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 of them referring to manuscripts from the Draper Collection. Reading good historical narratives can help us write our own stories, so let’s see what we...
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 the true story of her ancestors. We’re reading Murder in Matera for our Family Locket Book Club’s winter selection. Join us on Goodreads to see past...
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 and After for our summer Family Locket Book Club selection on Goodreads. If you share a love of reading and a love of writing your...
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 Archive. Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 30 January 2020), memorial page for Elinore Pruitt Stewart (3 Jun 1876–8 Oct 1933), Find...
With DNA testing turning up skeletons in the closet left and right, I was interested to read Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. This fictional account of a family describes the horrific Tennessee Children’s Home Society operated by Georgia Tann in Memphis, Tennessee, from the 1920s to 1950. (The above is an affiliate link). Wingate created her story based on recollections of children who were kidnapped from their families and put into Tann’s “orphanage.” It is estimated that Tann stole over 5,000 children. Many of them were adopted out to wealthy families, mostly in New York or California. The adoptive...
Do you need to escape into the pages of a good old-fashioned mystery with a genealogical twist? Then let me introduce you to author, Nathan Dylan Goodwin, and the fictional Morton Farrier, forensic genealogist. Hiding the Past: A Genealogical Crime Mystery I’d been hearing about Nathan’s books for some time, but missed meeting him at RootsTech 2018 when he made the journey across the pond to hob nob with fellow genealogists. I decided the first book in his series, Hiding the Past : A Genealogical Crime Mystery, would be perfect for our fall book club selection. There is something about settling...
Are you looking for an engrossing book? One that tells captivating, true stories about real women in history? Frontier Grit by Marianne Monson delivers twelve short stories, each based on a woman who was a pioneer in her own right. An excerpt from the introduction gives us the author’s insights. The women in this book come from a variety of backgrounds and traveled in a number of different directions – these stories represent a mere handful of the women who survived and even thrived on a multitude of gritty, tumultuous frontiers. . . These stories are fit inspiration for modern-day efforts...
Have you read These is My Words – The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner yet? I featured the novel based on the author’s own family stories as a book club selection in July of 2017. Because I’m fascinated with the writing of family history, I contacted Nancy to get her perspective on the world of genealogy and family history. She graciously agreed to answer my questions and share her thoughts. Four generations of Prine women: Nancy’s mother, grandmother -Minnie Mae (Prine) Belcher, great grandmother – Sarah Agnes (Reed) Prine, great great grandmother – Roxanne (Stockman) Reed If...
Do you need a great summer vacation book? One to lose yourself in? If so, then These is My Words – The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner is the book for you. I first discovered this book several years ago and recently reread it with an ear for the family history included. The author wrote it in the form of a diary, based on her family memoirs, so it’s a perfect fit for our July book club selection. These is My Words is historical fiction and a wonderful example of putting an ancestor in her place...
What would you do if you discovered a huge family secret when you were ten years old that shook your world? Paul Joseph Fronczak learned from old news clippings that he had been abandoned in front of a New Jersey store as a toddler. FBI agents determined he was the missing child of a Chicago couple whose infant had been kidnapped from the hospital two years earlier. Reunited with his supposed parents, Paul grew up wondering if he really was the son of Chester and Dora Fronczak. Fast forward forty years, when Paul’s own child was born. What was the...
