From Paper To People

I'm back after a brief illness-induced break, and while I'm not up to teaching yet, I am definitely here to celebrate! How much do YOU know about Diwali? I knew basically nothing but the name until I put this episode together. This is the final day of Diwali, and isn't it our good luck that they celebrate with food? Listen to learn about the holiday and its meanings, its means of celebration, and...

It's Episode 3 in our bonus series for Fall - vintage recipes mix with straight-up US history this week as we talk about how the Great Depression changed what newspapers did to extend assistance to housewives at the holidays. I'll be doing this throughout October, November, and December, for all of the seasonal holidays. Today's recipes come from the October 28, 1932 issue of The Miami Daily News....

It's Episode 2 in our bonus series for Fall - vintage recipes, foodways, social and cultural history culled from early- to mid-20th century newspapers. We're hitting all the holidays that fall in October, November, and December, including Kwanzaa - but I may need your help with that. The recipes I've found in newspapers so far are so corporatized it's ill. Today continues the Halloween, or Samhain...

So, Latter-Day Saints, your family history is all done, right? WRONG!!! Not only can you work on your tree more (another nag for another day), you can use your special powers in Ancestry to benefit non-Church researchers. You can transfer their ancestors, and all of the research attached to them, from Ancestry to FamilySearch using the FamilySearch icon that only WE have in our Ancestry accounts....

Welcome to a new feature for Fall - a bonus series in addition to regular episodes, a jump backward in cooking and cultural history. Since October, November, and December all contain holidays celebrated with food, I will be digging into newspaper archives and giving you recipes from early- to mid-20th century newspapers every week, or in some cases, family recipes where newspaper coverage falls sh...

It's Autumn, but who needs Pumpkin Spice EVERYTHING when you can join me and our Midwest Food Correspondent, Rick Leonard of  An American Genealogy for an old family recipe - Gingerbread Waffles. And because they're homemade, YOU control the spice! We talk a bit about the value of food in the Progressive movement of the Republican and Democratic Parties of the 20th centuries (yes, BOTH had progres...

Have you ever wondered where all of those digitized versions of birth records, census pages, or city directories come from? Well, there is no Genealogy Stork. While quite a few organizations provide opportunities and services, the primary way that records are turned from physical page to scanned image to searchable electronic data is a process called indexing, and the three-step indexing process t...

Ancestry's Summer of Pain seems to have ended, but what does Autumn look like? And have they left us in the Winter of our discontent? They're answering their phones again, the screens seem more stable, but their primary new feature, Potential Parents, is a wolf in sheep's clothing for any genealogist who wants to use best evidence and best practices to do their best work. Revel in my wrath as I di...

Family ties, a slight genealogical mystery, a discussion of privilege, 19th and 20th-century classism in Midwestern America, and the value of comfort food all converge in this week's episode of The Family Cookbook. And, we welcome our new Food Correspondent, Rick Leonard of An American Genealogy ! Rick shares with us the backstory of a family member who wasn't blood but who was central to his fami...

This episode is a special treat, an interview with Joseph McGill about his incredible labor of love, The Slave Dwelling Project . He shares with us his background, his motivations, and what it's really like to encounter children and adults as an educator and historic preservationist in the rarefied yet crucial field of preserving the history of the enslaved in a world that speaks almost exclusivel...

Have you ever looked someone up on one of those reverse-phone-number sites to see who the heck is calling you at 2am? Did you know that those sites, and the apps that go with them, are great for genealogy? In this episode I'll discuss my favorite, BeenVerified, and how I use it to find generations of family members when I'm shrubbing, and when I'm working with someone whose parentage is unclear an...

Did you know that family recipes have their own genealogy? I thought I was skimming yet another back-of-the-magazine recipe in a special family cookbook when I Googled Johnny Mazetti, and then one of its key ingredients, Sauce Arturo. It wasn't as simple as I thought. And it made me wonder: did my grandmother pick this recipe up in the Midwest, or did my grandfather's mother pick it up in Panama?...

