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Time for More Research
Did my ancestor go from being a business owner to becoming a medical doctor late in his life? Or had I found two separate people? William Claude Montgomery (1883-1939), my 1st cousin 3X removed,…
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A Kansan with Chutzpah
Was my great great-grandfather’s relocation to America courageous? Or was it an audacious, ill-advised undertaking that happily worked out? I recently returned from a week in London. When I first planned this trip, I…
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Living to Tell the Tale
Dead men tell no tales, but when those left behind do—a fellow family historian reminds us—their stories often reveal more than any records. This week I read a very moving piece by a fellow…
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I Read the News Today. Oh Boy!
Newspaper clippings can reveal a lot about an ancestor. Maybe too much. In the years I’ve been researching family history, I have found that my subscription to Newspapers.com has been a valuable resource, primarily…
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The Specter of My 5th Great-Grandfather
What if one could actually speak with a dead ancestor? I remember first “discovering” my 5th great-grandfather Michael Antoine Garoutte (1750-1829). I had known for some time that my ethnic background was almost exclusively…
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Walking a Mile in My Ancestors’ Combat Boots
Genealogy and a family trip have made the sacrifices of members of the military and their families more real for me. I was tasked from the prompt at the end of this essay to…
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Picher: “America’s Most Toxic Town”
When your birthplace is designated a superfund site, you truly can’t go home again. If you ask my father where he comes from, he would say Joplin, Missouri. He lived there from a relatively…
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A Three-Generation “Hand Me Down”
My granduncle’s car saw the country, well after his death. Tasked with writing about something “long-lasting” with regard to my ancestors, I thought that I had a compelling subject. In researching the essay, however,…
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Do Not Utter a Word
In the 1960s, 1970s, and before, family members’ previous marriage(s) were rarely discussed. When I was in elementary school, there was a locally-produced children’s television show called Uncle Zeb’s Cartoon Camp. It aired from…
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