis Reveals More Details About Smithsonian Founder's Illegitimate Family Tree

The newly recovered 1787 Hungerford Deed, detailing a contentious squabble over property and prestige, can now be viewed in a new virtual exhibition.
FDR's cabinet and descendants

The Unusual Group Trying to Turn Biden into FDR

In a city of ambitious influencers, a shadow cabinet hopes it can summon a new New Deal.
Illustration of the Salem Witch Trials, with a "witch" appearing to levitate books

My Witch-Hunt History, and America's: A Personal Journey to 1692

Revisiting America's first witch hunt — and discovering how much of it was a family affair. My family, that is.
Statue of "Freedom" on top of the U.S. Capitol

Philip Reed, The Enslaved Man Who Rescued Freedom

The ironies abound in the story of Reed, who made it possible to erect the statue that remains on the top of the Capitol dome today.
A mural of a woman cleaning a turnstile.

How to Remember a Plague

2020 was full of efforts to archive photos and artifacts of the pandemic — an impulse born of a sense of witnessing history, and a desire to speak to the future.

Aaron Burr — Villain of ‘Hamilton’ — Had a Secret Family of Color, New Research Shows

The vice president is best known for killing rival Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel. But he was also a notorious rake, historians say.

Beyond Romantic Advertisements: Ancestry.com, Genealogy, and White Supremacy

On Ancestry's dangerous move to make it harder to discern which white families owned slaves.

Our Twisted DNA

A review of "She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity."
Bearded civil war soldier.

Who’s Behind That Beard?

Historians are using facial recognition software to identify people in Civil War photographs.

Ancestry.com Is In Cahoots With Public Records Agencies, A Group Suspects

A nonprofit claims its request for genealogical records from state archives was brushed aside in favor of Ancestry’s request.
partner

How Pocahontas—The Myth and the Slur—Props Up White Supremacy

The roots of the attacks on Elizabeth Warren.

How Our Grandmothers Disappeared Into History

A historian turned novelist ponders the absence of women from America's historical archives.

The Liberal Delusion of #ResistanceGenealogy

The effort to dig up information about the immigrant ancestors of prominent Trumpsters is doing more harm than good.

Haunted by History

War, famine and persecution inflict profound changes on bodies and brains. Could these changes persist over generations?

Slavery and the American University

Determined researchers are finally drawing the lines between higher education and America's original sin.

'This Is Surreal': Descendants of Slaves and Slaveowners Meet On US Plantation

At Prospect Hill, people came from as far as Liberia for an unlikely gathering that led to a scene of visible emotion – with ‘a lot to talk about.'

For New Mexico Families, Connecting the Dots of an Ancestral Disease

A genetic mutation in some New Mexico communities can be traced to a common ancestor who came to the area more than 400 years ago.

White Nationalists Flock to Genetic Ancestry Tests. Some Don't Like What They Find

With the rise of spit-in-a-cup genetic testing, white nationalists are turning to science to "prove" their racial identity.

She Thought She Was Irish — Until a DNA Test Opened a 100-Year-Old Mystery

How Alice Collins Plebuch’s foray into “recreational genomics” upended a family tree.

Why Do So Many Americans Think They Have Cherokee Blood?

The history of a myth.

The Ledger

In researching his family's past, the author learns of his ancestors' efforts to thrive despite the confines of racial oppression.
Cartoon of crooked Oliver Hartzell with his arm around an apprehensive Sir Francis Drake.

The Mythical Fortune That Fuelled America’s Greatest Fraud

Oscar Hartzell convinced thousands of Americans that they could get a piece of the Sir Francis Drake estate—a multibillion-dollar inheritance that didn’t exist.
Lee Pattie Registrar's Report

Trouble with the Brothers: Booze, Divorce, and Madness in the American West

The past really is a foreign country, as historian Jonathan Ablard finds when piecing together the turbulent history of his ancestors in the West and Midwest.

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