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…
