We’re reading Ribbons of Scarlet: A Novel of the French Revolution’s Women for our winter selection for the Family Locket Book Club on Goodreads. Written by historical fiction authors Kate Quinn, Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie, Sophie Perinot, Heather Webb, and Eliza Knight, the book provides a fascinating insight into the French Revolution through the eyes of seven women who were part of it. Based on historical accounts, speeches, writings, letters, and diaries, with fictionalized dialog, Ribbons...
Reading historical fiction can provides ideas on how to add historical context to our work. Researching the world of our ancestors allows us to write with more authenticity when telling their stories. Kristen Hannah’s recent novel, The Four Winds, takes us on a journey to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s in Texas and the hardships “Okies” encountered when fleeing the unforgiving land for California. My ancestors followed this same migration in the 1930s, so...
When writing family stories, how often do you research the location and history surrounding events that influenced our ancestors? As family historians, we can learn much about the importance of this type of research by reading historical fiction. The Girls in the Stilt House provides an excellent example of using place and time to bring to life the Natchez Trace as the setting for the story. In this blog post, Author Kelly Mustian shares some...
Telling our ancestor’s stories requires knowledge of their time. What better way to discover life on the frontier during the Revolutionary War than to read a historical narrative? Author Matthew Pearl tells the tale of a specific era in Daniel Boone’s life that was pivotal for history. The Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap that Shaped America backs up the retelling of this famous story with 231 endnotes, many...
As family historians, we often confront the challenge of discovering the truth behind family stories. In Murder in Matera – A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy, we follow Helene Stapinski’s journey to unravel stories heard as a child about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. The book takes us along as Helene travels multiple times to her family’s hometown in Southern Italy. Through a series of fortunate events, she locates documents that tell...
Do you have any ancestors who moved to the frontier? What was it like for them to leave their community and create a new home in the wilderness? Historian, David McCullough, provides important insight into the settling of the frontier after the Revolutionary War in his latest book, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West. We meet five major characters instrumental in constructing the settlement of Marietta, Ohio....
If you’ve read Before We Were Yours, the fictional account of a family torn apart by Georgia Tann and her Tennessee Children’s Home Society, you might be interested in learning what happened to some of those children who passed through Tann’s hands. Lisa Wingate, the author of Before We Were Yours, collaborated with journalist, Judy Christie, to bring us Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. We’re reading Before...
Do you have a forgotten story in your family history? One that might seem unbelievable until some fact checking proves it to be true? We all have ancestors whose story might be begging to be told. Could a family story been silenced due to shame, misunderstanding, negligence? If so we have a challenging task ahead of us to uncover more information and provide the perspective that comes with time. In Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten...
Have you taken a DNA test for the fun of discovering your ethnicity estimate only to be blindsided with an unexpected relationship? If so you are not alone. With more people taking consumer DNA tests, family secrets from long ago and not so long ago are being revealed. How does one deal with a new half sibling or biological parent? These questions and more are addressed in Libby Copeland’s new book, The Lost Family: How DNA...
Do you love a good story? Ever wondered what it was like for your ancestors as they homesteaded in the western United States? Reading the original letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart, you get both – the stories from the viewpoint of a homesteader. The Atlantic Monthly first published Elinore’s letters in 1914, then Houghton Mifflin published them as the book titled Letters of a Woman Homesteader. The complete book has been digitized and is available on Internet...
