Ancestral Findings

Chimney Rock is one of those places that's impossible to forget once you've seen it. Rising more than 200 feet into the air, that massive granite column looks like it's reaching up to hold the sky. Wi...

9 Sep 20258min

If you've followed this series from the beginning, you already know this wasn't really about war. It was about what came after. The quiet years. The long drives to work. The nights spent filling out p...

5 Sep 20256min

"Many thanks, Will. You have rekindled my 40-year quest to find my family origins. Your weekly letters are greatly appreciated." – Bryan When Bryan wrote those words to me, they carried more than grat...

4 Sep 20256min

Some postcards capture landscapes or landmarks; others capture a moment of pride. This one from Morgantown, West Virginia, does both. On the front, a yellow Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) car glides alo...

3 Sep 20254min

The air is crisp, the leaves are beginning to turn, and children have returned to their classrooms. It's September, and what better time to reconnect with your family history? Genealogy isn't just a s...

2 Sep 20255min

You find them in a draft card, a pension file, or a service roster—and then nothing. No census record. No marriage. No obituary. No trace. Every family historian has run into a veteran ancestor who...

1 Sep 20256min

Labor Day arrives each September, signaling the close of summer and the approach of autumn. Many people see it as a three-day weekend for rest, cookouts, or back-to-school shopping. Yet beneath the sa...

31 Aug 202511min

Some families have stories that begin with war but continue through decades of work that followed. A man who served in a supply battalion later owned a hardware store. A woman who drove an ambulance i...

30 Aug 20258min