Following the Missing Thread in John Brighton’s Family LineGenealogy Dead Ends: The Search for John Brighton’s Parents is a familiar kind of family-history problem. A researcher finds a named ancestor in a census,…The Telford Family Bible: A Record of Births and DeathsA family Bible can preserve a kind of history that formal registers often miss. Its handwritten pages may connect names, dates, marriages, children, and deaths…Allen Hackworth on the art of writing historical fictionHistorical fiction begins where documented history meets the imaginative life of ordinary people. Dates, names, places, and records establish what happened,…McCarthy family life in Chicago, 1900–1920The first two decades of the twentieth century were a period of rapid change for Chicago families. Immigration, industrial employment, crowded neighborhoods,…Home Exchange in Tuscany: A Personal JournalThe first morning in Tuscany began with the quiet scrape of a shutter opening below our bedroom window. Somewhere beyond the stone walls, a rooster objected to…Sarah Ellen Telford, 1892–1965Sarah Ellen Telford’s life spanned a period of profound change in family, community, and national history. Born in 1892 and remembered as having died in 1965,…A photographic record of the old South family farmVisiting the Old South Family Farm: A Photographic Essay is an invitation to look closely at a place where family history remains visible in the landscape. The…Photographs Of The Brighton Family Reunion, 1924The photographs of the Brighton family reunion, 1924, offer a rare visual connection to a generation now known largely through names, dates, census entries,…Allen’s First Published Poem in 1978A first publication is a small event on paper, yet it can mark a decisive moment in a writer’s life. For Allen Hackworth, that moment arrived in 1978, when one…Genealogy research tips for the South familyCourt records can turn a family story into a documented account. For researchers tracing the South family, these records may reveal relationships that never…