A Country in Danger
"Was with Buel most of the day. He thinks a great deal of home but wishes to see this rebellion ended as bad as I do. Hurrah for the Stars & Stripes, long may they wave oer the land of the free & home of the brave. Aint I
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"If Careful Nursing Will Cure Them They Shall Have It"
"That Martha Ballard kept her diary is one small miracle; that her descendants saved it is another." Laurel Thatcher Ulrich "The fact that these tattered and fading notebooks have survived is overwhelming. Berea carried the 1862 diary as he boarded the steamer Seashore and started the trip
So That All May Eat
"Even before the famine began, a writer in the Daily Picayune had used Ireland as a benchmark for misery across the British empire, contending that 'the condition of the most abject slave in the Colonies is, in my opinion, better far than that of the unfortunate Irish peasant.
Mesmerized and Bamboozled: Resisting Tech's Spectacular Sales Pitches
This week, a brief item in Munsell's The Annals of Albany (v. 10) grabbed me. Looking for leads about whether my ancestors participated in the Anti-Rent Rebellion, I found an account of a spectacle instead. It was recorded in January 1838, a year before Stephen Van Rensselaer&
Nations within a Nation: Perspectives on 250 Years
The Executive Order to change the Gulf of Mexico's name in January 2025 foreshadowed more "Donroe Doctrine" to follow. In a year and a half, the president has proclaimed his designs on many countries. He's declared aspirations to absorb, govern, renovate, conquer or subjugate
Honoring Histories: Setting Stories in Dialogue With Each Other
Last month, after I participated in Montreal's annual March to the Stone, I wrote about that tragic hidden history. The famine walk honors the site where an estimated 6,000 Irish immigrants—most of whom died of "ship fever" (typhus) in the summer of 1847—lie
Eviction and Sovereignty
"They don't look often enough at context, past or present. Instead, they seem to see each moment as an independent crisis—or a recent one—often missing how many times the same dynamics have played out or indicators of how to proceed have already appeared." Andrea
Positive Offerings: When Donations Mean Life
So many images of suffering pass before us, it's difficult to feel that our individual acts make any difference. This feeling is magnified when powerful governments fail to act humanely or adequately. But a recurring theme of my posts is that individual actions have cumulative effects and matter
Refusing to Surrender: Democracy is an Unfinished Story
Picture the same year, in two rural landscapes divided by the Atlantic ocean. Ireland, 1839: William Gray, my great-great grandfather, is born in Ireland, near Ballyjamesduff. One of five children, William helped his family grow grain and raise geese. The farm's soil was so poor, his son
Property, Survival, and Solidarity: A Prelude
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
Representations: What Shows Up in Our Stories, Art, and DNA
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
Beneath Our Feet: Hidden Histories
"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
Names Mapped onto the Land: Relating to Place
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
Homecomings: Healing Through Restoration and Repair
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
No Humans Held in Warehouses: Acting Against Concentration Camps on U.S. Soil
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
How to Keep Reality From Being Memory-holed
"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
Stones, Turned and Unturned
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
Seeing What We Haven't Seen Before
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
Standing Together Against Adversity
"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
Unexpected Gifts: Empathetic Alliances
"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
Post 49: Who Lives Here? Stories Differ When Nations Collide
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
Post 48: Ancestors, Known and Unknown
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.
Post 47: Tugging at a Strand, Untangling a Tale
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.
Post 46: Acknowledging Ignorance, Making Amends
"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.