December 10, 2024 • 42 mins
A professional genealogist, Mica L. Anders stumbled into this career while earning her MFA in Visual Arts. She helps her clients dig deeper into their family histories and also creates exhibits for African American history. Working professionally for the last decade, Mica enjoys solving family mysteries and staying creative.
Connect with Mica:
https://www.instagram.com/andersgenealogicalservices/
https://www.facebook.com/AndersGenealogicalServices
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mica-lee-anders/
https://www.andersgenealogicalservices.com/freebies
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Artwork: instagram.com/vashaundesigns
Music/Editing: youtube.com/colemanrowlett
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
- Hello and welcome to Introducing Me.
I'm your host Sarah. Istarted this podcast to get
to know other people and lifestyles while
discovering more about myself.
Each episode I'll givea new guest a chance
to discuss their background,culture, interests,
or whatever they want to talkabout to help increase all
of our own worldviews.
Today I would like tointroduce you to Mica L. Anders
with one simple questionabout her own past.
(00:37):
Mica has forged a path asa professional genealogist
and artistic placemakerspecializing in African American
and Midwestern US genealogy.
So Mica is here to explainwhat all of that means,
why she got interested in all of this,
and I'm excited to hearmore from her today.
So thank you so much, Mica.
Why don't you go ahead and tell
the audience more about yourself.
(00:59):
- Yeah, thank you forhaving me. Hello all.
My name is Mica L. Anders
and I, I am a genealogist,I'm a people finder.
I, uh, like to solve family mysteries
and I help uncover forgotten pasts
and bring them back to lightthrough all the stories
of our ancestors.
Um, I got into it accidentally.
(01:20):
So again, I'm also an artist.
I have an MFA in visual arts
and when I was getting my MFA,I actually did for my thesis,
the genealogy of 11 people
and I turned those into art pieces.
And through that work I really found
that I enjoy doing otherpeople's family history.
So, you know, a lot ofpeople are kind of like,
I just wanna know who Iam and where I came from.
(01:42):
But for me, learning about other people
and helping reintroduce them
to their ancestors was so amazing.
And getting to hear all thesestories about people's lives.
And I think kind of like evenwith your podcast, right,
through learning about others,
we also do still learnabout ourselves as well.
So it's just been a really fun journey.
- So what kind of made you
(02:03):
dive further into becoming agenealogist from originally
just having more of acareer in visual arts
or a plan for a career in visual arts?
- Yeah, so it was like an accidental path
where the doors just kept opening
and I just kept walking through them.
So again, visual arts degree,I was a teaching artist.
(02:23):
I was a public artist, do a lot
of mosaics, a lot of photography.
Um, and I was doing an art project.
I was making a mini golf holefor this art installation
where, you know, all thesedifferent mini golf holes
for this, for a lightrail opening in town.
And I live in Minnesota.
And um, for both of my golfholes that I was commissioned
(02:47):
to make, they had ahistory component, right?
Because a lot of my art
and history, they've always tied together.
And for one of them, itwas about the history
of this historically black
neighborhood that I actually live in.
And so I called some of the elders
and I said, Hey, do you have pictures?
I wanna put 'em on my mini golf hole,
which is a very weird thingto ask people like, what?
Um, and they said, no,
(03:08):
I donated a bunch of historical society.
Cool. So I go down tothe Historical Society,
state Historical Society, andthey have all these images,
but they haven't been cataloged yet.
So because I have nothingelse to do, I volunteered
to catalog and archive thishuge collection of images.
So I was going through them,I was trying to like identify
who the people were andlearn about their stories
(03:30):
and it was really fun.
And so they got to know me atthe State Historical Society
and they said, Hey, do you,do you do more than this?
Like I you do genealogy andstuff, right? I said, yeah.
They said, could, couldyou do some of that for us,
you know, as a keynotespeaker and all these things.
So it was literally the super random path.
(03:50):
So that, and then also Iwas saying earlier right,
I did these 11 genealogyprojects as my art thesis.
And some of my very firstclients were those friends
who said, Hey, I know you kindof stopped where you needed
to for your art project,but could you keep going?
And then they told other people.
And so like I said, itwas super accidental.
(04:10):
Um, but I've, I just really enjoyed it.
And so for a while I wasbalancing two full-time careers.
Highly don't recommend.
So I was like a full-timeteaching artist and public artist.
And I also had this genealogy career
where I was doing research for clients
and then I started doing, um,work for historical societies
(04:31):
and doing this research onearly African American history
and turning into exhibits,
which was like, whoa, this is a lot.
So, um, after 10 plusyears as a teaching artist,
I was teaching artist of the year.
I was like, that seems likea good place to retire.
Let me slow that career down
and let's ramp this other one up.
So that's kind of theroundabout way it all happened.
And I still get use my art
'cause I do exhibits and things like that.
(04:53):
- So what was it like thendiving into genealogy full-time
and being able to put all ofthe energy into it instead of
having it full-time, but then also having
a other full-time career?
- Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's just ridiculous.
Even think about like howmany hours I was working.
So it was a lot.
(05:15):
So because it started randomly,
I never got a businessfoundation underneath it.
So like I wasn't technically an LLC
and I didn't really have any
business structures put together.
So trying to work forwards
and backwards simultaneouslywas really interesting.
Um, it let me know
(05:36):
how great I did withouthaving a business structure
and how many huge holes I had
and where I could have beenhad I started off, you know,
with like an LLC
and a business, um, abusiness checking account
and all of these thingsthat would've been really
helpful places to start.
But diving in full time, um,
(05:57):
in a lot of ways it'sbeen really rewarding,
but in other ways ittook my safety net away.
So now when all the eggsare in this one basket,
there's no fail safe.
Like okay, you have to make this work.
And I've been able to, um,
because I've had some amazing clients
and amazing recommendationsand you know, radio programs
and different things I've beenand where people have learned
(06:18):
who I am, but beingable to spend full time,
like sitting in mypajamas, doing my research
or flying out to differentplaces to meet with clients
or to go to archives,like I gotta fly to Macon,
Georgia when my clients flewme out there for a few days
to just sit in the archives.
How amazing. I know, it'sso funny, I brought one
(06:39):
of my research assistants with me
and the two of us were out there
and we worked really long hours
and at night we come back to the hotel
and think like, this is our job.
Like we're at work right now,
but it's kind of like vacation,
but we're spending all daysin libraries and courthouses
and these giant deed booksand just having a great time.
So I feel really fortunatethat, um, I enjoy what I do
(07:03):
and that I've been ableto move it into a career.
- Yeah, I mean, to hear thekind of accidental journey
and to being able togrow it to something more
and enjoy it so much.
So what kind of researchare you uncovering
for people and theseexhibits you are putting on?
(07:25):
Can you kind of explainwhat all of that entails
that you're helping people learn?
- Yeah, absolutely. So I havea couple different clients.
Um, one type of clientI have is somebody who
has heard family stories for years.
Uh, maybe they've done alittle research on their own,
but they've gotten stuck.
If they're an African American client
(07:46):
or somebody who has someAfrican American, um, in their,
in their family tree, they may have gotten
stuck at enslavement.
They may be trying to figure out sort of
how do we get past 1870?
How do I learn more aboutmy enslaved ancestors?
And sometimes that researchis harder to do without
as much training or as many,uh, resources available.
(08:08):
I have a lot of differentdatabases I have access to
and I've made a lot ofrelationships with different people
to help, uh, get accessto different things
that I might not have myself.
And um, I have a lot
of tricks that I'velearned over the years.
I've taken so many classesand things like that.
So that's one client.
Another type of client I have is somebody
who really is just curious.
(08:29):
Maybe they haven't done muchresearch, maybe they just kind
of wanna get a senseof like, who am I and,
and who are these people?
And maybe who was I named after?
I always heard I was namedafter grandma so-and-so,
but who was she?
Right? So they really want those stories
and that's, uh, importantfor what I do for all
of my clients is a lot
of times in genealogypeople just want a big tree.
(08:51):
They just want a whole bunch of names.
They wanna know who was bornwhen, where were they born,
what country and things like that.
But I work really hard to takejust those names and dates
and turn them into humans with stories
and really learn about their lives.
Um, so again, that'sanother kind of client.
The other type of client I have a lot
of are people who've maybetaken a DNA test, maybe
(09:15):
they just don't quite knowwhat to do with the results
because all of a suddenyou have all these cousins,
you are like, who are allthese people I'm related to?
I don't know any of these names.
