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…
My grandmother, Jeanette Shrum Willett, left us a wonderful handwritten manuscript of her life which she wrote in the mid 1980’s. 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. In…
Last night I woke up in a panic because I realized I hadn’t made my flight reservations for #RootsTech yet. If you know me, you know this is not typical of me to be disorganized. I’m a list girl. I’m a planning ahead girl. I’m juggling a lot in my life right now and for…
Deciding what to write using Amy Johnson Crow’s prompt, “First” was a challenge. My goal for 2019 is to profile certain ancestors that my girls would not normally know about. This blog has always been for them and for them to meet their ancestors and to see my journey as I discover them. So I…
Growing up in my family, I loved Christmas, of course. But what I loved more was Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve we were allowed to open one present from under the tree. Choosing just one present was by no means an easy decision for a child full of excitement like I was. Sometimes that choice…