About This Blog

First posted on June 11, 2009

I have been researching Hunterdon County, New Jersey families since 1981 when I started my house history business. Along the way, I have collected a lot of information. I have also written articles for the Hunterdon Historical Newsletter, the Delaware Twp. newsletter called The Bridge, and the website The Delaware Township Post. Sometimes, a genealogical question will spark my curiosity, and send me searching for answers. But each answer leads to a new question, taking me farther and farther along until I end up with a good story, and the need to share it.

I hope that people who know even more about these Hunterdon families will add to the story and make corrections whenever I jump to the wrong conclusion. This brings up the question of sources.

Many many years ago, as a beginner genealogist, I made the common mistake of neglecting to note my sources. Like many people, I learned the hard way how essential it is to keep good track of your sources. Sources give you grounding, especially when family trees grow large. These days it is much easier to keep track of sources, thanks to the internet. However, helpful as they are, online family trees are not reliable. If I have no better source than an online tree, I will add a caution. When I have real sources to rely on, I will include them. But I do not want my blog to be loaded down with attributions, so I have created some separate pages for sources.

As for content, along with genealogies, I may write about institutions like schools, churches, local government, or mills, stores, cemeteries. There is enough material here to keep me going for years. Some articles I have written in the past can be found on The Delaware Township Post. You might wonder why I don’t just keep sending articles to the Post instead of doing this blog. A blog is more casual, more personal. I have a better chance of getting a dialogue with readers this way. Some of my blogs may turn into stories for the Post.

On the down side, a blog has no editor, other than me. The articles I published in the Delaware Post benefited greatly from the editorial process. But many of the items I will post here will not concern Delaware Township families, or if they do, are not quite material for the Post website.

Another place to learn about old Hunterdon families is the Rootsweb mailing list for Hunterdon (NJHUNTER@rootsweb.com) where a lot of genealogical questions have been asked and answered. I will continue to read those emails and answer people’s questions when I can, and ask even more. But the longer articles I want to write are not appropriate there.

This is an experiment. I’ve just read an article about how thousands of bloggers give up after awhile. That might happen to me too. If this blog fails to interest readers or turns into more than I can handle, it will go the way of those others, off into the ether. We shall see.

On the subject of Corrections:   Whenever one of my readers discovers I've made a mistake, or when new information turns up in later research, my practice will be to write a post recognizing the Sharp Reader who caught one of my goofs; then amend the original post with correct information; and (following the practice of the New York Times) make a note at the bottom that the original was amended.