Ancestral Findings

Genealogy teaches you something early. The record is rarely clean. Ink blots. Misspelled names. Ages that shift from census to census. People who appear, disappear, then show up again decades later wi...

26 Dec 202515min

All month, we have looked at how different places celebrate the season, with food, songs, family gatherings, church services, and small customs that show up year after year. Today, we are going to clo...

25 Dec 202510min

Well, two big reasons show up in the history. One reason is a theological calculation that shows up early. A Christian writer named Sextus Julius Africanus (early 200s) argued that Jesus was conceived...

24 Dec 20259min

In Poland, Christmas takes a different form than in many places. The most significant family moment often happens on Christmas Eve, not Christmas morning. That Christmas Eve gathering is called Wigili...

23 Dec 202513min

Christmas in Mexico is not usually treated like one neat day on a calendar. It feels more like a long build that gets louder, brighter, and more crowded as it moves toward Christmas Eve. In many place...

23 Dec 20258min

December in South Africa does not whisper in with cold nights and frosted windows. It arrives with heat, long afternoons, and bright skies that can still be blue well into the evening. In many homes, ...

22 Dec 202514min

Welcome back to the Christmas traditions series. Today, we're looking at Christmas in Brazil. In Brazil, Christmas often starts late. The house is full, the table is covered, and people are still arri...

20 Dec 202511min

Welcome back to the Christmas traditions series. Today, we're looking at Christmas in the Philippines. In the Philippines, Christmas is not squeezed into a few days. It spans months and fills homes, c...

19 Dec 202513min