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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 […]
What Is It About Boxes? Writing Challenge
Posted on August 31, 2022 4 Comments
I am rather sure I was a cat in a previous life. Don’t all cats love boxes? box. noun: a container with a flat base and sides, typically square or rectangular and having a lid. I love boxes—all sorts of boxes. Big cardboard appliance boxes, the kind we made into forts or houses or castles. […]
Property Map Treasure Hunts: Finding the Places Your Ancestors Lived
Posted on August 29, 2022 5 Comments
One of the many wonders of Google Maps is the ability to travel down many streets and roads via “Street View.” And then of course there is aerial view that allows you to locate your ancestors properties of a bygone area by comparing old Platt and Ownership Maps with current ones. I am always amazed […]
And What About Frank?: A Soprano’s Aria Chapter 37
Posted on August 8, 2022 7 Comments
Not everyone in our family trees are people we admire. Sometimes they are unsavory characters that people want to bury the details of—but I think we need to know about the good bad and the ugly. Here’s my follow-up piece to Lulu’s diary. This is Lulu’s husband Franklin “Frank” Stewart MOSIER my great grandfather. Frank […]
When Genealogical Evidence is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong
Posted on August 8, 2022 5 Comments
The great thing about having half a century of genealogical research under my belt is that it’s easy to recognize when an official has got it very wrong. But what about when you are starting out and you tend to take these pieces of evidence: birth, marriage, death, census records as pronouncements of truth? Well […]
Genealogy Intersections: Revisiting the 1719 Deed of Little Packington in Warwickshire
Posted on August 7, 2022 Leave a Comment
You can’t do genealogy for long before you realize what a small world we live in and how everything and everyone seems to have some sort of relationship. I call these genealogical intersections and they often crop up when doing gophering. I wrote about a very important one in my story of A Tale of […]
The Circle Game: Loss and Healing
Posted on July 26, 2022 17 Comments
Dear Readers you may be wondering where I have been. I have been wondering that too. If one has lived a half century or more one has endured loss. Sometimes the losses are monumental like death or war, and sometimes so subtle we may hardly notice them. Then one day you wake-up to the passage […]
A Love Letter to Young Genealogists
Posted on June 11, 2022 9 Comments
Dear Young Genealogist, Once upon a time I was you. I always had an interest in the past and unlike many of my peers I enjoyed hanging out with old people (gray haired retirees). I liked their stories and their points of view. I tried to imagine living through life without cars and planes and […]
Heirlooms: The Family Bible & a Lundberg Coincidence
Posted on May 17, 2022 3 Comments
We all have bits and pieces of the family puzzle that get passed down through various branches of a family
Let’s Talk About Death
Posted on April 11, 2022 1 Comment
Family Historians and genealogists should be ever mindful of what happens to all their hard work and accumulated books and files when they depart this life, for good. Some recent deaths and illnesses of family and friends reminded me the best time to prepare is long before we think we need to.
Wheaton Wood 