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Genealogy Blog

17 June 2013

Swedish Workers Dig Up 400-Year-Old Soldier

A man in southern Sweden was shocked to uncover a human skeleton just 20 centimetres under the ground near a public beach, remains that archaeologists believe belong to a fallen soldier from the Danish occupation of Sweden in the early 1600s.

Ronny Gustavsson, head of the Kalmar municipality service project, was on the scene soon after the workers found the bones while digging for a beach extension project in the area. While the digger itself crushed a hole in the skeleton's skull, Gustavsson says the bones have weathered the centuries well.

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14 June 2013

Long-Lost Diary of Nazi Alfred Rosenberg Expected to Bring 'New Insight' Into Hitler's Inner Circle

Hundreds of pages of the long-lost diary kept by one of Adolf Hitler's advisors were recovered by federal officials, who said today they hope the discovery will be an "important record" of crimes perpetrated during the Holocaust.

The diary, which was penned by Alfred Rosenberg, is roughly 400 pages of loose-leaf paper and spans from 1936 to 1944, according to a statement from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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10 June 2013

Missing Document Signed by Lincoln Accidentally Found at Pennsylvania College

A long-missing certificate with Abraham Lincoln's signature was found last week at a college in Pennsylvania by the school president, who knew it was there but had never looked for it. James Douthat, the retiring president of Lycoming College, was cleaning out his closet when he found the 150-year-old document.

Douthat was pulling out what he thought was an access panel to plumbing when he discovered a framed certificate, dated 1863, which named the college’s founder a Civil War chaplain, according to The Associated Press.

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7 June 2013

New North America Viking Voyage Discovered

Some 1,000 years ago, the Vikings set off on a voyage to Notre Dame Bay in modern-day Newfoundland, Canada, new evidence suggests.

The journey would have taken the Vikings, also called the Norse, from L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the same island to a densely populated part of Newfoundland and may have led to the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous people of the New World.

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Long-Forgotten WWII Disaster Fund Set Up in 1940 After German Bomber Crashed Onto Residential Essex Street Uncovered With £1,700 Still In The Account

On April 30, 1940, Frederick Gill and his wife Dorothy became the first British civilian casualties of WWII when a German bomber loaded with mines slammed onto their home in Calcton, Essex.

The twin-engined Heinkel, which had been circling over the seaside town for about 30 minutes, smashed into the quiet residential Victoria Street, obliterating most of the Gills' home.

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4 June 2013

'Amazingly Rare' Letter Written by Robert the Bruce to Edward II Found

An unknown and "amazingly rare" letter written by Robert the Bruce at a pivotal point of the Wars of Scottish Independence has been uncovered by a Scottish academic.

In the letter, the fearsome Scottish warrior appeals to the English King Edward II for an end to “persecution and disturbance”. It was sent in 1310, less than four years before Bannockburn, the victory that paved the way for Scottish independence.

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3 June 2013

'World's Oldest Torah' Found At World's Oldest University

The priceless scroll was found in the archives of Bologna University, which was founded in 1088 and predates both Oxford and Cambridge.

The scroll, written in Hebrew, is 118ft long and 25 inches wide and consists of the first five books of the Jewish Bible, from Bereshit (the equivalent of Genesis) to Devarim (Deuteronomy). It had been wrongly dated to the 17th century by a librarian who studied it in 1889, but it now transpires that it is more than 800 years old.

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31 May 2013

World War I Truce: Newly-Discovered Letters Reveal Many British Troops Wanted To Shoot Germans Not To Play Football

Newly discovered letters have revealed that many British troops did not want to play ball when it came to the Christmas Day truce of 1914. Previously unpublished messages from the Western Front describe how an entire regiment refused to take part in the festive ceasefire with the enemy.

Instead, the ­Scottish Seaforth Highlanders threatened to shoot Germans who tried to “fraternize”. The First World War truce saw more than 100,000 British and German soldiers lower their weapons and leave trenches to exchange gifts.

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30 May 2013

Newly Discovered Prisoner Journal Donated To Auschwitz by Widow of US Lieutenant Clifford Hensel

Auschwitz-Birkenau museum said on Wednesday it had acquired a newly discovered journal written and illustrated by Polish prisoners of the former Nazi German death camp in southern Poland.

The three inmates' hand-made memoirs, which include poems and pen-and-ink and watercolour drawings of gas chambers and a hanging, were donated by the widow of a US war veteran, museum spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel told AFP.

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Amelia Earhart's Plane Revealed in Sonar?

A grainy sonar image captured off an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati might represent the remains of the Electra, the two-engine aircraft legendary aviator Amelia Earhart was piloting when she vanished on July 2, 1937 in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.

Released by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating Earhart's last, fateful flight, the images show an "anomaly" resting at the depth of about 600 feet in the waters off Nikumaroro island, some 350 miles southeast of Earhart's target destination, Howland Island.

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27 May 2013

Newly Discovered Samuel Knibb Clock That Survived Great Fire of London Shows Its Face At Bonhams

A previously unrecorded architectural table clock made circa 1665 by the famed horologist Samuel Knibb, just before the Great Fire of London (1666), has been discovered by the Clock Department at Bonhams.

One of only five such gems of the clock trade known, the 350-year old timepiece is estimated to sell for £150,000 to £200,000 at the upcoming Fine Clocks sale on 9th July at Bonhams, New Bond Street.

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24 May 2013

King Richard III Found in 'Untidy Lozenge-Shaped Grave'

An academic paper on the archaeology of the Search for Richard III reveals for the first time specific details of the grave dug for King Richard III and discovered under a car park in Leicester.

The paper reveals: Richard III was casually placed in a badly prepared grave -- suggesting gravediggers were in a hurry to bury him; he was placed in an 'odd position' and the torso crammed in; the grave was 'too short' at the bottom to receive the body conventionally; someone is likely to have stood in the grave to receive the body -- suggested by the fact the body is on one side rather than placed centrally; there is evidence to suggest Richard's hands may have been tied when he was buried.

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22 May 2013

1,000 Year Old African Coins Could Rewrite Australian History

Five copper coins and a nearly 70-year-old map with an ‘‘X’’ might lead to a discovery that could rewrite Australia’s history. Australian scientist Ian McIntosh, currently Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University in the US, plans an expedition in July that has stirred up the archaeological community.

The scientist wants to revisit the location where five coins were found in the Northern Territory in 1944 that have proven to be 1000 years old, opening up the possibility that seafarers from distant countries might have landed in Australia much earlier than what is currently believed.

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21 May 2013

'Whodunnit' of Irish Potato Famine Solved

An international team of scientists reveals that a unique strain of potato blight they call HERB-1 triggered the Irish potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century.

Phytophthora infestans changed the course of history. Even today, the Irish population has still not recovered to pre-famine levels. "We have finally discovered the identity of the exact strain that caused all this havoc," says Hernán Burbano from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.

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Medieval Church Found Beneath Lincoln Castle in England

A previously undiscovered church, thought to be at least 1,000 years old, has been found beneath Lincoln Castle. It is believed the stone church was built in the Anglo-Saxon period, after the Romans left Britain and before the Norman conquest of 1066.

Lincolnshire County Council said the find was unexpected and will increase its knowledge of uphill Lincoln. Human skeletons were also found in the same area three metres (9.8 ft) below the surface.

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