Stories That Live In Us

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼...

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼...

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼...

When Sylvia Hernandez discovered vintage Christmas cards in a university archive, her coworkers didn't understand their significance. But for her, they represented everything familiar about growing up Mexican-American in Waco, Texas. Sylvia Hernandez, outreach and instruction librarian at Baylor University's Texas Collection and a seventh generation Wacoan, traces both sides of her famil...

When archivist Rosie Grant stumbled upon a gravestone with a spritz cookie recipe carved into it, she had no idea it would change her life. What began as a TikTok curiosity during her cemetery internship became a viral phenomenon and, eventually, a groundbreaking cookbook celebrating 50 recipes from gravestones across America. Rosie shares her remarkable project "To Die For: A Cookbook of Gra...

When Dani was in eighth grade, she watched her grandmother wash and braid her own mother’s hair. In that moment, she was witness to a ritual passed on through generations of Black women. Join me as Dani Allen, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Ancestry, shares her family's journey from the Deep South to Wisconsin during the 1930s and 40s as part of The Great Migration. Together we expl...

When Candace Dixon-Horne's husband bought AncestryDNA kits in 2018, she hesitated before sending hers in. Raised by a single mom in Arkansas, Candace spent her entire life with her mom as the only blood relative she knew. One DNA match changed everything. A simple Google search led to names she recognized, faces that looked hauntingly familiar, and a connection to California's golden age...

What if your family's pioneer past looked exactly like your favorite childhood TV show? When Lisa Elzey discovered her great-great-grandfather's story, she realized she'd been watching his life every Monday night on Little House on the Prairie. Complete with homesteading, hand-hewn cabins, and a white beard down to his belly. In this episode, Lisa shares how a purple-inked memoir wr...

When Phyllis Zegers discovered her cousin died alone in Oregon State Hospital in the 1890s, she never imagined it would lead to reconnecting hundreds of families with their forgotten ancestors. In this episode, Phyllis shares how her genealogy research uncovered 3,500 unclaimed cremains at the hospital—and how she's worked tirelessly to honor each person by researching their stories and findi...

Calvin Osborne, a Washington D.C. attorney and Civil War reenactor, spent nearly three decades studying African American military history before Ancestry researchers revealed a stunning discovery: his great-great-grandfather, William Lacey, was a soldier in the First Kansas Colored Troops, the very first Black men to fight in the Civil War. In this powerful conversation, Calvin shares how a 1989 v...

When Mallory Peterson discovered she had Scottish ancestry instead of Cherokee heritage, she uncovered something intriguing that has captured her imagination. In the little town of Martinsburg, West Virginia she found a spy. And not just any spy but 17 year old Belle Boyd, the infamous Confederate spy known as "Cleopatra of the Secession." In this episode, I sit down with Mallory, a youn...

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼...

When Greg Wagner's great-great-grandmother made her dying wish to be buried not in a cemetery but beneath an oak tree on their Nebraska homestead, she planted more than roots in the soil. Greg is a sixth-generation Nebraskan whose family has maintained the same land for 158 years through blizzards, armed robberies, and economic crashes. As someone who's spent 46 years caring for Nebraska...

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼...

When Sarah Walker's grandfather checked his mail one last day before leaving for World War I, he discovered a neighbor had intervened to keep him home—a bachelor farmer needed on the home front. That single act of community support changed everything. Sarah Walker, Head of Reference Services at the North Dakota State Archives, shares her grandfather's journey immigrating at age 10 from G...

When historian Marni Sandweiss discovered an 1868 photograph of six prominent Civil War generals standing around an unnamed Indigenous girl, she couldn't let go of one haunting question: Who was she? In this episode, Princeton University Professor Emerita Martha "Marni" Sandweiss shares how she identified the child as Sophie Mousseau and uncovered a remarkable story of survival, ide...

💕 When Mary Anne Mercer discovered her great-grandmother's diary in a trunk that had sat untouched since 1915, she knew she had found something extraordinary. Mary Anne, an accomplished author and former international health expert who worked in Nepal and Africa, returned to her Montana ranching roots to uncover a remarkable love story. Through a combination of family interviews, a preserved...

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼...

🎵 When Jen Iverson said "What I wouldn't give to hear Grandpa's music again," she had no idea what she was about to discover just two days later. Join me as Jen Iverson, a Gen X mom and passionate family historian, shares an incredible story of musical discovery that transformed her family's connection to their Idaho heritage. We explore her great-grandfather Arnold Steed...

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼...

When Michelle Ercanbrack volunteered for a Mormon pioneer trek, she thought she'd be helping teenagers learn history. What she discovered instead was a missing piece of her own family story that had been hiding in plain sight for decades. Michelle, a BYU family history program graduate and former Ancestry researcher who worked on television shows like "Who Do You Think You Are," joi...

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼...

When Stephen Torres's grandfather told him "one of your forefathers was the first European to set foot on New World soil," young Stephen was skeptical—until his college history research revealed a truth that changed everything. Stephen shares what it means to have 400 years of unbroken family history in New Mexico's Taos Valley. From growing up with 50+ cousins to living with h...

When Lisa Louise Cooke walked into her estranged grandmother's house in Arizona, she had no idea she was about to discover the key to healing a decades-old family rift. Lisa Louise, host of the long-running Genealogy Gems podcast, shares how following an unexpected inner voice led to finding a hidden quilt that would transform her relationship with her father forever. After years of separatio...

🏔️ When Jay Marquiss sat down for breakfast at a Southern Utah ranch house, he had no idea a casual conversation would unlock a 130-year-old family mystery. Jay Marquiss, a third-generation Alaskan, grew up expecting to spend his entire life in the Last Frontier. But when his wife experienced her first Alaskan winter, their plans changed forever. Now living in Utah, Jay thought he'd left Alas...