The first rule of tracing your ancestry is check it out. You may think you know all about an ancestor because you have heard stories about them from the time you sat on your grandfather’s knee. But it may not all be true. My great grandfather, John E. Doxon, fought in the Civil War. Or…
Several years ago, a total newbie, I began researching my ancestry. I built a huge family tree going back to antiquity, placing some of them in the tree based solely on other online family trees. As I got deeper into the process, I learned that mistakes are common, some “historians” made up stories of family…
Too often we think of those who returned from World War II as the Greatest Generation, a group of men and women who fought a brave and noble war and returned home, strengthened and prepared to create the idyllic, prosperous years of the 1950s. But they came home with their scars, missing parts of themselves,…
My Dad graduated from high school in 1931, at the age of 16. My grandmother felt he was too young to go off to college (besides the fact that there was no money for college) so my grandfather got him a job building railroads. I knew that during the depression my grandfather worked at the…
My brother, who was the executor of my father’s will, moved recently. He discovered two boxes that he thought contained only old financial records that could have been destroyed long ago during the move. Instead, he found old photo albums, letters, graduation, wedding and funeral announcements, and my Dad’scomplete military records. I wrote the book…
We crossed Indiana and half of Illinois today to visit the Abraham Lincoln Museum and Presidential Library. We saw license plates from Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, Maine, Ohio, Missouri, Massachusetts, Iowa, Florida, Minnesota, Washington, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, California, Maryland, Georgia, West Virginia, Quebec, and Ontario, slightly fewer than yesterday. This…
Because we wanted to get to Fort Recovery in Western Ohio, today was one of our longest driving days, although it was still far from grueling. Along the way, we spotted license plates from New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Arizona, Illinois, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Indiana, Tennesee, Maine, Texas, Virginia, Massachusetts, Georgia, Connecticut, Kansas,…
The crowds and lack of fireworks over the falls were a disappointment at Niagara Falls, but the ride on Maid of the Mist was everything we expected. Robert said it almost made him giddy to be in the midst of the mist. Akalena spends about half her life being giddy. She spent much of the…
On the short trip from Utica to Niagara Falls, we found license plates from Maryland, New York, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maine, Florida, Oklahoma, Ohio, California, Texas, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, Arizona, Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Ontario. Akalena easily found them all on the map except Massachusetts, which was labeled Mass. We…
We left the easternmost point of our long research trip in a driving rain that let up enough, as we approached Hubbardton, to allow us to tour the battlefield there, where the rear guard of St. Clair’s retreating army delayed the British and Germans long enough for the main army to escape to fight again….
