The Telford Sisters’ Letters from the 1910sFamily letters can make a genealogy collection feel immediate. A birth date places someone in a register, an obituary records the end of a life, and a census…Loni’s How-To: Creating a Family Tree OnlineA family tree begins with people, places and stories, not with a blank database screen. Before searching online, gather the names, dates, photographs, letters…Allen’s Poem: The Evening Bell at the Brighton SchoolhouseAllen’s poem, “The Evening Bell at the Brighton Schoolhouse,” evokes a small community at the hour when lessons end, doors close, and familiar paths lead…Home Exchange In Switzerland: A Chalet With An Alpine ViewA home exchange in Switzerland can feel like a meeting between two kinds of memory. There is the practical pleasure of borrowing a lived-in chalet, learning…Margaret McCarthy Tidwell, 1820–1898Margaret McCarthy Tidwell’s life sits across a period of substantial change. Born in 1820 and remembered in an obituary dated 1898, she belonged to a…Reading Medical Records in Tidwell Family HistoryA nineteenth-century medical record rarely gives a neat diagnosis in modern language. For a Tidwell ancestor, a death certificate might name “consumption”,…The Brighton Family’s Connection to the Underground RailroadThe Brighton family’s connection to the Underground Railroad belongs to the kind of history that is assembled gradually: a name in a census, a residence near a…Loni’s Prose: The Apron That Hung on the Back of the DoorSome household objects become memorable because they are valuable, unusual or carefully preserved. Others stay with us because they were always there: a tea…Tracing the South Family’s Farming Years in IndianaThe South family’s farming years in Indiana can be read as a sequence of places, households, land transactions, and seasonal work rather than as a simple list…Allen’s Essay: The Tin Trunk of Letters from the Old CountryThere are family possessions that seem ordinary until someone asks what they have carried through time. A silver brooch, a recipe written in fading ink, or a…