Or they took a DNA test andlearned something unexpected.
So sometimes people take a DNA test
and they find out one of their parents
or grandparents isn't whothey thought they were.
(09:35):
They find out somebody wasadopted, sometimes themselves,
sometimes a relative,
sometimes they knew theywere adopted already.
Um, and so they're just trying
to learn more about their bio families.
So those are kind of my main clients.
On the genealogy side,on the exhibit design,
I've been really fortunate to work
with various historicalsocieties, um, in Minnesota
(09:57):
and some city governments inMinnesota and Iowa, both to try
and uncover earlyAfrican American history.
So they hire me and myteam and we research
and often uncover historiesthat have been lost for time.
And then we turn those into exhibits
that stay in the community
or travel around so that, um, a community
(10:18):
that may have thought,oh, we're just Norwegian.
It's always been the Norwegians
and the Swedes that lived here.
They learned that maybethey're really early history.
Minnesota was foundedin 1858, so we're kind
of a newer in some senses area.
Um, but it helps people understandlike, yeah, that might be
what the town looks like now,
(10:39):
but actually a lot ofthese places were a lot
more diverse early on.
And then just with time andcircumstance they shifted.
- And so you've mentioned a team
and you've mentionedcourses you have taken.
So how has all of that come about?
- Yeah, so the thing aboutbeing a genealogist is there's
just now starting to be officialdegrees that you can get.
(11:03):
So most of the people who I know
who are professional genealogists,
whether they are a CG certifiedgenealogist associated
whatever they have, or ifthey're just a professional
genealogist, which is what I am, um, most
of us went to school for something else.
So there wasn't just aprogram for genealogy.
So we do other things. There'sinstitutes which are usually
(11:23):
week long courses or you go,you stay maybe in Pittsburgh
or in Georgia for some of these institutes
and you have one topic that you research
and learn about allday for an entire week.
Maybe it's the southern United States,
maybe it's land records,
maybe it's early African American
history, something like that.
And so most of our work isthrough these really immersive,
(11:47):
uh, deep dive ways of learning.
So it's almost like, youknow, a college course, right?
We also have other things we've done.
Like there's an, uh, thingcalled um, pro gen study group,
which a lot of us have also taken,
and that's to become aprofessional genealogist.
It's our program was, I think 18 months.
It's shorter now, but for
that long we really dive intoall the different aspects
(12:09):
of becoming a professional genealogist
and how to write reports
and all the different stuff like that.
So that's how that works is, is
really continuing educationand it, it never ends
because even though we'relearning about the past, the tools
and resources availableto us are always changing.
So we have to stay informedand have to stay educated
(12:32):
and in a learning mode to make sure
that we always know what'sgoing on in our field.
In terms of my team, I have
two research assistants whowork on a lot of my projects
with me and I have a lovely graphic
and layout designer whohelps me with the exhibits.
Um, so that's my small butmighty little background team.
(12:52):
I also have, uh, my niecesometimes helps me with some
of my social media as well,
but it's a lot of researchto do on your own, especially
as I've grown and to make sureit's important to me that,
you know, clients can be really excited
and then to say, okay,well pay me your money
and in four months, I'lltell you what I found .
That's like, oh my gosh, what?
(13:14):
So having a team has allowed me
to work more efficientlyand a little faster.
So we, each one personwill look at census,
one person will look at vital records,
one person will be looking inthe newspapers and at maps.
So then we take all of that
and put it together to put ourreports ready for our clients
to learn about their history.
- Now when you're puttingtogether these reports,
(13:34):
do you have moments where you're not able
to answer the client's questions?
- Yes. It's so hard to to be in
that situation because people come
with these great questions, you know,
can you find my long lost so and so?
Or you know, can you prove that I have
(13:58):
Native American heritage?
And sometimes we can and it's amazing
and other times we can't.
And in my contract it sayswe're gonna do our best,
but we can't guarantee it.
But part of what'sreally important to me is
even if we can't answer thespecific question you asked,
(14:19):
we wanna share stories about the people
we did find along the way.
So maybe you wanted to know more about
Great grandma Sue,
but great grandma Suedoesn't exist in any records we
found yet before she marriedgreat-grandpa, whomever.
So instead of just saying wecouldn't find her, we'll say,
(14:40):
okay, well we couldn't findany records on her parents
or anything like that, but here's
what we learned about her marriage, here's
what we learned about her life, here's
what we learned aboutthe town she lived in.
Here's some things welearned about her other kids
besides whoever your direct relative is.
So it's just really importantthat even if we can't find
that specific thing, we still give people
as much as we can find.
(15:01):
And we also give, um, alist of the things we tried.
It's called a negative search.
So like, here's all the places we looked
and didn't find anything.
So that way if theywanna look on their own
or maybe hire somebody elseif they didn't think we did a
good enough job, which hasn't happened,
but in case, you know,
or if they just wanna have athing to look at, we can say,
these are the ways we tried.
(15:22):
So they can really seewe did our due diligence
and we tried the best we could.
- And when you're producingthese reports with all
of this information, whatkind of like goes into
that to make it understandable, even just
with all of the informationyou're gathering?
(15:43):
How does it, how does it become real?
- Yeah, so that's somethingthat I really pride myself on
with how I run my company is a lot
of genealogy reports only makesense to other genealogists
and that's not helpful at all.
So if you don't know what someof the terms are that we use
and things like that, getting
(16:04):
that report doesn't do anything for you
or just to get the report
and say, here's a bunch of records.
Okay, well what do I do with them?
I don't know how to reada census, for example.
So when we write our reports,well yeah, when I write a lot
of them, so when we write our reports, um,
they start from a place of story
and even if the records we foundwere in a different order,
(16:27):
I write them chronologically.
So it really tells somebody's life story.
So I'll start with maybethe most recent ancestor
and tell their story
and then talk about theirspouse and some of their kids.
And then we'll just go back in time
and it reads more like a narrative.
So it's something that you could take
and share with family members
who don't know anything aboutgenealogy, have never heard
(16:47):
of it, don't know how to read a chart,
and they'd be able to take that
and learn about their ancestors.
And then I try and add the images into it.
So like maybe I'll find a census record
and I'll cut out thepart about your family
and put it right into the record
and then describe it so it's not just a
random document with no description.
And then I'll put thefull one in the back.
There's always a huge attachmentin the back with all kinds
(17:09):
of note like images of all thedifferent documents we find.
And then I give them anew family tree as well
so they can see like, here's
where we started in our research
and here's all this stuffwe learned along the way.
- And if you're answeringspecific questions, um,
do you kind of like, you mentioned how,
if you might not be able toanswer like the exact questions,
(17:31):
but you can answer liketangentially, is there a point when
like you have to say like, we're,
we're stopping like the tree'snot gonna get you all the way
back to like the first King of
England.- Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, um, parameters arethe, are the key, right?
(17:55):
So when I work with people, I kind of say,
okay, what is your goal?
I work in packages.
I found that over theyears I've been doing this
professionally for over 10 years.
So that has been the key.
Um, rather than saying hire mefor a certain number of hours
and then of course who knows
what you can accomplish in an hour,
all the records might just fall in your
lap, but they might not.
So I say, okay, is yourgoal to find one person?
(18:17):
Is your goal to kind of fill out a line
of people maybe three generations
or maybe a bigger part of your tree?
So we set some parameters.
So it's like, I willnot be finding the King
of England in this package.
The package you hired me forgets you from maybe grandma,
grandma's parents andgrandma's grandparents,
and that's gonna be kind of,
and then any, you know, siblings,
(18:39):
aunts, uncles and things like that.
Um, so having those parameters
and really setting thoseexpectations on the front
end is really, really helpful.
But also I would say,um, I always ask people,
what is your main goal?
But also what are some secondary goals?
So I wanna make sure that evenif I didn't find, you know,
(19:00):
grandma Sue's early childhood,I did accomplish some
of the other things thatthey were hoping for.
'cause you wanna make surepeople feel like they've
accomplished something andthey got something they wanted
for paying all that money, right?
And so, um,it feels so much better
to be like, I found somethinglike it's a terrible gift
to say, well I got nothing for you,
(19:20):
but here's some fun facts, right?
I wanna say, okay, well Ididn't meet your main goal,
but your secondary and thirdgoal we were able to achieve.
- And so what sort of, um, maybe like,
interesting things have youfound throughout all of this
that you may not have been expecting
or like maybe a questionthat like came to you
(19:42):
and you were like, yeah, that's not
gonna happen, but we'll do our best.
