“Which of the judging criteria was most important to you during the judging process?” Alan Doane, John Richards, Kenyatta Berry, myself, Thomas MacEntee I was sitting down with the judges after the RootsTech 2017 Innovator Showdown Finals, feeling pretty lucky to be surrounded by such experienced, knowledgeable people. “Business viability.” “Innovative technology.” “Pitch.” And then an answer I wasn’t expecting… “Impact.” Dalton Wright, a partner at Kickstart Seed Fund, said that while he was looking...
Do you have a memorable family story that your mother or father likes to tell? Is there some truth to the “walked uphill both ways in ten feet of snow” tale? Tracking down the source of a story and doing some research to put yourself in the time and place can yield surprising results. In this new addition to my series, “The Adventures of Cowboy Bob” I give a fictionalized account of a story I heard many...
I asked my 3-year-old daughter if she knows what it means to be brave. She didn’t. I told her that it means “doing something you are afraid of, or doing something that is hard.” Then I read Seven Brave Women with her. We discussed several different ways that everyday women in the past were brave. Seven Brave Women by Betsy Hearne is a story about the brave deeds of the author’s ancestresses. Each of them did something...
What is the value in keeping a diary or journal? What will be of interest to our descendants a hundred years from now? Whether we write daily or once a year about the happenings in our lives, it is important to record something. Perhaps by examining the first-hand account of a life lived two centuries ago we will gain insight into what we should write. We’re reading A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based...
I’m excited to announce that I’m hosting the very first “Family History for Children” blog link up. I loved the genealogy blog party by Elizabeth O’Neal at Little Bytes of Life and this is partly inspired by her. Thank you Elizabeth! Rather than focusing on genealogy in general, I am inviting you to share about the important topic of Family History for Children (ages 0-18). My hope is to add inspirational stories and practical tips...
When did your family last gather in the kitchen to cook a favorite meal? Did you use tried and true recipes? Recipes that have been handed down from previous generations? If so, you preserved a piece of your family’s history. Now you just need to recognize and record your family food traditions. Steve Rockwood kicked off the RootsTech 2017 theme of food and family history with sharing his own family’s tradition of making his grandmother’s...
Think of a time when you were a rookie. What happened? How did you operate? What did you do when you didn’t know what to do? What were your aspirations? Liz Wiseman, author of Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work, asked us these questions during her keynote address at the Innovator Summit portion of RootsTech 2017. Straight out of business school, Liz found herself a rookie in a fast growing...
Sitting in the Salt Palace this morning during the keynote address, I shared an incredible moment with thousands of people. Having just listened to LeVar Burton’s masterful words on the importance of storytelling and family, we watched as Thom Reed from FamilySearch presented LeVar with his family history. He cried and we cried when he looked at the marriage document of his grandparents and said, “those are my people.” Thom showed him his grandfather’s signature on the...
Children love playing games. According to the book Einstein Never Used Flashcards by Roberta Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, play is how young children learn. I loved this book – the ideas really resonated with me. Of course children learn more when they are playing, not just repeating memorized information to please an adult. To teach my children about world geography and family history at the same time, I made a personalized “where in the world”...
How do you go about finding an unknown grandfather? What if the only information you have is a name and a country: Samuel Lowe from China. With a combination of hard work and a bit of family history serendipity, Paula Williams Madison finally put to rest the gaping hole in her family’s history. She relates her journey of discovering her Chinese family in her book Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem. It’s a tale any family historian...
