Finding Family Finding Truth

While our lives could hardly be more different, I'm glad that all these years later I have the opportunity to learn a little about hers—and to call this tough little oxen-driving Wisconsin girl my great-great-grandmother.

One of the things I enjoy most about genealogy is reaching the point where the people in my tree stop looking only like a collection of names, dates and places.

A timeline can help do that.

For thirteen tense days in October 1962, the United States and Soviet Union came frighteningly close to nuclear war.

As genealogists, we spend a lot of time looking for what was written down—birth certificates, marriage records, census records and obituaries. But sometimes what wasn’t written down is even more interesting.

Sometimes the most interesting things in a box of old family photographs aren’t necessarily our family at all.

This photograph is a great example.

The little boy pictured here is Charles Dempsey Floyd, the son of one of Oklahoma’s most infamous outlaws, Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd.

Some family treasures are valuable because of what they're made of. Others are valuable simply because of who made them.

Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has a rich history shaped by Native American heritage, European settlement, immigration, and industry. This overview traces that civic history before connecting it to my family’s arrival in the city.

Long-lasting. 100+ year old glasses and case that belonged to my great-great-grandmother Martha Adeline Tolbert Adkins (1857-1935)