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The Footnotes of History: Duane F Mosier as Witness
Posted on December 16, 2025 3 Comments
Most of us will never even make it into the footnotes. I was lucky that my Dad made it, not just once but many times. He was never famous but he had encounters with those who were. Billions of people living and dead are witnesses to history-making events or persons, but unless they wrote about it, […]
Family History Writing: Telling Our Stories
Posted on December 15, 2025 2 Comments
Writing about oneself, especially in retrospect, is always a dangerous undertaking. Do you tell the truth and risk being seen in a bad light? Or do you soften the edges to make it more palatable? Will it be considered your own brand of narcissistic, revisionist drivel or worse yet will it mean a damn thing […]
They Came to America: The Immigrant Experience
Posted on November 22, 2025 5 Comments
The loved ones we call the dead, depart from us and for a while are absent. And then as if called back by our love, they come near us again. They enter our dreams.We feel they have been near us when we have not thought of them.They are simply here, simply waiting while we are […]
Writing Challenge: Choose Your Own Adventure Genealogy Style
Posted on September 19, 2025 Leave a Comment
First crossroads. Heaven, hell or purgatory. Your choice. Second crossroad. Which ancestor will you choose? Third quest. You will have 20 minutes to come up with a list of questions to ask your chosen ancestor. This may be a brick wall ancestor and your first question is where were you born? Or who were your […]
Bluebells and Dandelion Wishes
Posted on July 18, 2025 Leave a Comment
Some of you who follow my blog posts will note a bit of a long pause in my posts about my trip to England. Perhaps a bit of an explanation is in order. This post is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Jean WHEATON. Her children have written to me how much she […]
Fleshing out the Story: Context Matters
Posted on January 26, 2025 1 Comment
How do we go from avid genealogist to storyteller? How do we bring a single ancestor back to life? How do we take a set of facts, essential the bones of our ancestors life, and tell their story as a three dimensional ancestor that you want others to know more about? Research of course! There’s […]
The Trouble with Clowns: Self disclosure in Writing
Posted on May 2, 2024 3 Comments
This piece is very short but it speaks volumes about who I am as a person and some of my early relationships without telling the story of who I am in a typical autobiographical style. All writing is biographical no matter what you write about, because you are always disclosing bits and pieces of yourself. […]
The Fear of Writing Family History Stories
Posted on May 1, 2024 2 Comments
In my last genealogy class, a member said, “now I see why you want us to write stories!” I got to thinking about all the things that hold us back. Here’s a non-comprehensive list: So let’s take that last one first: “I don’t know what to write about.” This one is easy, pick anything. Pick […]
“The Wild Inside”: Our Grizzly Ancestry
Posted on April 21, 2024 3 Comments
This like many stories is a web of what connects us to a past. A spark alights, a memory leads us to our own wild insides. We think we stand alone, but we are connected even to our extinct past. Man and beast we are the same, yet different. Our most innate drives and passions […]
OUR LEGACY: Leaving Breadcrumbs
Posted on February 20, 2024 3 Comments
In my genealogy class last week, I was asked, “why do you write“. My first answer was I write for myself. My second answer was I write for posterity. But since then I have been pondering this provocative question. Which really is a broader question? Why do we exist? What are we here for? What […]
Wheaton Wood 