A great relatively recent book about reconciliation between Indigenous communities and settler/ North American communities

 

My niece gave me this book for Christmas, and I would not have heard of it probably otherwise. She heard the two authors give a talk at her workplace in Toronto, and was inspired to purchase the book for me. I really enjoyed this treatment of colonization and coming to terms with what happened with white settlement specifically in Manitoba on land which was, of course, part of tribal land. If you are ever wondering why indigenous peoples are (still) asking for restoration, reconciliation, etc.. this book is a great place to start. It tells the story of real families in both the Waywayseecappo reserve and white communities, how those stories are intertwined, and how they make the history and legacy of colonialism real as lived experience. 

Cornerstone family stories

 I recently read this book and attended a webinar by the author, André Kearns, who weaves together foundational stories from different branches of his family, with the historical context of the time and place, and with corresponding methodology suggestions and sources that track with how he found the documentation that he used to create - or really recover and reconstruct - these stories from his family. He models how to talk about painful events, structures, and historical realities created by the racist reality of American life without those negative realities undermining the truth and the positive stories about his ancestors. 

I recommend this book for the beginner or intermediate genealogist! You will find inspiration to find a paper trail for your own ancestors, or to hire someone to research your family tree, or to coach you if you are stuck at a brick wall in your research. 

Many professional genealogists offer coaching services or one-on-one consultation services if you need help getting to the next level in your research. I offer this at the same hourly rate as my standard research rate right now - $70 per hour. Let me know if you are interested! We can do a one-hour session, as a one-time service, or ongoing monthly or quarterly or even annually. Email me at gretchencdn@gmail.com to get started. 

Weddings... transformational family events

 

As I pack my bags and prepare for my daughter's wedding this coming weekend, I am reminded that our family is on the threshold of a transformational event in the life of our family - a wedding, a marriage, a joining of two families, creating a new branch on the family tree. It's exciting and almost breathtaking to think about when I come up from the rabbit holes of family history that I've been down. Generations from now, my descendants will wonder - what was the wedding of our great-grandparents like? Who was at the wedding? Who gave a toast? How many of the grandparents of the bride and groom were in attendance? How did the families understand the joining, the merging of the families? A lot of the symbolism is to synergize the merging of two families, and probably there will be lore passed down by word of mouth. It causes me to think about how we will be remembered in the future, and hope that the means we have of recording the event (jpgs, video MP3s, social media posts, etc.) will be preserved for future generations. Deceased family members will be honored, I do know that. I appreciate that my daughter and her fiancé want to honor and remember those loved ones who are not present, who have already passed on. There will be photos of those weddings past in a table display. This is a wonderful linkage of the past, the present, and the future. 

Clink! 

Experimenting with ChatGPT's infographic skills

Family history infographic, version 1: 

 

I gave Chat GPT a three-page family history in the form of a timeline (with a family portrait) and asked it to create an "engaging infographic" - it came up with this. Not bad! The map isn't great but otherwise it's OK. 

Father's Day and Juneteenth special StoryCorps interview

 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5861558

Above is a link for a poignant interview from NPR's Story Corps with Makeda Peterson, whose father started not only the Juneteenth celebration in Kansas City, but also started the Black Archives of Mid-America with objects and documents that he started collecting as a young man. Horace Peterson tragically died in a drowning accident while saving his son from drowning, but his legacy lives on, since his widow, Barbara, and daughter Makeda, have really built up the Kansas City area's Juneteenth celebration. 

And an interesting note about the whole point of Juneteenth - the Emancipation Proclamation was issued 1 Jan 1863, so why were people in the Galveston TX area still enslaved in June 1865, over two years later? The Proclamation only applied to areas controlled by the Confederate army, but of course, those areas were almost by definition places where the forces in power wanted to maintain slavery - so the Emancipation Proclamation was kind of a ruse... just another example of why it's important to look in detail, that things are more complicated than a soundbite, and that we should all try to understand history in order to understand how we got to where we are today. OK - off my soapbox now! Happy Juneteenth and Father's Day! 

Happy Pride Month! Resources for genealogy research about our LGBTQI ancestors

 Well, it's Pride Month in the US (in lots of other countries, it's in August). The National Genealogical Society has a great blog post about resources for researching our ancestors who did not conform to gender or sexual orientation norms, and therefore were often under-represented or hidden in records.  Here is their post, with a great list of resources to get started or to deepen research. Even just familiarizing ourselves with these can raise awareness of when we might be coming across someone in a family tree whom we would today consider LGBTQI. Watch out in records, obituaries, etc for coded language about non-hetero relationships, and for alternate names that someone might have used to camouflage or protect themselves from community or family ostracism.

"A Family Secret No More" - Susan Saulny

Here is an article recently published about a woman who discovered a family secret that went back 3 generations about "passing" - spurred by her reading of the new Pope Leo about a year ago, and comments about his genealogy including that his black/ Creole ancestors in New Orleans left by train and settled in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. This struck a chord with her and she realized that was what had happened to her long-lost great-uncle Edward DeGrange, explaining why she didn't know about him/ why he was never discussed by her family in New Orleans. 

So many families have secrets like this - sometimes across a "color line," and sometimes the dividing element is religion or language, a hidden sexual / gender orientation or birth outside of marriage... this is not to sensationalize but to normalize that we all have unknown stories in our families... I have found some in my own family. Recovering and trying to reconstruct what happened is a way to honor the struggles and sorrows that our ancestors endured, and to reflect on how we can change the way we react to unexpected family events or developments. Happy reading!