Genealogy for non-geniuses
My favorite place to read is on the southbound Halsted 8 bus between 8am and 10am. I did it every weekday for the better part of two years when I worked in an office in the River North neighborhood of Chicago — finishing entire novels within the span of a Continue Reading
WHAT’S UP, PEOPLE? Sometimes I like to have a YouTube video play in the background while I work. If my editor’s reading this, I’m not just slacking off writing. It helps me concentrate. I promise! One vid that accompanied my writing for work recently was an episode of Finding Your Roots starring Continue Reading
So I’ve been keeping this under wraps for a while and feel like I should say it now: I’ve been invited to give a presentation on my journey to find my grandfather at the University of Iowa! I was invited by evolutionary biologist and undergraduate director Prof. Bryant McAllister to Continue Reading
A few months ago, I stumbled upon an article in the University of Iowa Alumni Magazine featuring a class called, “Who Are You: Revelations from the Personal Genome.” It was the perfect combination of everything I wanted from a seminar while I was at UI — free genetic genealogy research Continue Reading
Fun fact: It’s incredibly difficult to find my ancestor’s Vietnam War veteran military records. Wait. Did I say fun? I mean INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING. So as it turns out, finding the military records for my grandfather is going to be a lot harder than I thought. Like WAYYYYY harder than I thought. Continue Reading
Texas950 made contact again — and this time, she’s got more light to shed on her Vietnam vet relatives. After replying to Texas950’s message to me, I felt hopeful about this lead…that is until another week went by and she didn’t respond. Since patience isn’t my strongest suit, I decided Continue Reading
Here’s a nice little update: y’all can subscribe to a weekly newsletter I’ll be sending out! In it, I’m going to shout out a few blog posts from the week and also any cool ancestry/genealogy news that may come up. “Cool ancestry/genealogy news? Nice oxymoron, Tony.” Hey! It’s cool to Continue Reading
One really frustrating aspect about getting involved in ancestry and genealogy is the fact that it doesn’t come with a guide on how to do things — especially for a case as specific as mine. It’s not like other hobbies either. Like improv. If you want to learn improv, there’s hundreds Continue Reading
The world’s oldest and lamest movie reference aside, I’m starting to realize why I can’t find anyone living on Ancestry.com. In my search to find my grandfather, I’m noticing a bunch of reoccurring themes when it comes to researching family trees: Every census taker ever failed handwriting class in elementary Continue Reading