Old family photos are great for telling our ancestors’ stories. I’m writing about my great-great-grandparents, Daniel O’Connell Elder and Jessie Estelle (Ross) Elder, and wanted to use some early photos of their family. One of their sons is my great-grandfather Charlie. Charlie had many siblings, but I only have a few photos showing them together; and none of them show all the siblings at once. The main problem was that most people in these old...
Ancestral homes are an important part of our family history. We can research the home’s architecture and records, such as city directories, taxes, maps, newspapers, and more. For this 52 Ancestor blog post theme of “Home Sweet Home,” I researched and wrote about the Spanish Fork home of my great-grandparents, Charles Cannon Creer and Mary Margaret Peterson. Charles built the home for his bride to move into upon their marriage on 23 March 1892, and...
Reading historical fiction based on fact allows us to follow an engaging story and learn history simultaneously. The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd fulfills both possibilities. Who was Eliza Lucas Pinckney, the woman the novel is based on? She is credited with learning to grow the difficult crop of indigo in South Carolina in the early 1700s, which was a challenging task, especially for a woman in Colonial America. We’re reading The Indigo Girl for...
During the last in-person class I taught at RootsTech, on Saturday afternoon, I asked attendees which tech announcements they were most excited about. The answers included Ancestry’s upcoming clustering tool, FamilySearch’s new catalog, Ancestry Networks, and the FamilySearch Together app. These are just a few of the many exciting announcements made at RootsTech 2025! It’s fun to see so many companies announce new technology that will help us with our genealogy research. Here are a...
Do you remember your first job outside the home? You may have flipped burgers, pumped gas, or babysat. Our ancestors also may have taken a job outside the home at some point. This would have brought challenges of answering to a boss, perhaps moving to a new location, and learning new skills. Learning about an ancestor’s first job can be a fun way to add context to their life. For this 52 ancestor post, I’m...
Names in genealogy research can be a challenge. An ancestor could be written in the records by their first name, middle name, nickname, or initials. When looking at a record, how do you know if you have the right person? We have to use every clue about the individual – known dates, places, family members, occupations, and more. In the case of my great-grandfather, Dock Harris, his name has been a challenge for every generation...
How do you choose a favorite photo out of a large collection? I came across this photo of my grandfather, Edward Raymond Kelsey, on his horse, Pal, and decided it would be a perfect time to write about Grandpa Kelsey and his love for horses. I also wanted to experiment with using AI to help analyze a photo and learned its a great way to start researching a photo from your collection. Ed and His...
If you need a good reason to start writing your ancestor’s stories, let me introduce you to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge created by Amy Johnson Crow. Amy has engineered prompts for several years to stimulate our brains and help us brainstorm story ideas. I participated in 2022 and wrote several blog posts about my ancestors. I loved the motivation to write and discovered some neat things about people I thought I knew!...
Reading historical fiction transports us to the times and places our ancestors lived, helping us understand their world beyond the basic facts found in records. Author Paulette Jiles has mastered this genre, as shown in her novels News of the World (2016) and Enemy Women (2002). Her books are set in areas where my ancestors lived in the 1800s – Missouri, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Texas. This fascinating region saw turmoil and unrest throughout the Civil...
With the holidays approaching, it’s a great time to consider gathering family stories. Although it can seem daunting to start an interview project, a few simple steps will get you on your way. With the new advances in artificial intelligence, we can streamline and personalize the interview process. AI can then help us organize and write the stories. Consider asking a large language model like ChatGPT or Claude for ideas during each step of the...
