From Paper To People
The #1 job of family history research is to take ancestors from names on paper to multidimensional people who lived, breathed, loved, lost, and helped us to be who we are. In this work, I am all about best evidence and best practices. This podcast is an extension of my classroom, a hybrid teaching and chat session where you'll find the best ways to get the most out of online genealogy tools. I'll give you tips, tricks, and stories from my 37 years of research about mistakes and triumphs in genealogy, folklore, and family history work. I'll discuss using Ancestry, FamilySearch, Newspapers.com, Find-a-Grave and more. I'll also have special tips and tricks for Mormon genealogists, and features on aspects of African-American and recent-immigrant genealogy. My anecdotes come from interesting searches and finds in my own tree and my clients' trees. If you have a question that you'd like answered, let me know - I'll do my best to address it!
Episodes
April 6, 2022 • 13 min
Today's episode is a Family Cookbook episode that I've wanted to make for quite a while. It features two of my favorite foods from the area where I went to college (and where MANY of my ancestors lived for over a century) - Deep Fried Biscuits and Homemade Apple Butter, from Indiana. See the shownotes for the recipes.The part of the apple butter recipe that fascinates me is that my mother's mother would have gone throug...
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February 1, 2022 • 12 min
Here's another biography I developed on my quest to achieve one biography per day on my platform of choice, FamilySearch. With each ancestor, I always start with the auto-generated Life Story on Ancestry, copy it and paste it in the LifeStory field on FamilySearch. Then, I augment it with facts from census, vital, and other records, along with a little logical deduction thrown in for good measure. As I did before, I will read y...
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January 21, 2022 • 2 min
This February is going to be on fire with four Saturday Zoom seminars, ABSOLUTELY FREE OF CHARGE: Dr Shelley Viola Murphy's "African American Genealogy Challenges," Angela Y Walton-Raji's "Researching African/Native American Genealogy," "African American Genealogy Research in the North Carolina Portion of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor" with Renate Yarborough-Sanders, and finally, a pr...
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January 19, 2022 • 19 min
Have you ever set a goal or {shudder} made a New Year's Resolution, and then not kept it? Yeah, you're allowed to look at me and point on that one. I am a terrible offender. But this year, I don't have a goal, or a resolution, I just have a hashtag....
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January 12, 2022 • 18 min
Happy New Year, and welcome back to the post-champagne life! I have three recipes for you today, and each will appease your cheesecake cravings in different ways. The first is a traditional recipe from my mother's mother. The second is a Ricotta Cheesecake (or Ricotta Pie) from a local real estate agent, AnnaLisa Bossio. The last is one of my own creation that is small yet flexible, and can be made to suit many different allerg...
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December 29, 2021 • 14 min
2021 is definitely in the running for my least favorite year EVER! It has given me reason to reexamine what I'm doing, however, both with the podcast and with my own work. Join me for a list of thank-you's, and for an introduction of the quickest, easiest solution I've found so far to distractions, brick walls, and the genealogy blues - #BioADay2022. Let's join together to hold one another accountable as we actively...
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October 31, 2021 • 35 min
It's that time of year again - Happy Halloween, and Happy All Saints' Day too! This episode is full of delicious stories and delicious recipes. Dai Davies of GenealCymru (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwCn2sBhucfp47_EaCpsWXg) and Andrew Martin of Family Histories Podcast (https://g.co/kgs/sCcmSH) contributed their own stories to the episode, as have I. I'm also providing you family and historical recipes for chocolat...
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September 20, 2021 • 13 min
I have three things on my mind today, and all opportunities for sharing and growth:* Share an mp3 recording of an ancestor's story that you think is interesting, unique, creepy, or fun! I will edit it into the Halloween, Skelly Rellies episode of the podcast. Soft deadline is October 15, hard deadline is October 20.* Don't be a Jeffrey, part #9,237 - there's been some jackery-peggery and we need to nip that stuff in the...
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September 1, 2021 • 6 min
At long last, a proper Zoom class! I'm holding my first class on September 5, 2021 at 3pm ET - cleaning trees in Ancestry, and the basics of FamilySearch, in order to get moving on transferring reparational trees (for those who want this service). I...
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July 4, 2021 • 12 min
It's July 4th, and I'm feeling reflective about what patriotism means to me. I'm discussing my Patriot ancestors, the 29 (or so) men who participated in, or supported, the American Revolution.
What I've found is that patriotism isn't as simple as it seems. Please join me.
NEW: I'm on Clubhouse @ancestorsalive.
