History has been showing me its tantalizing side. Various ancestors' histories and journeys are linking together, and I'm sensing them spanning across time to this present place. By place, I mean not only where I live in upstate New York, but also the place we're
This week I've been following exciting leads, finding new and converging throughlines. Some of my excitement stems from what my DNA results reveal about my place in a much larger web. Ancestry.com's appropriately-named Thrulines option displays matches and compares trees. When shown in list
"I think it marks our maturity as a people that remembrance has become an act of self-awareness." Irish President Mary Robinson Someone on social media recently lamented the fact that we haven't adequately memorialized or collectively grieved our pandemic losses. This made me think of
Let's Make Sense Together
When you look at a map of your local region, what do you relate to? Or do you ever even look? What are your associations with this place, or perhaps with another one from a formative time? What are your significant landmarks? Are they natural or human-made? Communal, institutional
What mementos and heirlooms do you possess, if you are lucky enough to have them? Photo albums, family portraits? Personal items like jewelry, or watches? Handiwork such as quilts, carvings or paintings? Cherished devotional items, stories handed down, family wisdom passed along? I'm thinking about all kinds of
This week I'm picking up from a thread in my April 17th post, Standing Together Against Adversity. There, I wrote about the history of the Choctaw Irish famine donation of 1847; the two nations' ongoing relationship; and their memorializing of that gift. Today, I want to highlight
"In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages; to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected
This week's research has taken me down many different paths, and I have yet to put together a clear map of how they interconnect. For now, I'm simply going to share some of the materials I've been engaged with, along with select photos from
I have a memory of an event that seems so bizarre, I sometimes wonder whether I've gotten it wrong. It happened while I was in England on a study-abroad program in my late teens. I walked past a workman who was standing chest deep in a hole
"Two ancient peoples. A modern-day connection. Nothing divides the Choctaw people from the Irish except for the ocean." "Both the Choctaw Nation and Ireland were, in effect, colonized by outside powers. Their ancient tongues almost became extinct, and have been rescued from oblivion and made into
"He carried the black cast-iron kettle that contained stew. Above us, I could feel the life returning to the trees. Tommy said, 'Think of how many people have carried this kettle.' I did. I thought of it. It was iron that had probably been mined from
This week I'm writing early, then taking a short break to attend a family wedding in Northern Ireland. Today's post is a gathering of a different kind—of letters, maps, and memorials—documenting a contested past that lives on in the present. In the spring of
What common threads link Route 66; a recently-constructed airport exit; a nature preserve near an industrialized port; and a quaint village in the Berkshires? Read on to find out! I'm pulling on several strands this week, hoping to weave them together here into a tableau of sorts.
Picture a classroom at a Big Ten university in the early 1980s. It's Spanish class, and the professor has just asked a question about Native Americans. The exact question is lost to my memory, but a student's response is not: "They're all gone.
"I'm not asking you to bear the weight of all your ancestors' indiscretions and negative occurrences. What I am asking is that you advocate for those truths to be brought to the surface, and for you to share that we recognize that these occurrences have happened.
