Mightier Acorns

Welcome back, cousins!

I took the summer off from regular writing, partly to recharge and partly to push ahead on some things that would be much less interesting to write about incrementally. Over the coming weeks, you’ll read about some of my progress and setbacks, and I’ll continue posting the Ahnentafel series and updates on my Callan One Name Study.

An Invitation

Genealogy is never the work of just one person, but it can sometimes feel that way.

I know I tend to dive into rabbit holes and spend hours with my back to the family I live with, searching for clues about those long gone. When I solve a particular puzzle or finish a biography to my satisfaction, I’ll move on to the next, and trust that anyone who cares about that work will find it.

Sometimes, that “anyone who cares” will reach out and say hello, which is great. But I can’t help thinking there are a lot of folks who don’t reach out, for whatever reason. And because I am trying to work ahead of my schedule, I think I forget to encourage people to reach out.

This is a social media platform, after all – so if you’d like to see me cover a topic, or even offer a guest post, drop me a note. The Comments are open, or you can Contact Me privately.

And if you have one or two essays you would like to share but don’t want to start your own blog, let me know that, too. I would love to help you connect with an audience!

We’re In a Magazine!

Barbara Tien over at Projectkin has published Stories250 – a compilation of stories from SubStack’s genealogy community about where their ancestors were in 1776. And our own “James 1st” is included!

Click here to go buy a copy!

Out Of Order (A Scheduling Preview)

I am enjoying the Ahnentafel series because it gives me a predictable structure to work with. However, the Ahnentafel numbering system presents a problem as you go back to older generations.

It starts out simply enough: I started with my kids as “1,” which makes me “2” and my wife “3” – then my parents are “4” and “5” and her parents are “6” and “7”¹, and so on. I started the first week with my Grandpa Bob (8), and our last installment was my wife’s great-grandmother, Aletha (Putnam) Martin (31). But you may have already noticed that as we double the number of people in each generation, strictly following that schedule, we would spend 16 weeks talking about my side of the family, and then another 16 weeks talking about my wife’s side of the family.

If I kept going as I have been, the next generation would be numbered as shown on this table, counting “down” the left column, and then down the right column. Following that pattern, it would take nearly a year to reach Alice Jones. But if I start posting in a different order, I can get to Alice in only four weeks.

So, starting Friday, I’ll post an essay about John Henry Callin; then next Friday, we’ll discuss John Riley McCullough. If we zigzag down the table like that, it will feel less (to me) like I’m cutting out half of my audience for a year at a time!

Of course, if you don’t want to wait for my essays on each individual, you should be able to find all of these folks on WikiTree and see what is there. (If you follow the link to the “My Sixteen” or “Her Sixteen” pages, you should find the WikiTree links there.)

Good hunting, cousins!

1. Ha, ha – meme funny. IYKYK ↩︎