I stared down at my iPad and started to shake looking at the 23andMe comparison between my brother and me. Estimated relationship: Half-sibling What does it feel like to discover that you aren’t really your Dad’s child? It felt like I had been punched in the stomach and while I struggled to catch my breath,…
My grandmother, Jeanette Shrum Willett, left us a wonderful handwritten manuscript of her life which she wrote in the mid-1980s. She was born August 4, 1897, in Bloomington, Indiana, and died March 3, 1988, in Salem, Massachusetts. I have been transcribing her manuscript here. You can start from the beginning with Part 1. My brother…
Every genealogist has some kind of specialty. It might be Civil War history, Eastern European ancestry, or even DNA. I’ve met a lot of fellow genealogists during my 30 years of researching my family history. But meeting Nathan Dylan Goodwin at RootsTech a few years ago felt like an entirely different thing. Nathan had broken into the…
Normally at this time of year, I would be in Salt Lake City, Utah, ready for the start of my favorite conference, RootsTech. In 2020 RootsTech was literally the last big event I went to before the entire world shut down. I arrived back in Connecticut after RootsTech on March 1st in 2020 and by…
As we navigate this new world we are currently living in due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the way we do things has drastically changed. Going to church is just one example Now, I will admit that I haven’t been going to church in the last few years. After going every Sunday for 20 years while…
Our youngest daughter is an artist. As a Mother’s Day gift, she painted me some beautiful panels for the room divider we brought home from my mother’s apartment after she passed away. Michelle did a beautiful job and I love it so much. This divider used to contain a mishmosh of family photos. We had…