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 write about how finding out something about an ancestor had changed how I view that ancestor. I’m deviating from the script… Continue reading Walking a Mile in My Ancestors’ Combat Boots
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 young age, graduating from Joplin High School. Sometime after he graduated, my grandparents moved to Lawrence, Kansas. I remember visiting them… Continue reading Picher: “America’s Most Toxic Town”
Learning of an ancestor's conscription by the British Navy brings to mind…opera. One of my favorite things about genealogy research is how, in the course of trying to better understand the context of the records I find, it then becomes necessary to do even more research, often about American or European history. Learning or refreshing… Continue reading James Cathcart in the Darbies
