Genealogy can surprise us. We often get quite different perspectives on the people in our personal past from what we might have gotten had we lived in their day. I think it would be an unusual genealogist that didn’t at some point wish that they could journey back in time to meet an ancestor. Often […]
Old Time Compassion Read More »
It is not without some trepidation that I sit down to enter the world of 1940 census blogging. So much has already been written that I’m somewhat afraid of boring the already over-informed. On the other hand, I love to explore the census and to write nothing before April 2, simply seems wrong. In Case
Like so many others in the U.S. I’ve been working on my taxes. It is that time of year. As a family historian, my mind naturally drifts to a time before TurboTax, stacks of receipts even before real tax forms. When Congress approved the first ever income tax during the American Civil War, it was
Last week I asked a cousin if she had some pictures that had belonged to her mother, my Aunt Melva, who recently passed away. My cousin’s husband said, “Oh I have those scanned and put on CD. Do you want one? I can get it to you next week.” Yes, I certainly did want one.
You Never Know Until You Ask Read More »
In American genealogy, unless you only have Native American blood, you will eventually run up against an immigrant. At least you probably hope to reach back in time however far as is needed. We all have roots elsewhere. Culturally, we even have roots in places where our ancestors never lived. Many of those physical roots
Urban, Ethnic America, The Irish Way Read More »
This week, true to the name of the blog, I’ll be meditating. It has been a busy week. I’m working on several projects, gave a talk and have three more coming up that need preparation. I attended a genealogy get-together at our library, have an article for a quarterly to write and on Wednesday I
Life, Death and Genealogy Read More »
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” -Albert Einstein That is an intriguing quote. When you first encounter it, that quote doesn’t have the feel of something that a scientist, a pursuer of knowledge, would say. Surely, dreaming of polka-dotted unicorns is not what he was putting above knowledge. It isn’t really. There is more to
Learning and Imagining Read More »
The other day my older daughter was talking with a friend about what her parents do. She told her friend that I’m a professional genealogist. After a moment the friend replied, “What does he do, study lamps?” When I heard the story it took me a moment, or perhaps two, in order to realize that
This is not the post I planned to write. In fact, given colds, kids activities, a four-day weekend from school, a surprise party for a daughter, several chapters of a draft of a book I’m trying to get ready for a test printing, a few talks I’m working on, etc, etc, my “plan” amounted to
Yesterday, I was reading National Geographic, which is an excellent thing to do when you have a cold and need to sit down and relax. Even better, it inspired a blog post I can fit in between sneezes. In the December 2011 issue, I noticed a wonderful diagram. It is a diagram that explains an
Footnotes on my Footnotes Read More »