You can join my Facebook group by visiting this page (http://ancestorsalivegenealogy.com/join-comm...
What I've found is that patriotism isn't as simple as it seems. Please join me.
NEW: I'm on Clubhouse @ancestorsalive.
You can join my Facebook group by visiting this page (http://ancestorsalivegenealogy.com/join-comm...
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June 6, 2021 • 28 min
Have you ever wondered what it takes to have a genealogy blog? Whether amateur or professional, blogging is a great way not only to publish family information, but to find information from others. Lisa Lisson, author of the "Are You My Cousin?" blog, stopped by for a chat last year and told me all about it. Listen in and learn why blogging is good for your work, platforms, content, publication to social media, the use of ma...
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May 28, 2021 • 10 min
Isn't it high time for a 2021 episode of The Family Cookbook? I think so, and not just because it's grilling time in the Northern Hemisphere! I'd love to interview you about your family's foodways, but in the absence of your recipes, here are four o...
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May 25, 2021 • 5 min
First, a big welcome and thank you to Lorraine Anderson, Jenna Robertson, Jeanne Arp, Margaret Eves, and Charles Andrews!
Some things are changing at my Patreon - there are new quarterly loyalty rewards in some categories, and I am dropping the $1 and $2/mo support levels. From June 1 on, the lowest support level for the podcast will be $5.
Please support me - we have monthly giveaways as well as those loyalty gifts!
You can join my F...
Some things are changing at my Patreon - there are new quarterly loyalty rewards in some categories, and I am dropping the $1 and $2/mo support levels. From June 1 on, the lowest support level for the podcast will be $5.
Please support me - we have monthly giveaways as well as those loyalty gifts!
You can join my F...
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May 22, 2021 • 49 min
Finally, part two of my January 2021 interview with Michael Twitty, in which we talk much more about food than we did in the first half. We start by discussing how genealogy is a part of becoming whole, which enables us to be of service in this world. Then, we talk about how food isn't just food. There are revelations about fufu. Michael makes all kinds of links between foods from the African continent and Southern cuisine, and...
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February 20, 2021 • 39 min
I don't know how to introduce this - I GOT TO INTERVIEW MICHAEL TWITTY!!!
We talked for so long that I was able to break the discussion into two episodes. This is part one, in which we talk DNA and how it doesn't serve Black researchers, writing as a protection of memory the ultimate smallness of the world, human interconnectedness, and many aspects of Blackness as they relate to power and powerlessness - ultimately, findin...
We talked for so long that I was able to break the discussion into two episodes. This is part one, in which we talk DNA and how it doesn't serve Black researchers, writing as a protection of memory the ultimate smallness of the world, human interconnectedness, and many aspects of Blackness as they relate to power and powerlessness - ultimately, findin...
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February 10, 2021 • 8 min
I cannot believe my sheer luck in getting the opportunity to interview Michael W Twitty! Well, luck and a year of trying. The man is BUSY.
In 2017, Michael published a watershed book called The Cooking Gene. It's an amazing work of re...
In 2017, Michael published a watershed book called The Cooking Gene. It's an amazing work of re...
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December 15, 2020 • 12 min
Twitter bots attacked my account and I can't get in, so I have a new one - fppppodcast. Yeah, I reported a fascist and BAM! So, THAT happened.
Otherwise, I want all of 2021 to be audience participation time. Please join me with your family stories about life on the homefront during World War II. No matter where you're from, I want to hear how your family dealt with radical life changes, deprivation, and even loss of family m...
Otherwise, I want all of 2021 to be audience participation time. Please join me with your family stories about life on the homefront during World War II. No matter where you're from, I want to hear how your family dealt with radical life changes, deprivation, and even loss of family m...
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November 24, 2020 • 5 min
This is not an episode so much as an announcement: it's holiday time and that means it's time for taking folklore! But, with the increased need to stay home and separate, and with more people than ever relying on devices and video chat to communicat...
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November 6, 2020 • 51 min
Yes it's Halloween, but we're not really getting scary with it - maybe a little spoopy, but more misty. And hungry. This episode has stories, a few laughs, a few recipes, and is a tribute to YOU - my audience - for sticking with me since January 2018. Next year, maybe you'll contribute a story or a recipe yourself? In the meantime, listen and enjoy as the stories I collected LAST year finally get an airing. Stay safe, a...
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October 27, 2020 • 2 min
Do you have family recipes that pertain to the Autumn, or to Halloween itself? I'd love to read them out in our upcoming Halloween episode, Skelly Rellies! Just send me the name of the person who made the recipe, why it's important to you or your fa...
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