How home exchange changed our view of historyFor Allen and me, home exchange began as a practical way to travel. Instead of staying in an anonymous hotel, we lived for a short time in someone else’s house…Blackberry jam and the Telford family memoryThe Telford family’s tradition of making blackberry jam belongs to the practical, generous world of home preserving. It turns a short seasonal crop into…Allen’s Prose: The Day We Dug Up the Time Capsule at the FarmThe farm had always kept its own calendar. The old pear tree marked the edge of the house yard, the windmill complained before rain, and the shed wall gathered…Using Civil War pensions to prove a Tidwell lineageCivil War pension files can turn a suspected Tidwell connection into a carefully documented family line. They often contain the ordinary details that formal…Remembering Helen Brighton McCarthy, 1915–2004Helen Brighton McCarthy’s life spans nearly nine decades, from 1915 to 2004. An obituary for Loni’s grandmother is therefore more than a notice of death. It is…Following The South Family Across Five StatesThe chronology of the South family’s moves across five states is more than a sequence of addresses. It is a record of changing work, family connections,…Poem: The Iron Bedstead in the Tidwell Guest RoomAn old bed can hold a family story as surely as a photograph, letter, or handwritten family tree. In the Tidwell guest room, the iron bedstead stands as a…A Red Cottage Beside a Swedish LakeA home exchange in Sweden can begin with a simple image: a red timber cottage, pale birch trunks, a jetty reaching into still water, and a view that changes…Reading McCarthy Letters From The California Gold RushA family letter written during the California Gold Rush can make a distant event feel immediate. Instead of seeing 1850s California only through mining…The Stories Behind the Names in the Family BibleAllen’s essay, “The Stories Behind the Names in the Family Bible,” begins with a familiar object: an old Bible filled with names, dates and brief family notes.…