I’ve seen some pretty impressive walls in my life. I admit I’ve never visited the Great Wall in China but I have seen Hadrian’s Wall. It was built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian to separate Roman Britain to the south from the tribes living in what is now Scotland—short on the scale […]
Thinking Outside the Bricks Read More »
Do you ever think about the occurrences that made you possible? It would be a very, very long list. What if you just concentrate on the odd ones—things with really low probability or very extreme outcomes that are just plain out of the ordinary? What strange things needed to happen to make you possible? I’ve
Now that my Star Wars and Harry Potter characters have gathered their last preHalloween harvest of candy corn and caramels and are fast asleep, I find my mind turning to a time when ghosts, goblins and witches were a much more serious business than my children’s Halloween costumes or a snaggletoothed grin on a jack-o-lantern.
When Witches Said neither “Trick” nor “Treat” Read More »
I’ve been looking at a lot of immigrants over the last week and I do mean a lot. So, I’ve just become interested in pushmi-pullyus for the first time since I was about 8. Sometimes circumstances push people from one country to another. Sometimes circumstances pull people to a new country. Exactly what those circumstances
Anything that isn’t sufficiently complex to look at from many different angles probably won’t hold a person’s attention for very long. There are certainly many ways to look at genealogy and the process of genealogical research. Genealogy, I’ve noticed, has been known to hold the attention of a researcher or two. One rather basic way
Three Steps to a Better (Ancestral) Life Read More »
This week I’m writing about something a little different, a genealogical occurrence but nothing to do with research techniques, wandering cemeteries or interesting records. I wrote this awhile back as something of an act of catharsis. In the end, I think I did what was right. Yet, it still bothers me the way that any
Eleventh Hour Ethics Read More »
Yesterday, I was looking at a roll of microfilm. All I was trying to do was locate a will and get a list of grandchildren that I thought I would find there. This will I knew would be buried in the minutes of town council meetings. Eventually, after stumbling upon a few useful tidbits in
You Never Know Who Is Hiding in those Details Read More »
One of our physicist friends dropped in to visit last week when she was in Chicago for meetings. It’s always nice to catch up with someone you don’t see very often and also with what is happening in physics. As usual one thing reminds of another and eventually I find myself thinking about genealogy. Sometimes
Building an Ancestor Read More »
I think almost every genealogist has or will have at least some interest in the lives of ancestors that goes beyond learning the facts necessary to find the next ancestor. For me their music is one of those aspects of their lives that holds a special fascination. I’ve always loved old music. One CD I
Researching to the Oldies Read More »
We think of names as normally fixed and, wandering spellings aside, unchanging. Our names are what they are. They are in our passports, driver’s licenses, company IDs and credit cards. All those items must have the same name upon them if we are to be able to navigate our everyday world. Not only that but
Not Quite All in the Family Read More »