Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys reveals the grace and strength of the Lithuanian nation in one of its darkest hours. The story of Lina and her family is one of the most powerful I have ever read and is at the same time a tragedy of epic proportions and a triumph of the […]
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Don’t overlook Ancestry City Directories in your research! Here’s how to mine the often mundane data in them like a pro genealogist! Squeezing every last drop of information out of City Directories can be tedious for sure; however, you can make major breakthroughs with what I will show you. Ancestry City Directories are like the
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I wanted to share a GENEALOGY tip that I recently discovered. I found the mother lode of free Declaration of Intention and Petition for Naturalization (also in some cases Certificates of Arrival) scans on Family Search! These particular records are for New Haven, Connecticut for the years 1906 – 1945; however, the method I discovered
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A list of books read in 2016 in bibliographic format. My 2016 reading appetites continued along the historical from my 2015 Reading List but also saw a shift towards highlighting specific personalities in terms of monographs and place-based histories. Among my fascinations were Eleanor of Aquitaine, Alexis de Tocqueville, the Vikings, and a foray into
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A list of books read in 2015 in bibliographic format. 2015 was really a continuation of 2014 for me in that my reading interests were focused primarily on history and books relevant to my genealogical research. 2015 reflects a narrower focus on historical contexts, especially medieval England and the southern United States. Judging by the
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Vexillology is the study of flags! I’ve always loved flags and their design, the colors and the pageantry involved in the symbolism of both state and national flags. Above is a map of the United States, our southern states are colored orange. This article will feature the state flags of the southern United States, there are
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Our nation is not very different from other nations around the world in that there are geographic divisions that also represent cultural divisions. Saying “north” or “south” invites a concomitant cultural designation. However, the two are not coterminous. So, which states make up “the South?” We know Yankees come from the north (lol), but can
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The Battle of New Orleans was a battle fought as the culmination of the War of 1812. The War of 1812 is an interesting conflict in American History because, in many respects, it was an offshoot of the American Revolutionary War in that postwar tensions, as well as the ongoing animosity between France and Great
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As a person who didn’t grow up in the South yet has a deep connection to its past via his ancestry, I’d like to unfurl my opinion on the Confederate Flag. First of all, there exists the fallacy of composition which states (paraphrased) that you cannot apply a logical inference to a group of people
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“Home is where the heart is.” Not many sayings are truer than that! The keys to truly understanding the true meaning of that proverb are the words home and heart. What emotions and memories do those words stimulate within you? For me home is my sanctuary. Home is the place where I can shut the
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“Across the Cumberland Gap.” The fall leaves brought forth their majesty, all around the hollows of this changing border town. The winds swept through the clean mountain air, plucking out, one by one, the mustardy-red leaves which annually signaled change. The air was crisp, the farmhouses stood tall. Facing north were the hills. Facing north
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