We're gonna find theseother things for you and it
and it did come to fruition.
What things kind of like stand out
for you in, in this world?
- Yeah. So I have so many.
So, um, one
that's was really cool was I had a client
(20:04):
who was stuck at grandpa
and grandpa was grandpa slash
great-grandpa was a mother and a daughter.
So it was kind of was themother's grandpa stuck,
didn't know anything past him.
His name super common, firstname, super common last name
Smith, right?
(20:25):
Smith. So, um, and then I had,they were a Smith and a Jones
and that then they married like, what?
So didn't have much to work with, right?
So they hired me to say, canyou get any further back?
And I said, I'll try.
And um, all the records were kind
of leading in different paths
(20:46):
and nothing was coming together.
But eventually I asked thisrandom question, I just said,
have you guys ever had a family reunion
on this branch of your family?
Like, yeah, I said, where was it?
And they said it was insuch and such Arkansas.
I go, okay, so now I atleast have like a county
and a last name.
And those pieces of information
(21:08):
and a little bit of informationfrom one death certificate
got me not only to the next generation,
but back five more generations.
I was able to do that. And thenI found a Freedman's Bureau
record that had the names
of their family membersas enslaved people.
It had the names of theirenslavers, it had the names
of people's spouses, theirsiblings, their parents,
and then the DNA matched all of it.
(21:31):
So it was kinda like, okay,
I don't know if I'm on the right track.
And the DNA, none of thosenames had meant anything,
so I couldn't do anything with them.
But by moving the papertrail back, I now was able
to move the DNA back along with it.
That was so amazing and Idefinitely thought I was
gonna struggle on that one.
- I mean, it it sounds likeit, you know, we were talking
(21:52):
before this about how, youknow, I have some relatives
who are very into family trees,
but like, I have an uncommon last name.
So like, it's just different when
you've got a Smith and a Jones.
- Right.
Yeah. It's like, where are we gonna go?
I have another client, it's aRobinson and a Johnson.
(22:13):
Oh, how are we marrying these common names
to these common names?
Um, another really interesting story was
I had a client who wantedto learn more about, um,
their their mom's
dad also.
Mom's dad. Yeah. So mom's dad,and they knew almost nothing.
(22:36):
And it turns out that
mom's dad was raised in a foster home
that wasn't a foster home at the time.
So he ended up taking the nameof the people who raised him,
and that's why we weren'table to find anything.
So as we went through census records,
and again, the censuscomes out every 10 years
and it lists all of the people
(22:57):
who live in a household together.
And um, it lists theirrelationships to each other,
which are not always accurate.
So in this case, everycensus it listed this woman
as the mother of all of these children.
But then 10 years later, thesekids would be different kids
and all of a sudden you're like, well,
this kid was only three, sothey should still be in the
house at 13, but they're not.
(23:18):
And so we learned that this woman
was really like the community foster mom,
nothing official.
And it was just all of asudden we still weren't able
to go back any further on this family line
because again, we have no idea
what this person'sbiological last name was
because everything was in the name
(23:40):
of the person who'd raised him.
But just that story gaveso much back to this person
because at the end of the day,
although they weren't biologicallyrelated to this woman,
we now know who raised this person.
We have a better sense of what the
environment was, they were raised in.
We got a sense from different newspapers
and things about how loving she was
(24:01):
and how she really caredfor these children.
And, and you could follow some of them
that even weren't biologically related.
The kids stayed together and moved
as adults to different places.
And so I was still ableto give this amazing story
to this client, even though technically
we didn't get the name of the bio parents.
- Right. You know, I, itis so fascinating to hear
(24:23):
how these stories come about
and how you can answer some questions
and figure out, you know, what,what you can just learn in,
in the depths of the archives.
And so how much time would you say
is spent more in the realm ofindividual client genealogy
compared to the morehistorical society putting on
(24:47):
exhibits and diving more intolike community-based research?
- Right now it's about 50 50.
Um, I've been trying to figure out like
where I want it to go, right?
Because the exhibits, to bevery frank, pay more.
(25:07):
Right? They're bigger, they're larger, um,
but they also take longer.
So there's that trade off.
But um, sometimes
we're given so many more researchhours that we get to dive
so deeply into these communityhistories that we're able
to uncover things
(25:28):
that in a client case wemight just never have enough
hours to get to.
And so that can be reallyamazing and rewarding.
Um, but there's somethingabout the individual
clients and knowing you'regiving an actual person
something, right?
It's one thing to give it to the community
and that's beautiful, but um,to be able to give it back
(25:51):
to individuals has a differentfeel to it, I would say.
But something we've been starting
to incorporate intothe community histories
is descendant work.
So we're taking time now thatwe're uncovering these early,
early African Americanhistories in these towns.
What we're starting tonotice is the descendants
of those early AfricanAmericans don't know,
(26:12):
they often have no clue of this history.
They don't know maybe one oftheir ancestors was the first
barber in the town or theywere the first whatever, right?
And they don't know. And soit's been this other neat thing
that I've been able to dothrough community histories
is connect with descendants and,
and then it becomes notonly a community history,
(26:33):
but it comes back to beinga personal history as well.
- And how do you kind ofmake those connections
with descendants if theyweren't like the original person
asking you to do this research?
- So that's when, like we were talking
before we started, we have tobecome super sleuth experts
(26:54):
and get our, um, our, ourprivate investigator skills
in our, in our magnifying glass out.
So then we really start, um,
using tools like the White pages,
which actually still existsin certain forms, right?
We don't think about it asthe phone book that comes
to our house, but some ofthose things still exist.
(27:14):
We use Facebook a lot to find people.
Um, and, and eventuallywe have to do a reach out.
Now the reach out isthe scariest part for me
as an introvert and also as somebody
who doesn't love rejection.
Um, reaching out to an anonymous person
and saying, Hey, I know
(27:35):
that you descend from thisperson who's your third great
grandfather who you mayhave never heard of.
We wanna share this information with you.
And then having them acceptthat or not accept that or try
and figure out like, why do you know that
and how did you find me?
Right? It's kind of creepy.
Um, but most peoplereceive it really well.
(27:58):
So most people are just reallygrateful for the information
and, and happy to help.
And sometimes they havephotos that we've never seen
or things that will actuallyenhance the exhibit in ways
that we would've had no otheraccess to without being able
to reach out and contact them.
- And so then with allof your work doing all
of this learning about archives
and history of people, howhave you, if at all, kind
(28:21):
of like taken that intoyour own life to make sure,
you know, your historyis, you know, being,
being found and kind of, youknow, your own family tree
and all of that work.
Um, how have you taken thisinto your own personal stories?
- So like most people, myfamily is the worst researched
(28:44):
of all of the other work that I do
because I have to do it in my downtime, .
Um, so my family, one thingI do, I have a daughter
and so I talk to her about her ancestors
and she has a little kidstree that I made for her.
So she was able to sort of see growing up
and then she was named, her middle name is
after one of her ancestors.
So we talk about that.
(29:05):
And um, although I don't do a great job
actively researching myfamily as much as I should
at this time, I'm pretty far back on
a lot of the lines already.
Um, but I don't have as many stories
as I would like to on my own family.
But the ones I do have, Imake sure to share with her.
I make sure to document them
(29:26):
and um, in, in trees like onancestry and things like that.
So they exist outside of just me so
that one day they can be passed on to her.
And then any other familymembers who are trying to connect
and learn more, they can do that as well.
- And is ancestry kind of likethe main player in that sort
of more public facing game that
(29:50):
you can, can put it out there
or are there other placesthat people are kind
of making this connectionin their histories?
- There's a few places.
So some people like Ancestry, um,
some people don't because you have to pay.
So it has a subscription fee that changes
and increases regularly.
(30:10):
Um, some people use FamilySearch.org, it's run
by the Mormon church, whichfor some people is okay
for other people they'd prefer not
to have their information on there.
Um, a third site that peopleare starting to choose more
and more is called Wiki Tree.
And it's just like, youwould think it's sort
of crowdsourced and anybodycan put information on there.
(30:33):
There's groups that get together
and have wiki treemarathons to sit together
and really like take thetime, build out their own tree
or build out community trees
or in person important people's trees.
They might go on and say, oh, such
and such celebrity, let's buildtheir tree out on Wiki tree.
People do all kinds of stuff.
Um, and so that's a sort of a, a source
(30:57):
that right now feels outside
of the commercial aspects of things.
