About

Bringing the past into focus, bit by bit.

Ancestral Archaeologist (Liz Haigney Lynch, a k a scribbler714): Based in northern New Jersey, the Archaeologist spent her formative years in the Garden State before heading to Indiana University for a degree in journalism and German. She then bounced around the country being a copy editor and writer at a number of fine newspapers, including Greenwich Time, the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Chicago Sun-Times.

A while back the Archaeologist came home to New Jersey, where she has been a freelance writer/editor and, increasingly, obsessed with tombstones, census entries and the proceedings of obscure 19th-century state agencies. She is tons of fun at parties.

The blog is where the Archaeologist expounds upon genealogy and related family-history topics like old recipes, newspaper clippings, fuzzy memories, photographs and pets. Yes, her definition of “related” is a broad one.

Contact: 

Liz Haigney Lynch/Ancestral Archaeology • haigney.search@gmail.com

Need research in (or near) Essex County, N.J., just outside Manhattan? Give us a shout.

Also of Interest:

Here’s a bit more about the Haigney surname. Also, here are some Haigneys on a chart. 

And click here for a brief explanation about the Archaeologist’s German ancestors, the Rudroffs and Forsters who lived near Oberailsfeld, Germany.

Plus: A  collection of Haigney-related newspaper clippings from the files. It’ll be updated as transcriptions are completed.

Who is the lady in the picture? She is Maria Pauliana Forster, one of the Archaeologist’s great-aunts. Maria Pauliana was a teenager when this photograph was taken around 1920. Not long afterward, she  became a nun in a nursing order, where she spent the rest of her life. As a very old lady, she was still helping to care for patients in a nursing home just outside Munich.

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