Thomas Brighton Telford: a life across the centuryThe life of Thomas Brighton Telford stretches across nearly ninety years of Australian and world history, from the year of federation to the eve of…How the McCarthy Family Adapted to Life in PennsylvaniaFamily history often becomes clearest when migration is treated as a process rather than a single event. A McCarthy arrival in Pennsylvania may have involved…The morning my father told me about the TidwellsSome family histories begin with a document carefully stored in a folder. Others begin at the kitchen table, in the unplanned space between breakfast and the…The Smell of Lye Soap in Grandmother’s KitchenSome memories arrive as pictures, while others enter through the nose. The smell of lye soap can bring back a kitchen before its doorway appears: a wood stove…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”,…