Got a particular surname to research? Genforum offers simplicity, versatility

Interested in a particular surname? Then you’ll want to know about Genforum, sponsored by genealogy.com.

It’s really simple. Go to http://genforum.genealogy.com/surname, substituting whatever last name you like where it says surname.

(Last week I mistakenly wrote that the address for the Web site began with www, but it doesn’t. My apologies.)

And the great thing is that you can browse the messages people have written about your surname of interest, which may give you clues even if you don’t want to post a message yourself.

A few years ago I really struck gold browsing the Genforum page for the Irish surname Given. Seeing one message that mentioned Thomas Given, my great-great-grandfather from New Brunswick, I answered it and got a reply from a Canadian woman who knew that Thomas’ parents, my immigrant ancestors, were James Given and Margaret Orr from Ireland. Moreover, this woman remembered my own great-grandmother, Tress Given Steeves, who came from New Brunswick and used to go back to Saint John to visit.

Small world!

I’ve also posted a question on the Hildreth page, looking for the parents of my Henry T. Hildreth, supposedly born 1787 in Hopkinton, N.H., who brought his family to Greenville in the 1800s. No clues yet, but I’ll keep trying. I don’t think of Hildreth as all that common a name, even if we did have a Gov. Horace Hildreth, but the posts on Genforum lead me to believe that there have been Hildreths just about everywhere in this country.

I’ve browsed the Haskell page, too, since I have at least a couple of lines back to William, one of the three brothers who came over from England to Massachusetts in 1636.

Actually, you don’t even have to pick out a surname to use Genforum. Just go to http://genforum.genealogy.com and browse the list of pages by letter of the alphabet. That may help you in finding different spellings of the surname you seek, or remind you of a surname you forgot you had in your listings.

Or browse by state or topic to see who wants to know what about whom. That can be interesting, too.

Did you know that by 1850, the city of Bangor was almost 20 percent Irish?

Consider marking St. Patrick’s Day a little late by hearing John Frawley speak on “The Irish – What Brought Them Here,” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 21, in the Lecture Hall at Bangor Public Library. This is a meeting of the Penobscot County Genealogical Society.

In other news, PCGS and Wassebec Genealogical Society will sponsor a tour of the Maine State Library at noon Saturday, March 24. Afterward, the library is open for research until 5 p.m.

The tour is limited to 20 participants. Sign up by e-mailing Dale Mower at dale@mower-family.com. Spaces will be filled first-come, first-served.

The Washington County Genealogical Society Inc. will hold its first meeting of the 2007 season at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 17, at the Peavey Memorial Library in Eastport.

Organized in 1992, the society has as its purpose to collect, exchange and preserve related documents and information, and to promote and encourage interest and scholarship in genealogy and family history in Washington County, Maine.

Membership in the WCGS is open to anyone interested in learning more about their family genealogy and history, especially in Washington County and neighboring Charlotte County, New Brunswick.

The group meets March to November, with the exception of July and August. Dues are $10 per year. Members receive a quarterly newsletter, “Weirs & Woods,” which features free queries, information and the exchange of genealogical material.

For further information, contact president Frances Raye at 853-6630, or secretary Valdine Atwood at 255-4432.

Regarding the list of World War II town “service pages” of military men and women we printed a few weeks back, Dorothy Mitchell Simmons of Bangor sent me a photocopy of “Blanchard Men in the Service,” the small portion of a BDN page that honored 10 men: Reginald Blanchard, Kenneth Blanchard, Sheldon Blanchard, Edmund Donahoe, James Mitchell, Carroll Mitchell, Charles Mitchell Jr., Milton Goodale, Lewis Bray and Clayton Evans.

But, the clipping has no date on it. Does anyone know when Blanchard’s “page” ran in the Bangor Daily News? Let me know.

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402; or familyti@bangordailynews.net.