It feels a little bitmore, um, community run.
So that's a, a place more
and more people are starting to put
their information as well.
- And so how much are you connecting
with other people
and whether it's in thiscommunity kind of, of like people
(31:20):
who are just fascinated withit on like Wiki tree compared
to people who are going theprofessional genealogy route
or getting these degrees that now exist.
And also just like thecasual interest person.
Like where, how, how is allof that, you know, community,
um, impacting your life?
(31:41):
- So, um, I have been fortunate
to run in a few different fields, right?
So I have friends
and colleagues who are hobbyists
sometimes they're myamazing research volunteers.
Sometimes I put out a call
and say, Hey, I am doinga big community project
and I would love volunteer assistance.
And um, some people who maybe are newer
(32:03):
and want some more experience
or want to kind of shadowwhat I do professionally
and learn some tips andtricks along the way,
they'll come in and workas volunteers on some
of our bigger projects.
Um, we have kind of a really big Facebook
and Instagram nerdycommunity that we've created.
It's great. We have allkinds of memes and jokes
(32:23):
and get to just talk about allthese silly genealogy things
in groups on Facebook more
and then on Instagram just, you know,
in regular Instagram community through
what people are sharing in their
stories and things like that.
So that community is reallymade up of a blend of people
who do it professionally,people do it as a hobby
and everything in between
and people who are just interested.
(32:44):
So those are the reallythe two places we kind
of hang out in the virtual world.
Again, like I said, we haveall these different institutes
and those are just a reallyfun, again, super nerdy place
to be where we can all justbe our best nerdy selves
and talk genealogy.
Um, at some of the conferenceswe'll stay up all night on
(33:06):
our laptops in the lobbyresearching together
and talking about our findings
because a lot of us areintroverts by nature,
which I think you kindof have to be to sit
for hours alone in front of your computer.
But we also get really excitedto talk about what we found
and sometimes even just sortof parallel researching.
(33:28):
So when you find somethingcool, you can shout it out
to the room and everybody's really excited
for you can be really fun too.
- And so then, because you kind
of fell into this accidentally,
but now have a big passionfor it, are you still
doing more physical media in
what you originally werepassionate about outside of,
(33:51):
you know, having general exhibits?
- So I don't do a great job of
making a lot of things at home.
Part of my art path took meto public art for a reason,
and that was after having an undergrad
and a graduate degree in visual arts.
I had so much stuff, so many supplies,
(34:15):
so many half done projects,so many files of images
and it was just like, okay,I really like public art
because I get to make itand then it leaves my house
and goes out into the world, right?
So I don't do as manythings to just have at home
because then they juststart to collect again.
But I keep trying to findways to bring it back.
(34:35):
So I recently, uh, did a project
that's actually almost finishedwhere we did mosaic markers
that are going at the grave sites
of the early African Americansin a county in Minnesota.
And so I got to make mosaics,but they're leaving my house
and I got to do it in community,
which is my favorite way to make art.
But my main art that I dojust for me is coloring.
(34:57):
I love a color by number.They are relaxing.
They're, I do 'em before bed.
I do 'em sometimes on my iPad,
sometimes in real coloring books.
I'll go to meetings. Peopleare like, what is that?
Oh, that's my markers. I gotmy whole marker tote with me.
'cause I gotta have allthe shades of green,
right, for your color by number.
So that's, um, that's oneof the ways I stay creative.
(35:19):
I also dance, but in termsof my visual arts, it's,
it's really through coloringright now that I keep that,
that hobby level art andthat creativity going.
- And what do you do withyour color by numbers such
that they're, if they're notdigitally taking up space?
- They go in the recyclingI have a folder
(35:43):
and once the folders, it'sjust a two pocket folder.
Once it's getting full,they just gotta go.
The experience was the making, right?
It's really about, uh,process, not product.
So after a while theyjust go in recycling.
I don't really revisit them.
I know people who number themand they put dates on them.
I don't do any of that stuff.They live with me for a while.
I'm like, oh, that one was cool.
And eventually it goes in recycling.
(36:04):
I try and do 'em on, um, likeI make copies from books.
So I bought all these books.
But again, it's thisweird thing where like,
I don't wanna mess up the book, right?
So I make copies of them andcolor the copies instead.
But um, I try to use like the back
of some other piece of paper.
Like I'll print on some scratch paper.
(36:25):
So I feel like, oh, it's not being
wasted, it's not new paper.
And that's my, my wayof working around that .
- Yeah. But to hear, you know,the process not product and
because visual arts make aproduct to find like a way
that it works for you at ahobby level, um, I think,
(36:46):
you know, as consumerism consumerizes,
like there can just be so much,um, to figure out, you know,
you don't, you don'twanna lose this passion,
but how can you make itsustainable for yourself?
- Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Or sometimes I makethings and give 'em away.
I'll make mosaic coasters for people
(37:06):
or you know, I'll,
I still do photography on theside just for fun sometimes.
But usually it's with my phone.
That's why I got the phone I got.
So it had a super fancy camera, you know,
I'll print stuff out and asgifts I'll give people pictures
of things that they're inor that I've taken.
- Cool.- Yeah.
- Now I'm not sure I have anyother specific questions,
(37:28):
but I feel like there's probably more
that you could sharewhether it's about like you
or you know, this fascinatingcareer that you have been on.
So what else would you liketo share with the listeners,
make sure they hear aboutyou and your passions?
- Yeah, I think the first thingis sort of a, not about me,
but a mindset that got me where I am.
(37:51):
And that was really just do good work
and good work comes to you.
So just allowing my path to open
as it opens rather than feelinglike, oh gosh, this isn't
what my degree is and I have to
go get another degree, right?
Or, um, oh, my degree is in this so I have
(38:11):
to stay in this lane,
but allowing for, for the path
to go wherever it went, right?
And I still get to do all of the things.
And if I look back onwho I've always been,
I've always been a researcher,
I've always been into history,
I've always been into visual arts.
And so being able to reallyaccidentally mold a career
(38:33):
that allows all of thosethings to sing inside of me,
I just feel really grateful.
And, and I don't think it's unique to me.
I think I just didn't let fear
or expectations, uh, from myself
or from others stop mefrom going down this path.
(38:56):
- I think that is great to share
and to have people hearrealizing that, you know,
you aren't beholden to one path.
Um, and you're a greatexample of realizing you know,
where your passions are and,
and that it's always been a part of you.
It doesn't have to be separate.
- Yeah, absolutely.
(39:17):
- Now at the end of all my episodes,
I do ask my guests a random question.
So I don't know if this willbe a good question for you
or not, but do you read your horoscope
and what are your opinions on that?
- It's a great question.
So, um, 'cause I actually dogenealogy posts once a month
(39:38):
about whatever thatmonth's zodiac season is
and I tie them into genealogy.
So it's a great question for me.
Um, I don't read my horoscope daily,
but I do learn about my
zodiac sign and my three,
the big three and things like that.
(39:58):
And I, um, I use that information
to help me understand myselfand some of my idiosyncrasies
and also don't letmyself be confined by it,
but almost like, oh,here's an aha about myself.
Um, but I love zodiac stuff.
(40:21):
It's kind of when I wasyounger, I have actually books,
they're actually stillon my bookshelf up here
that I've had since I was in college
in the early two thousands.
Um, where we would meticulously,anybody knew we met,
what is their zodiac sign?
We have to learn aboutthem. Are they compatible
with us even at a friendshiplevel, which is super
not healthy, but it's what we did.
And so, um, so, so yeah,no daily horoscope,
(40:44):
but I definitely do payattention to my zodiac
and sort of how it affectsme and, and things like that.
- All right, that bringsthis episode to a close.
So of course if you wouldlike to connect with Mica,
I'll be leaving socialmedias in the description.
(41:05):
She is most active on Instagram,Facebook, and LinkedIn.
So all of those will be there.
And there will also be adirect link to a resource
that she recently releasedon her website about, um,
some places to look todo your own research.
So if you want to check that out
or connect with Mica, feel free
to find those links in the description.
(41:26):
Of course, our website isin the description as well.
It brings you to our social media.
We are also on Instagram,Facebook, and LinkedIn.
So if you'd like to go follow those pages,
that support is always appreciated.
The website of course, brings you to all
of our past episodes and allof the relevant social media
and resource links that guestshave previously provided.
If you're interested infinding other fun stories, um,
(41:49):
feel free to check out our archives.
And of course, if you wouldlike to connect with me,
my email is in the description.
