Civil War Pension File: John Patrick Brogan
Despite my years of researching and documenting my family, I’m continually humbled by how much I don’t know and how much is available to us if we simply know where to look or who to ask. Case in point: I recently learned in a Civil War Facebook group that I could request my 2x great grandpa’s Civil War Pension File using the information provided on the Pension Index Card I found on Ancestry.com a few years ago.
Heritage Journal - My Bio-Father, Michael
I knew when I started this Heritage Journal project that my paternal side would present my biggest challenges because this side of my lineage didn’t even truly exist my periphery until 2019.
There were no stories told to me as a small child about them.
No vacations filled with cousins or grandparents. No sights, smells, tastes, or memories to guide my way in the creation of each journal spread.
Oral History & Faulty Recall: Leah Stanton
Inaccuracies are caused by faulty recall; there is no factual research to discover heights of buildings, dates of demolition, blood types
Heritage Journal - My Mom, Kerry
I know I’m not alone when I say that I had a difficult relationship with my mom.
With so many individual, familial, and societal forces at play, I’m honestly not sure our culture is set up to nurture and support our mother/daughter relationships in a very positive way, especially through the individuation years, try as we might.
And so, as I’ve sat with the Heritage Journal spread for my mom, my emotions have ebbed and flowed…
The 2020 Census
We all grieve the 1890 Census, but have you given any thought to what happened with the 2020 Census?
Let’s talk about it.
2020 was… whew! It was quite a year, wasn’t it? So much worry, uncertainty, and general confusion. The world had flipped upside down and all that we thought we knew was being questioned from inside our respective homes.
On being bold & queer, across generations
Thanks to my maternal Grandma’s writing, I know that Nancy was a Quaker and very much a “woman of her time”. She was expected to do things a certain way and expected the same of her 13 children. Which is why, when Hannah came along and didn’t exactly fall in line, she began telling her how “bold and queer” she was.
Deliria by Eve Stanton, 1933
I live in a room that is straight and bare,
With rings on my fingers and thorns in my hair
And I hear all night against my door
The pounding hands of the days before.
Blogiversary: One
How has it already been a whole year since I launched this long thought about venture?!
Well, no matter how time warps and days turn into years, here we are, and I am just so darn happy to be able to share my passion for all things family history in this space and to have been met by such an intimate and supportive community.
To mark the occasion of my very first Blogiversary here on bold+queer I thought I’d go through a few stats and then offer up a celebratory GIVEAWAY!
Finding Nancy Jane
As many of us in the genealogy community know, the work that we do doesn’t all happen overnight. While some of us have been gifted documentation of our family history and some of us have had some fantastic luck in tracking down lines or have distant kin who can guide us in the right direction, that’s just not the case for all of us or for every situation.
And, as many of us in the genealogy community also know, all it takes is a single spark to pique our curiosity and carry us through even the most frustrating challenges.