Listen, the truth is, the ancestors don’t care about how or where we talk about them online. They care that they are remembered and honored, that their memories are passed from generation to generation through oral history, legacy, the Family Ofrenda, and the lives of their descendants. Sharing my personal family history stories and some…
Journal
3+3 – September 2025 (Trying to Find My Groove)
Well hello there! How the heck are you? Why yes…yes, it is mid-month and I’m just getting around to writing a few planning notes down for of September. Yeah, August was a doozy, between the farm/animal care, my daughter being home from all day every day after eight weeks of summer day-camp, and present life…
3+3 – August 2025 (Needles & Haystacks)
Welcome August and a renewed opportunity to reflect on what has been accomplished over the past month + what I intend to focus on in the coming month! July was my first attempt at (officially) laying out three goals for myself and holding myself accountable. Being a Hobby Family Historian and Genetic Genealogist offers a…
Isaac C. Graves – Civil War Pension File (Request)
A little over a year ago, much to my delight, I requested and received my very first Civil War Pension File. At well over 400 pages, the record blew my mind and offered several insights into John Patrick Brogan‘s Irish origins and USA experiences during and after the Civil War. Looking only one generation back,…
3+3 – July 2025 (A New Approach)
Welcome July and a new approach to attacking my ever-hopeful and never-ending task list: 3+3! As I mentioned in my last post and in bits and pieces elsewhere, we family historians tend to be quite passionate about the research and documentation of our families. Sometimes, that passion can turn on us, though, leading to guilt…
Everything is Family History
As a hobby family historian and genetic genealogist, I sometimes give myself a hard time for not devoting all of my copious free time to the depths of family history research. You know, accomplishing more and more towards that ever-elusive unicorn of a “finished tree” and holding in my hands every document available ever. Those…
Where Past & Present Collide
Goodness, I just fell right off there once the A to Z Challenge was completed, didn’t I? Apologies. I guess that’s what happens when a hobbyist’s best intentions collide with present time necessities 🙂 Alas, I am still alive and kicking (or up and not crying, if you will) after a May filled with a…
My NPE Experience on the DNA Surprises Podcast
If you have experienced an NPE event, I imagine you know how earth-shaking it can be to have the very fabric of your being ripped apart and woven back together into a 3-D tapestry with brand new threads. Had you asked me in 2019 if I thought I might talk about the whole experience on…
World Tuberculosis Day
Today marks the date in 1882 that Dr. Robert Koch announced his discovery of the bacteria that causes Tuberculosis, also known as TB or (for us family historians) Consumption. To commemorate World Tuberculosis Day, I’d thought I’d share a personal story about TB. A story about how it brought my maternal Grandma from her hometown…