That is always the bestway to reach out to me.
And if you'd like to supportthe podcast monetarily,
there is a link to do that as well.
So thank you so much, Mica,for spending time with me today
and to my listenersfor taking the time out
of your day to hear our new story.
(42:09):
Until next time, bye.
- Thank you.
- Hello and welcome to Introducing Me.
I'm your host Sarah. Istarted this podcast to get
to know other people and lifestyles while
discovering more about myself.
Each episode I'll givea new guest a chance
to discuss their background,culture, interests,
or whatever they want to talkabout to help increase all
of our own worldviews.
Today I would like tointroduce you to Mica L. Anders
with one simple questionabout her own past.
(00:37):
Mica has forged a path asa professional genealogist
and artistic placemakerspecializing in African American
and Midwestern US genealogy.
So Mica is here to explainwhat all of that means,
why she got interested in all of this,
and I'm excited to hearmore from her today.
So thank you so much, Mica.
Why don't you go ahead and tell
the audience more about yourself.
(00:59):
- Yeah, thank you forhaving me. Hello all.
My name is Mica L. Anders
and I, I am a genealogist,I'm a people finder.
I, uh, like to solve family mysteries
and I help uncover forgotten pasts
and bring them back to lightthrough all the stories
of our ancestors.
Um, I got into it accidentally.
(01:20):
So again, I'm also an artist.
I have an MFA in visual arts
and when I was getting my MFA,I actually did for my thesis,
the genealogy of 11 people
and I turned those into art pieces.
And through that work I really found
that I enjoy doing otherpeople's family history.
So, you know, a lot ofpeople are kind of like,
I just wanna know who Iam and where I came from.
(01:42):
But for me, learning about other people
and helping reintroduce them
to their ancestors was so amazing.
And getting to hear all thesestories about people's lives.
And I think kind of like evenwith your podcast, right,
through learning about others,
we also do still learnabout ourselves as well.
So it's just been a really fun journey.
- So what kind of made you
(02:03):
dive further into becoming agenealogist from originally
just having more of acareer in visual arts
or a plan for a career in visual arts?
- Yeah, so it was like an accidental path
where the doors just kept opening
and I just kept walking through them.
So again, visual arts degree,I was a teaching artist.
(02:23):
I was a public artist, do a lot
of mosaics, a lot of photography.
Um, and I was doing an art project.
I was making a mini golf holefor this art installation
where, you know, all thesedifferent mini golf holes
for this, for a lightrail opening in town.
And I live in Minnesota.
And um, for both of my golfholes that I was commissioned
(02:47):
to make, they had ahistory component, right?
Because a lot of my art
and history, they've always tied together.
And for one of them, itwas about the history
of this historically black
neighborhood that I actually live in.
And so I called some of the elders
and I said, Hey, do you have pictures?
I wanna put 'em on my mini golf hole,
which is a very weird thingto ask people like, what?
Um, and they said, no,
(03:08):
I donated a bunch of historical society.
Cool. So I go down tothe Historical Society,
state Historical Society, andthey have all these images,
but they haven't been cataloged yet.
So because I have nothingelse to do, I volunteered
to catalog and archive thishuge collection of images.
So I was going through them,I was trying to like identify
who the people were andlearn about their stories
(03:30):
and it was really fun.
And so they got to know me atthe State Historical Society
and they said, Hey, do you,do you do more than this?
Like I you do genealogy andstuff, right? I said, yeah.
They said, could, couldyou do some of that for us,
you know, as a keynotespeaker and all these things.
So it was literally the super random path.
(03:50):
So that, and then also Iwas saying earlier right,
I did these 11 genealogyprojects as my art thesis.
And some of my very firstclients were those friends
who said, Hey, I know you kindof stopped where you needed
to for your art project,but could you keep going?
And then they told other people.
And so like I said, itwas super accidental.
(04:10):
Um, but I've, I just really enjoyed it.
And so for a while I wasbalancing two full-time careers.
Highly don't recommend.
So I was like a full-timeteaching artist and public artist.
And I also had this genealogy career
where I was doing research for clients
and then I started doing, um,work for historical societies
(04:31):
and doing this research onearly African American history
and turning into exhibits,
which was like, whoa, this is a lot.
So, um, after 10 plusyears as a teaching artist,
I was teaching artist of the year.
I was like, that seems likea good place to retire.
Let me slow that career down
and let's ramp this other one up.
So that's kind of theroundabout way it all happened.
And I still get use my art
'cause I do exhibits and things like that.
(04:53):
- So what was it like thendiving into genealogy full-time
and being able to put all ofthe energy into it instead of
having it full-time, but then also having
a other full-time career?
- Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's just ridiculous.
Even think about like howmany hours I was working.
So it was a lot.
(05:15):
So because it started randomly,
I never got a businessfoundation underneath it.
So like I wasn't technically an LLC
and I didn't really have any
business structures put together.
So trying to work forwards
and backwards simultaneouslywas really interesting.
Um, it let me know
(05:36):
how great I did withouthaving a business structure
and how many huge holes I had
and where I could have beenhad I started off, you know,
with like an LLC
and a business, um, abusiness checking account
and all of these thingsthat would've been really
helpful places to start.
But diving in full time, um,
(05:57):
in a lot of ways it'sbeen really rewarding,
but in other ways ittook my safety net away.
So now when all the eggsare in this one basket,
there's no fail safe.
Like okay, you have to make this work.
And I've been able to, um,
because I've had some amazing clients
and amazing recommendationsand you know, radio programs
and different things I've beenand where people have learned
(06:18):
who I am, but beingable to spend full time,
like sitting in mypajamas, doing my research
or flying out to differentplaces to meet with clients
or to go to archives,like I gotta fly to Macon,
Georgia when my clients flewme out there for a few days
to just sit in the archives.
How amazing. I know, it'sso funny, I brought one
(06:39):
of my research assistants with me
and the two of us were out there
and we worked really long hours
and at night we come back to the hotel
and think like, this is our job.
Like we're at work right now,
but it's kind of like vacation,
but we're spending all daysin libraries and courthouses
and these giant deed booksand just having a great time.
So I feel really fortunatethat, um, I enjoy what I do
(07:03):
and that I've been ableto move it into a career.
- Yeah, I mean, to hear thekind of accidental journey
and to being able togrow it to something more
and enjoy it so much.
So what kind of researchare you uncovering
for people and theseexhibits you are putting on?
(07:25):
Can you kind of explainwhat all of that entails
that you're helping people learn?
- Yeah, absolutely. So I havea couple different clients.
Um, one type of clientI have is somebody who
has heard family stories for years.
Uh, maybe they've done alittle research on their own,
but they've gotten stuck.
If they're an African American client
(07:46):
or somebody who has someAfrican American, um, in their,
in their family tree, they may have gotten
stuck at enslavement.
They may be trying to figure out sort of
how do we get past 1870?
How do I learn more aboutmy enslaved ancestors?
And sometimes that researchis harder to do without
as much training or as many,uh, resources available.
(08:08):
I have a lot of differentdatabases I have access to
and I've made a lot ofrelationships with different people
to help, uh, get accessto different things
that I might not have myself.
And um, I have a lot
of tricks that I'velearned over the years.
I've taken so many classesand things like that.
So that's one client.
Another type of client I have is somebody
who really is just curious.
(08:29):
Maybe they haven't done muchresearch, maybe they just kind
of wanna get a senseof like, who am I and,
and who are these people?
And maybe who was I named after?
I always heard I was namedafter grandma so-and-so,
but who was she?
Right? So they really want those stories
and that's, uh, importantfor what I do for all
of my clients is a lot
of times in genealogypeople just want a big tree.
(08:51):
They just want a whole bunch of names.
They wanna know who was bornwhen, where were they born,
what country and things like that.
But I work really hard to takejust those names and dates
and turn them into humans with stories
and really learn about their lives.
Um, so again, that'sanother kind of client.
The other type of client I have a lot
of are people who've maybetaken a DNA test, maybe
(09:15):
they just don't quite knowwhat to do with the results
because all of a suddenyou have all these cousins,
you are like, who are allthese people I'm related to?
I don't know any of these names.
Or they took a DNA test andlearned something unexpected.
So sometimes people take a DNA test
and they find out one of their parents
or grandparents isn't whothey thought they were.
(09:35):
They find out somebody wasadopted, sometimes themselves,
sometimes a relative,
sometimes they knew theywere adopted already.
