This weekend I will be joining my mother, her brother and members of three of the seven branches of my maternal grandfather’s siblings for a family picnic near Boise Idaho. Sometime in the 40s or 50s three of my grandfather’s six siblings moved from Kansas to this area so I only knew them by name. […]
How To Uncover Fake News – Discovering Family Lineage Secrets
Fake News? The thing that interests me most about family history is the gap between the things we think we know about our families and the realities. – Jeremy Hardy In a recent post about a circa 1907 family reunion on the Rightmeier homestead in Jewell County, Kansas, I mentioned a great great uncle, August, […]
Perseverance over Adversity – The Long View
Through hard work, perseverance and a faith in God, you can live your dreams. – Ben Carson On an extended weekend to attend my 45th high school reunion in Rooks County, Kansas, we added a day in order to visit Jewell County. This is the land to which my mother’s father’s family immigrated from northern […]
Circles and Intersections – Part III
Circles. In order to share this circle, I need to provide a bit of my family’s German history. Specifically my maternal grandfather’s. It all centers around a small village in the northern District of Lippe Germany: Varenholtz. When we visited Varenholtz in 1998, we found a landmark never mentioned in any of the oral (where most […]