Family History

Chasing Rabbit Trails

Spring is in the air and lazy days of summer are in the immediate future.  My thoughts wander as I view fresh flowers sprouting and buds appearing on the trees.  In genealogy lessons, instructions are to create a research plan, stay focused and be diligent.  While I agree, when spring fever arrives I find it difficult to follow rigid schedules.  During my online searches from home and in research travels, I allow thirty minutes or so for random searches.  I call these mini sessions “Chasing Rabbit Trails.” Some trails are dead ends and some only lead to a rabbit hole. Amazingly, many of my proven lines began with randomly chasing a single clue.

For the Love of Norman

I was married for the first time in 2007 at age 51, to a wonderful man.  His father, Norman, walked me down the aisle that day, since my father had died many years before.

My Twisted Search for Absalom Craddock Watkins

My mother’s maiden name is Watkins. One of her second-great-grandfathers is Absalom Craddock Watkins, who first shows up on public record in the 1820 Census of Bond Co., IL. With him is his wife Mary “Polly” Little, and enumerated just before him are his father-in-law James Little, Sr. and brother-in-law James Little, Jr. In the 1850 Census, A.C. and Polly are identified as being born in KY, which kept me running in circles for many years following many Littles and Watkins without a connection.

Grandma Wallin: Ahead of Her Time

Grandma was born in Nebraska on November 8, 1894 and died nearly 100 years later, in 1986.  She grew up at a time when girls, especially daughters of immigrants on the Nebraska prairie, didn’t think about much except getting married and having a family.  But Grandma was smarter than most, and more ambitious than most.  She managed, after graduating eighth grade, to attend a nearby coed ‘college’ (as the word was used then), Luther College, and then get a job at a local bank, the Hordville Bank.

Charles Anderson, Boatman and Black Sheep

One of my great-grandfathers was a Swede named Charles Anderson (1859-1916), a boatman on the canals of northern Illinois—and he was quite a character.  Grandma never talked about him—but being a big fan of black sheep stories (especially when the aforementioned stories come from within my own family), I think I shall.

Ancestors Speak Out: Creating Scenes in Your Family History Book

How do you write about the past in ways that bring the characters to life, while being true to the facts of the time and place? By writing “…books that communicate information in a scenic, dramatic fashion,” says Lee Gutkind, who was once described by Vanity Fair magazine as “The Godfather” of creative nonfiction.

Reflections on ‘The Dash’ by Linda Ellis

I recently attended with my fiancee the funeral of a young man who not only died too young, but to whom my fiancee had been a sort of second “mother,” his being not just a contemporary of her own children, but living in the neighborhood, thus spending many hours in her home as a child, so his death struck particularly close to her. While I never met the young man, I have reached an age where it is not unusual to pick up a newspaper or receive a phone call, email or letter, and learn of the death of someone I not only knew, but remembered fondly, with it becoming increasingly common for those persons to be my age if not younger!

The Mysterious Anna Grimm

When researching the ancestry of my sister-in-law Susie, I came across the stories of two sisters—Anna and Eva Grimm.  Anna was Susie’s great-grandmother (at least on paper!) and Eva was her infamous sister—and both of their stories fascinate me.  I’ll start with Anna.