Um, and so they're just trying
to learn more about their bio families.
So those are kind of my main clients.
On the genealogy side,on the exhibit design,
I've been really fortunate to work
with various historicalsocieties, um, in Minnesota
(09:57):
and some city governments inMinnesota and Iowa, both to try
and uncover earlyAfrican American history.
So they hire me and myteam and we research
and often uncover historiesthat have been lost for time.
And then we turn those into exhibits
that stay in the community
or travel around so that, um, a community
(10:18):
that may have thought,oh, we're just Norwegian.
It's always been the Norwegians
and the Swedes that lived here.
They learned that maybethey're really early history.
Minnesota was foundedin 1858, so we're kind
of a newer in some senses area.
Um, but it helps people understandlike, yeah, that might be
what the town looks like now,
(10:39):
but actually a lot ofthese places were a lot
more diverse early on.
And then just with time andcircumstance they shifted.
- And so you've mentioned a team
and you've mentionedcourses you have taken.
So how has all of that come about?
- Yeah, so the thing aboutbeing a genealogist is there's
just now starting to be officialdegrees that you can get.
(11:03):
So most of the people who I know
who are professional genealogists,
whether they are a CG certifiedgenealogist associated
whatever they have, or ifthey're just a professional
genealogist, which is what I am, um, most
of us went to school for something else.
So there wasn't just aprogram for genealogy.
So we do other things. There'sinstitutes which are usually
(11:23):
week long courses or you go,you stay maybe in Pittsburgh
or in Georgia for some of these institutes
and you have one topic that you research
and learn about allday for an entire week.
Maybe it's the southern United States,
maybe it's land records,
maybe it's early African American
history, something like that.
And so most of our work isthrough these really immersive,
(11:47):
uh, deep dive ways of learning.
So it's almost like, youknow, a college course, right?
We also have other things we've done.
Like there's an, uh, thingcalled um, pro gen study group,
which a lot of us have also taken,
and that's to become aprofessional genealogist.
It's our program was, I think 18 months.
It's shorter now, but for
that long we really dive intoall the different aspects
(12:09):
of becoming a professional genealogist
and how to write reports
and all the different stuff like that.
So that's how that works is, is
really continuing educationand it, it never ends
because even though we'relearning about the past, the tools
and resources availableto us are always changing.
So we have to stay informedand have to stay educated
(12:32):
and in a learning mode to make sure
that we always know what'sgoing on in our field.
In terms of my team, I have
two research assistants whowork on a lot of my projects
with me and I have a lovely graphic
and layout designer whohelps me with the exhibits.
Um, so that's my small butmighty little background team.
(12:52):
I also have, uh, my niecesometimes helps me with some
of my social media as well,
but it's a lot of researchto do on your own, especially
as I've grown and to make sureit's important to me that,
you know, clients can be really excited
and then to say, okay,well pay me your money
and in four months, I'lltell you what I found .
That's like, oh my gosh, what?
(13:14):
So having a team has allowed me
to work more efficientlyand a little faster.
So we, each one personwill look at census,
one person will look at vital records,
one person will be looking inthe newspapers and at maps.
So then we take all of that
and put it together to put ourreports ready for our clients
to learn about their history.
- Now when you're puttingtogether these reports,
(13:34):
do you have moments where you're not able
to answer the client's questions?
- Yes. It's so hard to to be in
that situation because people come
with these great questions, you know,
can you find my long lost so and so?
Or you know, can you prove that I have
(13:58):
Native American heritage?
And sometimes we can and it's amazing
and other times we can't.
And in my contract it sayswe're gonna do our best,
but we can't guarantee it.
But part of what'sreally important to me is
even if we can't answer thespecific question you asked,
(14:19):
we wanna share stories about the people
we did find along the way.
So maybe you wanted to know more about
Great grandma Sue,
but great grandma Suedoesn't exist in any records we
found yet before she marriedgreat-grandpa, whomever.
So instead of just saying wecouldn't find her, we'll say,
(14:40):
okay, well we couldn't findany records on her parents
or anything like that, but here's
what we learned about her marriage, here's
what we learned about her life, here's
what we learned aboutthe town she lived in.
Here's some things welearned about her other kids
besides whoever your direct relative is.
So it's just really importantthat even if we can't find
that specific thing, we still give people
as much as we can find.
(15:01):
And we also give, um, alist of the things we tried.
It's called a negative search.
So like, here's all the places we looked
and didn't find anything.
So that way if theywanna look on their own
or maybe hire somebody elseif they didn't think we did a
good enough job, which hasn't happened,
but in case, you know,
or if they just wanna have athing to look at, we can say,
these are the ways we tried.
(15:22):
So they can really seewe did our due diligence
and we tried the best we could.
- And when you're producingthese reports with all
of this information, whatkind of like goes into
that to make it understandable, even just
with all of the informationyou're gathering?
(15:43):
How does it, how does it become real?
- Yeah, so that's somethingthat I really pride myself on
with how I run my company is a lot
of genealogy reports only makesense to other genealogists
and that's not helpful at all.
So if you don't know what someof the terms are that we use
and things like that, getting
(16:04):
that report doesn't do anything for you
or just to get the report
and say, here's a bunch of records.
Okay, well what do I do with them?
I don't know how to reada census, for example.
So when we write our reports,well yeah, when I write a lot
of them, so when we write our reports, um,
they start from a place of story
and even if the records we foundwere in a different order,
(16:27):
I write them chronologically.
So it really tells somebody's life story.
So I'll start with maybethe most recent ancestor
and tell their story
and then talk about theirspouse and some of their kids.
And then we'll just go back in time
and it reads more like a narrative.
So it's something that you could take
and share with family members
who don't know anything aboutgenealogy, have never heard
(16:47):
of it, don't know how to read a chart,
and they'd be able to take that
and learn about their ancestors.
And then I try and add the images into it.
So like maybe I'll find a census record
and I'll cut out thepart about your family
and put it right into the record
and then describe it so it's not just a
random document with no description.
And then I'll put thefull one in the back.
There's always a huge attachmentin the back with all kinds
(17:09):
of note like images of all thedifferent documents we find.
And then I give them anew family tree as well
so they can see like, here's
where we started in our research
and here's all this stuffwe learned along the way.
- And if you're answeringspecific questions, um,
do you kind of like, you mentioned how,
if you might not be able toanswer like the exact questions,
(17:31):
but you can answer liketangentially, is there a point when
like you have to say like, we're,
we're stopping like the tree'snot gonna get you all the way
back to like the first King of
England.- Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, um, parameters arethe, are the key, right?
(17:55):
So when I work with people, I kind of say,
okay, what is your goal?
I work in packages.
I found that over theyears I've been doing this
professionally for over 10 years.
So that has been the key.
Um, rather than saying hire mefor a certain number of hours
and then of course who knows
what you can accomplish in an hour,
all the records might just fall in your
lap, but they might not.
So I say, okay, is yourgoal to find one person?
(18:17):
Is your goal to kind of fill out a line
of people maybe three generations
or maybe a bigger part of your tree?
So we set some parameters.
So it's like, I willnot be finding the King
of England in this package.
The package you hired me forgets you from maybe grandma,
grandma's parents andgrandma's grandparents,
and that's gonna be kind of,
and then any, you know, siblings,
(18:39):
aunts, uncles and things like that.
Um, so having those parameters
and really setting thoseexpectations on the front
end is really, really helpful.
But also I would say,um, I always ask people,
what is your main goal?
But also what are some secondary goals?
So I wanna make sure that evenif I didn't find, you know,
(19:00):
grandma Sue's early childhood,I did accomplish some
of the other things thatthey were hoping for.
'cause you wanna make surepeople feel like they've
accomplished something andthey got something they wanted
for paying all that money, right?
And so, um,it feels so much better
to be like, I found somethinglike it's a terrible gift
to say, well I got nothing for you,
(19:20):
but here's some fun facts, right?
I wanna say, okay, well Ididn't meet your main goal,
but your secondary and thirdgoal we were able to achieve.
- And so what sort of, um, maybe like,
interesting things have youfound throughout all of this
that you may not have been expecting
or like maybe a questionthat like came to you
(19:42):
and you were like, yeah, that's not
gonna happen, but we'll do our best.
We're gonna find theseother things for you and it
and it did come to fruition.
What things kind of like stand out
for you in, in this world?
- Yeah. So I have so many.
So, um, one
that's was really cool was I had a client
(20:04):
who was stuck at grandpa
and grandpa was grandpa slash
great-grandpa was a mother and a daughter.