I talk a lot about component parts, or the basic how-to's of handling records, but what about the how-to's of building one person's life in your family tree? Genealogy has become an immediate-gratification online phenomenon, but it's not always that at all. How long should a 21st-century online researcher be expected to wait before work is done on any one person in their tree? This episode takes o...

For our inaugural episode of the folkloric and gastronomic aspects of family history, I'm presenting a staple recipe from my family's cookbook. It entered my family with my mother's mother's stepmother, and every generation that has made it has put a unique twist on it since. Ethel "Itey" Garrard Drahos Hinzie, who brought it into the family with her marriage to my great-grandfather in 1935, was b...

Have you ever gotten frustrated that the records you REALLY need from a US city or state across the country (or world), one you'll NEVER travel to, hasn't released their vital records indexes online? Brooke Schreier Ganz felt that way about New York (as so many have) and she decided to do something about it. Listen to my interview with her as she explains her response to the problem: she created a...

Have you heard of a holiday called Juneteenth? Do you know what it is, or why it's important in American history? Well, listen here - this is the episode for you. This is straight-up history - Ancestry.com is on the blink, so we're steering clear of Ancestry lessons for a few weeks in order to let them get themselves together again. And since there's a holiday to discuss, why not use the opportuni...

It's our first mail bag, filled with questions and answers from the FPPP community! What's up with Ancestry, which of their records are good, do you believe a record over a human or vice-versa, and how do you make your slave-holding ancestors' info available to researchers of color? There are lots of goodies in this bag, provided by the entire group, so hop on in with us - there's plenty of room....

This week is something special: my first-ever interview! My friend Christopher Harris joins the podcast to discuss his 12-year learning curve about family history through folklore, DNA, and African-American documentary methodology. He’ll discuss with us how he records conversations and organizes his work, treeing vs shrubbing, the key role that DNA and GEDmatch play, and how genealogy led him to m...

Understanding the historical genesis and management of the decennial Federal Census, the digitization or "indexing" of the Census by FamilySearch, and the proper utilization of Census records in Ancestry is important to good Hygienealogy. And in Ancestry, Federal Census records don't always work the same way - some add all family members to your tree at once, while others only add one person at a...

If you listen regularly but haven't started supporting the podcast financially, it's time to consider anteing up, my pumpkins! 2000 downloads, 200 listeners, and only 6 supporters. Can you help support this work? This ep is a twofer - first, I discuss shrubbing versus treeing, and why my way is better (surprise!), and second, I talk about some basic etiquette and understanding concerning various p...

An Australian listener pointed out to me today that the fantastic $59 DNA sale on Ancestry that runs through April 29th 2018 only applies to the US. That's not fair! In fact, AncestryDNA didn't even provide an Anzac Day sale. That's like AncestryDNA ignoring Memorial Day or Veterans' Day here in the US. I say we start a Twitter campaign to change this for Australians, my #1 non-USA listenership! A...

I'm baaaaaaack! I think it's time to revisit the basics of the podcast - just in time for lucky episode #13! But why am I here? Having learning disabilities and neurological issues has made me sensitive to the needs of a range of non-traditional students. Also, I'm self-righteous and I tend to think that other people are wrong. Mix these together with a love for teaching and a real desire to creat...

Are you new to Ancestry.com? Do you like the FamilySearch interface better? Do hints just freak you out? Are all those possible document matches overwhelming you? If you answered "yes" to one or more of those questions, this episode is for you. "Keeping It Orderly, Or Hygienealogy" is all about prioritizing the hints that you get from Ancestry for any given ancestor, and creating a plan of attack...

Findagrave.com is another great way to provide service to the world of genealogy and family history. It's maintained by a worldwide army of genie geeks with cameras, and who can resist that? Membership is free, people who request photos REALLY appreciate the service rendered, and lots of cemeteries out there are in desperate need of documentation. This week, I tell "The Cautionary Tale of Baldrick...

There are a lot of ways that we can serve one another in the world of family history. I like direct service the best. Researching for one another, teaching others, and giving back to those who deserve to have their family repaired or at least explained is very important to me. In this episode, I discuss lookups, the most basic building block of genealogical trading cards. I talk a lot about my fav...