Category: Admin
Posts about Mightier Acorns, but not necessarily about ancestors or research.
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Identifying “political correctness” as a bias in our research As I have conducted my family history research over the years, I have had to go back more than once and reconsider my biases. Like anyone else, I tend to think of my point of view as “neutral”—but it rarely is. My point of view was…
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There’s a whole mess of kin I tell my fellow researchers that I use this Substack newsletter as a family history tool, but what does that mean? Spotting the Gaps The main function of the newsletter is to share stories about my research. I don’t use Substack to search records or manage the tree, but…
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Who are we really doing this for? By this point in any New Year, you may have had your fill of annual retrospectives, best-of lists, motivational etudes, and resolutions. (If you haven’t, here are some good resources at Projectkin and Mission:Genealogy to help launch your New Year.) But if you’re like me, feeling leery of…
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They only point the way… the rest is up to us If you were a fly on the wall… or if I set up a Twitch stream… the scene that would play out in front of you might disrupt your image of the studious researcher. I know I like to think of myself as a…
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More of Aunt Vicki’s legacy We lost my Aunt Vicki this summer. But before she left, Vicki spent her time on countless thoughtful projects that will continue to remind us what was most important to her. Her son, Jeff, was the first of my generation of cousins, and for Christmas of 2021, Vicki assembled 50…
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The right tool for the right job When I was putting together the Callin Family History, I spent about seven years doing research to augment the work I had inherited from George W. Callin, my 2nd-great uncle. Along the way, I submitted dozens of photo requests to Find-a-Grave. By the time the CFH was ready…
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“The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All” (1989), by Allan Gurganus “The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All” was a 1989 novel by Allan Gurganus in which the titular widow, Lucy, tells the story of her 1900 marriage to “Captain” William Marsden when she was 15 and her husband was 50. The specific details of…
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Or “Being dragged down the rabbit hole” Our story today begins with the Bowen family. You may recall my September post on William Bowen: Wavetops: William Bowen, Jr. The WikiTree pages for William’s siblings were not well-developed, and since researching William (Sr.) led to a very well-done NEGHR report on them at American Ancestors1, I…
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What does social media do for you or your research? This post was intended to be a “here are some social media platforms I’m on and some of the people/groups I follow” post, but I felt like some explanations were needed, and it kind of ballooned into … this. If you already know or don’t…
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Wavetops: James McCullough (Sr.) (1757-1838) When John McCullough died in 1766, he left four orphans without family or support in Rowan County, North Carolina. The courts bound each child to an apprenticeship, each with different terms. In her 1991 Ph.D. dissertation, Johanna Lewis1 noted that of 52 orphans placed as apprentices before 1770, only one…
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