So it was kind of was themother's grandpa stuck,
didn't know anything past him.
His name super common, firstname, super common last name
Smith, right?
(20:25):
Smith. So, um, and then I had,they were a Smith and a Jones
and that then they married like, what?
So didn't have much to work with, right?
So they hired me to say, canyou get any further back?
And I said, I'll try.
And um, all the records were kind
of leading in different paths
(20:46):
and nothing was coming together.
But eventually I asked thisrandom question, I just said,
have you guys ever had a family reunion
on this branch of your family?
Like, yeah, I said, where was it?
And they said it was insuch and such Arkansas.
I go, okay, so now I atleast have like a county
and a last name.
And those pieces of information
(21:08):
and a little bit of informationfrom one death certificate
got me not only to the next generation,
but back five more generations.
I was able to do that. And thenI found a Freedman's Bureau
record that had the names
of their family membersas enslaved people.
It had the names of theirenslavers, it had the names
of people's spouses, theirsiblings, their parents,
and then the DNA matched all of it.
(21:31):
So it was kinda like, okay,
I don't know if I'm on the right track.
And the DNA, none of thosenames had meant anything,
so I couldn't do anything with them.
But by moving the papertrail back, I now was able
to move the DNA back along with it.
That was so amazing and Idefinitely thought I was
gonna struggle on that one.
- I mean, it it sounds likeit, you know, we were talking
(21:52):
before this about how, youknow, I have some relatives
who are very into family trees,
but like, I have an uncommon last name.
So like, it's just different when
you've got a Smith and a Jones.
- Right.
Yeah. It's like, where are we gonna go?
I have another client, it's aRobinson and a Johnson.
(22:13):
Oh, how are we marrying these common names
to these common names?
Um, another really interesting story was
I had a client who wantedto learn more about, um,
their their mom's
dad also.
Mom's dad. Yeah. So mom's dad,and they knew almost nothing.
(22:36):
And it turns out that
mom's dad was raised in a foster home
that wasn't a foster home at the time.
So he ended up taking the nameof the people who raised him,
and that's why we weren'table to find anything.
So as we went through census records,
and again, the censuscomes out every 10 years
and it lists all of the people
(22:57):
who live in a household together.
And um, it lists theirrelationships to each other,
which are not always accurate.
So in this case, everycensus it listed this woman
as the mother of all of these children.
But then 10 years later, thesekids would be different kids
and all of a sudden you're like, well,
this kid was only three, sothey should still be in the
house at 13, but they're not.
(23:18):
And so we learned that this woman
was really like the community foster mom,
nothing official.
And it was just all of asudden we still weren't able
to go back any further on this family line
because again, we have no idea
what this person'sbiological last name was
because everything was in the name
(23:40):
of the person who'd raised him.
But just that story gaveso much back to this person
because at the end of the day,
although they weren't biologicallyrelated to this woman,
we now know who raised this person.
We have a better sense of what the
environment was, they were raised in.
We got a sense from different newspapers
and things about how loving she was
(24:01):
and how she really caredfor these children.
And, and you could follow some of them
that even weren't biologically related.
The kids stayed together and moved
as adults to different places.
And so I was still ableto give this amazing story
to this client, even though technically
we didn't get the name of the bio parents.
- Right. You know, I, itis so fascinating to hear
(24:23):
how these stories come about
and how you can answer some questions
and figure out, you know, what,what you can just learn in,
in the depths of the archives.
And so how much time would you say
is spent more in the realm ofindividual client genealogy
compared to the morehistorical society putting on
(24:47):
exhibits and diving more intolike community-based research?
- Right now it's about 50 50.
Um, I've been trying to figure out like
where I want it to go, right?
Because the exhibits, to bevery frank, pay more.
(25:07):
Right? They're bigger, they're larger, um,
but they also take longer.
So there's that trade off.
But um, sometimes
we're given so many more researchhours that we get to dive
so deeply into these communityhistories that we're able
to uncover things
(25:28):
that in a client case wemight just never have enough
hours to get to.
And so that can be reallyamazing and rewarding.
Um, but there's somethingabout the individual
clients and knowing you'regiving an actual person
something, right?
It's one thing to give it to the community
and that's beautiful, but um,to be able to give it back
(25:51):
to individuals has a differentfeel to it, I would say.
But something we've been starting
to incorporate intothe community histories
is descendant work.
So we're taking time now thatwe're uncovering these early,
early African Americanhistories in these towns.
What we're starting tonotice is the descendants
of those early AfricanAmericans don't know,
(26:12):
they often have no clue of this history.
They don't know maybe one oftheir ancestors was the first
barber in the town or theywere the first whatever, right?
And they don't know. And soit's been this other neat thing
that I've been able to dothrough community histories
is connect with descendants and,
and then it becomes notonly a community history,
(26:33):
but it comes back to beinga personal history as well.
- And how do you kind ofmake those connections
with descendants if theyweren't like the original person
asking you to do this research?
- So that's when, like we were talking
before we started, we have tobecome super sleuth experts
(26:54):
and get our, um, our, ourprivate investigator skills
in our, in our magnifying glass out.
So then we really start, um,
using tools like the White pages,
which actually still existsin certain forms, right?
We don't think about it asthe phone book that comes
to our house, but some ofthose things still exist.
(27:14):
We use Facebook a lot to find people.
Um, and, and eventuallywe have to do a reach out.
Now the reach out isthe scariest part for me
as an introvert and also as somebody
who doesn't love rejection.
Um, reaching out to an anonymous person
and saying, Hey, I know
(27:35):
that you descend from thisperson who's your third great
grandfather who you mayhave never heard of.
We wanna share this information with you.
And then having them acceptthat or not accept that or try
and figure out like, why do you know that
and how did you find me?
Right? It's kind of creepy.
Um, but most peoplereceive it really well.
(27:58):
So most people are just reallygrateful for the information
and, and happy to help.
And sometimes they havephotos that we've never seen
or things that will actuallyenhance the exhibit in ways
that we would've had no otheraccess to without being able
to reach out and contact them.
- And so then with allof your work doing all
of this learning about archives
and history of people, howhave you, if at all, kind
(28:21):
of like taken that intoyour own life to make sure,
you know, your historyis, you know, being,
being found and kind of, youknow, your own family tree
and all of that work.
Um, how have you taken thisinto your own personal stories?
- So like most people, myfamily is the worst researched
(28:44):
of all of the other work that I do
because I have to do it in my downtime, .
Um, so my family, one thingI do, I have a daughter
and so I talk to her about her ancestors
and she has a little kidstree that I made for her.
So she was able to sort of see growing up
and then she was named, her middle name is
after one of her ancestors.
So we talk about that.
(29:05):
And um, although I don't do a great job
actively researching myfamily as much as I should
at this time, I'm pretty far back on
a lot of the lines already.
Um, but I don't have as many stories
as I would like to on my own family.
But the ones I do have, Imake sure to share with her.
I make sure to document them
(29:26):
and um, in, in trees like onancestry and things like that.
So they exist outside of just me so
that one day they can be passed on to her.
And then any other familymembers who are trying to connect
and learn more, they can do that as well.
- And is ancestry kind of likethe main player in that sort
of more public facing game that
(29:50):
you can, can put it out there
or are there other placesthat people are kind
of making this connectionin their histories?
- There's a few places.
So some people like Ancestry, um,
some people don't because you have to pay.
So it has a subscription fee that changes
and increases regularly.
(30:10):
Um, some people use FamilySearch.org, it's run
by the Mormon church, whichfor some people is okay
for other people they'd prefer not
to have their information on there.
Um, a third site that peopleare starting to choose more
and more is called Wiki Tree.
And it's just like, youwould think it's sort
of crowdsourced and anybodycan put information on there.
(30:33):
There's groups that get together
and have wiki treemarathons to sit together
and really like take thetime, build out their own tree
or build out community trees
or in person important people's trees.
They might go on and say, oh, such
and such celebrity, let's buildtheir tree out on Wiki tree.
People do all kinds of stuff.
Um, and so that's a sort of a, a source
(30:57):
that right now feels outside
of the commercial aspects of things.
It feels a little bitmore, um, community run.
So that's a, a place more
and more people are starting to put
their information as well.
- And so how much are you connecting
with other people
and whether it's in thiscommunity kind of, of like people
(31:20):
who are just fascinated withit on like Wiki tree compared
to people who are going theprofessional genealogy route
or getting these degrees that now exist.
