Everything’s Relative: Wanted Poster Premium
About two years ago I asked my mother about my great-grandfather, Herman Haass. He had an interesting family legend. According to the legend, he embezzled money from the Chicago bank that employed him. The story gets more interesting: He did it for his mistress, a burlesque dancer. When he...
Read MoreEverything’s Relative: Geranium Genealogy Premium
Each year during Memorial Day weekend, I visit the Farrar family plot in Woodlawn Cemetery. For the past few years, someone had been placing a flower box of geraniums on another Farrar lot and, a couple of weeks later, the box would disappear. I assumed that the groundskeepers were removing...
Read MoreEverything’s Relative: The White Ghost Premium
A reader shares a tale from his Irish family history.
Read MoreEverything’s Relative: E-mail Addiction Premium
Have you ever tried to plan a family reunion when the planning committee members live thousands of miles apart? My cousins and I had approximately a year to organize a three-day reunion for 150 relatives, and we could only get together as a group once during that time. Our secret...
Read MoreEverything’s Relative: Go West, Young Man Premium
My great-grandfather came from Ireland to New York City when he was a young man. He married and eventually fathered eight children—four boys and four girls. A country man at heart, he hated the big city and persuaded his wife to let him visit the West. The rural beauty...
Read MoreEverything’s Relative: Celebri-Trees Premium
Unburying the Hatchet Even if you don't distance yourself from a notorious relative, you'd probably have a hard time identifying with that black sheep. So maybe it's good that when actress Elizabeth Montgomery accepted the title role of the 1975 move The Legend of Lizzie Borden, she didn't know the...
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Everything’s Relative: Celebri-Trees 3 Premium
A Way With Women Many a handsome Hollywood actor is haunted by gossip about women from his past. But when you're talking genealogy, paying attention to whispers about yesterday's women can pay off big time. For example, as I began to research the family tree of actor William Holden (born...
Read MoreEverything’s Relative: Dead Heads Premium
The idea of visiting yet another graveyard is a bit of a hard sell when you have a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. I had thought about getting T-shirts made, like the rock bands': "The Great Cemetery Tour—Summer ' 99." We live in a small community in northwest Saskatchewan. For...
Read MoreEverything’s Relative: When History Repeats Itself Premium
My interest in genealogy was first sparked by listening to my husband's grandmother, Esterlene Smith Brooks Kesler, tell stories about growing up in the Blue Ridge mountains of southwest Virginia. Her favorite story reached back into the days of the Civil War to a young woman whose life seemed to...
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