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Family Heirlooms: Egyptian Cosmetic Spoon
Posted on August 27, 2023 5 Comments
This is an example of starting to write about a particular object and ending up with much more than you bargained for. All the memories of a beloved place come streaming back. So no matter the writing—let it take you where it wants to go. This figure sat on the coffee table of my grandparents […]
Fact or Fiction? A Revolutionary War soldier talked to a boy, who became a Civil War soldier
Posted on August 25, 2023 5 Comments
“There will be stories, and only some of them will be true.” DUANE F. MOSIER These words my Dad spoke after his diagnosis with lung cancer. They were words of wisdom he passed on to me and his grandchildren. In my The Challenge: Tokyo Rose I proved that a story he told about testifying at […]
Mind The Gap: Making the Connection to the Royal STEWARTs of Scotland
Posted on August 17, 2023 12 Comments
Sometimes you can prove a connection without being able to flesh out the in-between. Thus like the announcements at the train station “Mind the Gap.” Sometimes people grasp at anything to make the connection and falsify the record in doing so. This is part of a cautionary tale to be careful even when evaluating something […]
We Can’t Write What We Don’t Know: A Journey from the Fjords of Norway to the Shores of New York Mid 19th Century
Posted on August 8, 2023 2 Comments
If you decide you want to write about an ancestor be prepared to go down many gopher holes you never dreamed of visiting. Almost every time I decide to dig deeper into an ancestor’s story I end up researching things I never knew anything about. My last blog post Deep Diving: Water Wheels and Papermaking […]
TACKLING TRANSLATION: Helpful Hints
Posted on July 21, 2023 1 Comment
If you don’t have any non-English speaking ancestors you can skip this Blog post. However if you are like me you you will encounter French, German, Swedish, Norwegian and Dutch records in researching your ancestors. In Junior High and High School I took Spanish—and the truth be told I was never very good at it […]
If Lodvor Wasn’t Lazy, Would I be here?: Stories from Vinje, Telemark, Norway
Posted on July 16, 2023 1 Comment
It seems our destiny hinges on a billion decisions made long before we were born. The Story of Lazy Lodvor(sometimes written with a final d) who literally squandered and lost his farms, is not just the story of my 5th great-grandfather—it is likely the reason that my 2nd great grandmother Asloûg Eilefsdotter (Elizabeth OLSON VANSTRUM) […]
NICHOLAS BROME & the Three Murders: Part Four
Posted on March 3, 2023 2 Comments
When last we left Nicholas BROME we had fixed on the approximate date of the murder of the priest as about 1485. One of the challenges of trying to understand Nicholas is to understand the time and the circumstance in which he lived. Trying to do so with someone who lived 500 years ago presents […]
Photos and Postcards: Now and Then Part Two
Posted on January 27, 2023 1 Comment
This is the second post as a follow up to the first Photos and Postcards: Now and Then. I just keep running into more examples in my photo and postcard collection. This one it will take 3 to illustrate as I obviously wasn’t matching up angles. These are of St. Nicholas Church in Henley in […]
Just Say NO to Favorites! Writing challenge
Posted on November 26, 2022 4 Comments
I can’t be the only one who cringes everytime I hear the word favorite. No offense intended, but asking me for my favorite ancestor or heirloom is like asking a mother to choose a favorite child. Reminds me of those moral dilemma stories they gave us in high school, where you have to pick who […]
Unexpected Roman History Lesson While Traveling in France
Posted on November 7, 2022 3 Comments
I recently spent a couple of weeks in France. I was there to visit my son and grandson who are living there while my son is on sabbatical. Most of my travel in the past decade has been genealogy related (both in the US and Europe). Pre-trip I checked out where I would be and […]
Wheaton Wood 