And also just like thecasual interest person.
Like where, how, how is allof that, you know, community,
um, impacting your life?
(31:41):
- So, um, I have been fortunate
to run in a few different fields, right?
So I have friends
and colleagues who are hobbyists
sometimes they're myamazing research volunteers.
Sometimes I put out a call
and say, Hey, I am doinga big community project
and I would love volunteer assistance.
And um, some people who maybe are newer
(32:03):
and want some more experience
or want to kind of shadowwhat I do professionally
and learn some tips andtricks along the way,
they'll come in and workas volunteers on some
of our bigger projects.
Um, we have kind of a really big Facebook
and Instagram nerdycommunity that we've created.
It's great. We have allkinds of memes and jokes
(32:23):
and get to just talk about allthese silly genealogy things
in groups on Facebook more
and then on Instagram just, you know,
in regular Instagram community through
what people are sharing in their
stories and things like that.
So that community is reallymade up of a blend of people
who do it professionally,people do it as a hobby
and everything in between
and people who are just interested.
(32:44):
So those are the reallythe two places we kind
of hang out in the virtual world.
Again, like I said, we haveall these different institutes
and those are just a reallyfun, again, super nerdy place
to be where we can all justbe our best nerdy selves
and talk genealogy.
Um, at some of the conferenceswe'll stay up all night on
(33:06):
our laptops in the lobbyresearching together
and talking about our findings
because a lot of us areintroverts by nature,
which I think you kindof have to be to sit
for hours alone in front of your computer.
But we also get really excitedto talk about what we found
and sometimes even just sortof parallel researching.
(33:28):
So when you find somethingcool, you can shout it out
to the room and everybody's really excited
for you can be really fun too.
- And so then, because you kind
of fell into this accidentally,
but now have a big passionfor it, are you still
doing more physical media in
what you originally werepassionate about outside of,
(33:51):
you know, having general exhibits?
- So I don't do a great job of
making a lot of things at home.
Part of my art path took meto public art for a reason,
and that was after having an undergrad
and a graduate degree in visual arts.
I had so much stuff, so many supplies,
(34:15):
so many half done projects,so many files of images
and it was just like, okay,I really like public art
because I get to make itand then it leaves my house
and goes out into the world, right?
So I don't do as manythings to just have at home
because then they juststart to collect again.
But I keep trying to findways to bring it back.
(34:35):
So I recently, uh, did a project
that's actually almost finishedwhere we did mosaic markers
that are going at the grave sites
of the early African Americansin a county in Minnesota.
And so I got to make mosaics,but they're leaving my house
and I got to do it in community,
which is my favorite way to make art.
But my main art that I dojust for me is coloring.
(34:57):
I love a color by number.They are relaxing.
They're, I do 'em before bed.
I do 'em sometimes on my iPad,
sometimes in real coloring books.
I'll go to meetings. Peopleare like, what is that?
Oh, that's my markers. I gotmy whole marker tote with me.
'cause I gotta have allthe shades of green,
right, for your color by number.
So that's, um, that's oneof the ways I stay creative.
(35:19):
I also dance, but in termsof my visual arts, it's,
it's really through coloringright now that I keep that,
that hobby level art andthat creativity going.
- And what do you do withyour color by numbers such
that they're, if they're notdigitally taking up space?
- They go in the recyclingI have a folder
(35:43):
and once the folders, it'sjust a two pocket folder.
Once it's getting full,they just gotta go.
The experience was the making, right?
It's really about, uh,process, not product.
So after a while theyjust go in recycling.
I don't really revisit them.
I know people who number themand they put dates on them.
I don't do any of that stuff.They live with me for a while.
I'm like, oh, that one was cool.
And eventually it goes in recycling.
(36:04):
I try and do 'em on, um, likeI make copies from books.
So I bought all these books.
But again, it's thisweird thing where like,
I don't wanna mess up the book, right?
So I make copies of them andcolor the copies instead.
But um, I try to use like the back
of some other piece of paper.
Like I'll print on some scratch paper.
(36:25):
So I feel like, oh, it's not being
wasted, it's not new paper.
And that's my, my wayof working around that .
- Yeah. But to hear, you know,the process not product and
because visual arts make aproduct to find like a way
that it works for you at ahobby level, um, I think,
(36:46):
you know, as consumerism consumerizes,
like there can just be so much,um, to figure out, you know,
you don't, you don'twanna lose this passion,
but how can you make itsustainable for yourself?
- Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Or sometimes I makethings and give 'em away.
I'll make mosaic coasters for people
(37:06):
or you know, I'll,
I still do photography on theside just for fun sometimes.
But usually it's with my phone.
That's why I got the phone I got.
So it had a super fancy camera, you know,
I'll print stuff out and asgifts I'll give people pictures
of things that they're inor that I've taken.
- Cool.- Yeah.
- Now I'm not sure I have anyother specific questions,
(37:28):
but I feel like there's probably more
that you could sharewhether it's about like you
or you know, this fascinatingcareer that you have been on.
So what else would you liketo share with the listeners,
make sure they hear aboutyou and your passions?
- Yeah, I think the first thingis sort of a, not about me,
but a mindset that got me where I am.
(37:51):
And that was really just do good work
and good work comes to you.
So just allowing my path to open
as it opens rather than feelinglike, oh gosh, this isn't
what my degree is and I have to
go get another degree, right?
Or, um, oh, my degree is in this so I have
(38:11):
to stay in this lane,
but allowing for, for the path
to go wherever it went, right?
And I still get to do all of the things.
And if I look back onwho I've always been,
I've always been a researcher,
I've always been into history,
I've always been into visual arts.
And so being able to reallyaccidentally mold a career
(38:33):
that allows all of thosethings to sing inside of me,
I just feel really grateful.
And, and I don't think it's unique to me.
I think I just didn't let fear
or expectations, uh, from myself
or from others stop mefrom going down this path.
(38:56):
- I think that is great to share
and to have people hearrealizing that, you know,
you aren't beholden to one path.
Um, and you're a greatexample of realizing you know,
where your passions are and,
and that it's always been a part of you.
It doesn't have to be separate.
- Yeah, absolutely.
(39:17):
- Now at the end of all my episodes,
I do ask my guests a random question.
So I don't know if this willbe a good question for you
or not, but do you read your horoscope
and what are your opinions on that?
- It's a great question.
So, um, 'cause I actually dogenealogy posts once a month
(39:38):
about whatever thatmonth's zodiac season is
and I tie them into genealogy.
So it's a great question for me.
Um, I don't read my horoscope daily,
but I do learn about my
zodiac sign and my three,
the big three and things like that.
(39:58):
And I, um, I use that information
to help me understand myselfand some of my idiosyncrasies
and also don't letmyself be confined by it,
but almost like, oh,here's an aha about myself.
Um, but I love zodiac stuff.
(40:21):
It's kind of when I wasyounger, I have actually books,
they're actually stillon my bookshelf up here
that I've had since I was in college
in the early two thousands.
Um, where we would meticulously,anybody knew we met,
what is their zodiac sign?
We have to learn aboutthem. Are they compatible
with us even at a friendshiplevel, which is super
not healthy, but it's what we did.
And so, um, so, so yeah,no daily horoscope,
(40:44):
but I definitely do payattention to my zodiac
and sort of how it affectsme and, and things like that.
- All right, that bringsthis episode to a close.
So of course if you wouldlike to connect with Mica,
I'll be leaving socialmedias in the description.
(41:05):
She is most active on Instagram,Facebook, and LinkedIn.
So all of those will be there.
And there will also be adirect link to a resource
that she recently releasedon her website about, um,
some places to look todo your own research.
So if you want to check that out
or connect with Mica, feel free
to find those links in the description.
(41:26):
Of course, our website isin the description as well.
It brings you to our social media.
We are also on Instagram,Facebook, and LinkedIn.
So if you'd like to go follow those pages,
that support is always appreciated.
The website of course, brings you to all
of our past episodes and allof the relevant social media
and resource links that guestshave previously provided.
If you're interested infinding other fun stories, um,
(41:49):
feel free to check out our archives.
And of course, if you wouldlike to connect with me,
my email is in the description.
That is always the bestway to reach out to me.
And if you'd like to supportthe podcast monetarily,
there is a link to do that as well.
So thank you so much, Mica,for spending time with me today
and to my listenersfor taking the time out
of your day to hear our new story.
(42:09):
Until next time, bye.
- Thank you.
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