What Secrets are in Your Family’s Closet?

Author Diana Raab made some interesting discoveries about her family history.  The first is a sad discovery, one that no one wants to find – her grandmother’s suicide.  The other discovery is one that every genealogist longs for – her grandmother’s journal.  In Regina’s Closet, she tells her grandmother’s life story in a mix of [...]

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Blog Update and Other Musings

I wanted to post a note about some updates I made to this blog.  First, I re-categorized my posts and added a Category box on the sidebar in case a specific category is of interest to you.  Next, I added three PDF fils for some of my recent articles.  Copies of “20 Best Sites for [...]

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How the Irish Saved Civilization

I always look forward to reading the latest edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture, but I’m always disappointed that I can’t join in.  I have no Irish ancestry, and I haven’t had time to research my friends’ Irish genealogies or my niece’s Irish genes.  So I’m thrilled that the latest topic for [...]

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Haller’s Army

One unusual record source for those with Polish ancestry is Haller’s Army records.  What was Haller’s Army?  During World War I, Poland did not exist on any “official” map of the world.  General Jozef Haller formed a regiment of Poles in France to join the fight in the name of their homeland, with the ultimate [...]

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Age: By the Numbers

“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.” ~ Mark Twain
The 52nd edition of the Carnival of Genealogy focuses on the topic of “age”:
Take some time to look over the data that you have collected on members of your family tree, and share [...]

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Home: A Place in the Heart

This edition of Smile for the Camera: A Carnival of Images celebrates home.  Home is something very personal, and I didn’t think I could capture it in one image.  Words also proved inadequate to the task, for home involves feelings and emotion as much as a physical place.  Here is my rendition, in both images [...]

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Famous Lives

Sometimes we forget that “stars” are people, too.  And as regular folks just like us, their genealogy can be traced with the resources we all use online.
I was saddened to hear of the death of actress and dancer Cyd Charisse on June 17.  I knew her date of birth to be March 8, which happens [...]

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My Grandfather Served in the CCC…Sort Of – Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about CCC records as a resource in Civilian Conservation Corps: A Genealogical Resource – Part 1.  When I first started my genealogical research, I decided to find out more about CCC records because my grandfather supposedly served in the Corps.
My father remembered his dad talking about the CCC, but he didn’t know any [...]

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Civilian Conservation Corps: A Genealogical Resource – Part 1

The CCC, or the Civilian Conservation Corps, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. In 1933 during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt found a unique way to combat the country’s unemployment crisis. The Civilian Conservation Corps was created on March 21, 1933 and today is one of the best known results [...]

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Where in the World…

…have I been?  I’m back to the U.S. in time for the celebration of Independence Day!  I enjoyed a very relaxing vacation – no work, no genealogy, no writing, no blogging, no computers, no worries.
First stop: Venice.  Despite multiple trips to Italy, one of my favorite places in the world, I had never been there.  [...]

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