Family Stories

Family history is all about stories. But sometimes those stories can get lost in the lists of names, dates, and places that good genealogists love to find. While those lists contain important pieces of the complex puzzle of an ancestor’s life and are necessary to good research, they are not the story. And sometimes those details, when recounted in excruciating detail, can detract from the story, resulting in those eye-rolls and stifled yawns that the detail-oriented genealogist is so familiar with.

So here you will find the stories of my family in short form - just the interesting bits. 500 words. Of course, I am also doing the background research that is essential to good genealogy - I just won’t tell you about all of it. If you are interested in the details, a PDF family tree for each family can be downloaded here. Please reach out if you want more information about anything you read here, or if you can add new information.

Book Reviews

For my genealogy ‘family’, I am compiling a series of short (of course!) reviews of genealogy-related books. The reviews will not follow the usual book review format – rather, they will just briefly summarize the contents, note any highlights and my opinion on their usefulness. This project was started for my own personal research, but the reviews might also be useful for others researching in the same areas.