Ancestors Alive! Genealogy: 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 for some delicious recipes for sweets and savories from Indian cuisine. These recipes come from Nevada and New Jersey newspapers published in 2005 and 2006, and feature a story written by a woman whose childhood in India was steeped in the traditions of the Festival. I hope you enjoy the episode, and come back for the next one - Thanksgiving from 19th-century Boston! ALSO: The podcast is now on Deezer and iHeartRadio. Listen from your Roku box! Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople And answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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. There's an unexpected twist, though - the newspaper doesn't focus on candy and sweets and silly games. With the Depression in full swing and lives in the balance, the Food Section of the paper focuses on more practical foods, and calls on Colonel Goodbody, a fictitious character from the A&P grocery store chain and NBC radio broadcasts, to provide recipes and menu ideas to help homemakers keep it festive yet affordable. It's a completely different view of the kitchen from that taken in the 1900s and 1910s. No frippery, no games, just nutritious food on a budget. But, there are doughnuts. See what you think of Depression-era food in this bonus episode, and a brief discussion of why it's critical to good research to learn about history, and the motivations and actions behind what your ancestors lived through. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople And answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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, theme. All of these recipes come from the October 23, 1904 issue of The Buffalo Sunday Morning News, and they include candies, cookies, and a booze-soaked flaming dragon that could induce hurt feelings, dashed hopes, and first-degree burns. This may not be strictly genealogy, but I hope that by the end of this series you'll appreciate the importance of a woman's changing role in society and the family over a century, among many other things. By extension, I hope this will help you to see your ancestors' lives more clearly. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople And answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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. But this episode isn't just for members of the Church. This episode is a great way for non-members to learn how it is that they can work with Latter-Day Saints (nope, I'm not saying "Magical Mormons" anymore) to get ALL of their research over into FamilySearch in a clean, simple way. Working together, members of the Church and non-members can make FamilySearch a better, stronger, more representative tree. And when Latter-Day Saints volunteer to work with black researchers to cross their data over from Ancestry to FamilySearch, volunteerism becomes reparational genealogy. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 short. This month, we'll be enjoying all kinds of recipes that celebrate Halloween, or Samhain. All of these recipes come from the October 26, 1913 issue of The Washington Herald, and all are different kinds of homemade candies. Some are familiar, some are difficult, and some have potentially crippling typos, but all show the difference that a century can make in popular tastes. I hope you enjoy the series. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 (http://anamericangenealogy.com) 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 progressive wings - read your history, folks), the value of keeping up ancestral traditions in the family kitchen even as we create new and different traditions for our families, and how people like Anthony Bourdain and Michael Twitty have brought home the importance of simple food and honest conversation to generations of readers, viewers, cooks, and consumers. Stop in and enjoy the latest recipe in The Family Cookbook. The ancestry of food and objects is just as important as the names and dates in your trees. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 that FamilySearch provides includes a final step called arbitration. I don't know enough about it, though I do know that FamilySearch is the biggest indexing resource in the United States (and maybe the world). I decided to ask a friend to come explain the process better, to discuss options for volunteering to index and arbitrate at FamilySearch and at a few other sites, and to talk a bit about Rice Krispie treats. And oh yeah, HER NEW PODCAST! Welcome, and prepare to learn at the knee of a master - Amy Johnson Crow. Then, look for her new podcast on Thursday, Generations Cafe. Find her and follow her everywhere - on Twitter, Instagram and her blog - you'll learn a lot and enjoy yourself doing it. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 discuss why this is not a good development, why the re-indexing of the 1870 census was a friendly-looking mistake, and why we must be more cautious than ever when using Ancestry. If your family tree is based on fact and not myth, and if your family history is about HISTORY, then this episode is for you. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 (http://anamericangenealogy.com)! Rick shares with us the backstory of a family member who wasn't blood but who was central to his family for four generations, and then shares her recipe for a simple, hearty casserole, known to the family as Emily's Casserole. But because its provenance is unclear, we put it to you, food historians: where do YOU think this casserole came from? Enjoy our discussion and then make the casserole for yourself. And if you want to become an FPPP Family Cookbook correspondent too, listen at the end for how to do that. It's simple. Enjoy! Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

This episode is a special treat, an interview with Joseph McGill about his incredible labor of love, The Slave Dwelling Project (http://slavedwellingproject.org). 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 exclusively about the plantation owners and enslavers of history. We talk about the places where genealogy and historic preservation cross paths, too. I know you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoy preparing for it, and as much as I enjoyed talking with Joe. This interview would not have been possible without the patronage of my 12 financial supporters at Patreon (http://patreon.com/ancestorsalive), by the way...imagine how many more interviews I could afford to do, how many more headsets I could afford to buy for my interviewees, if you joined that elite group! See how to join them for as little as $1 per month below. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 and who is using DNA for research. Family trees need all the help that they can get; public records aggregators like BeenVerified can provide up to three generations of relatives for researchers looking to fill blanks on Ancestry trees. I'll also tell you how to remove yourself from these databases to protect your own privacy. Hypocritical, huh? Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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? A rather big question! I will never find the true answer, but I have solved it to my own satisfaction, barring the additional commentary of food historians or members of the Marzetti family. Join me on the front porch for the story of Sauce Arturo, Teresa Marzetti's restaurant in Columbus, Ohio that became an empire, my mother's undying love for her family, and and my military family's love for Johnny Mazetti. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 on that question, and replies with my ongoing battle to complete details about one person - my great-aunt Clara's third husband, John Joseph Dalain. This story contains marriages, divorces, two murders, one attempted murder, some drunk driving, and just for some spice, a hog theft. It outlines the lives of some very hard-living people in 20th-century America, and the 44 years of work that my uncle and I have put in (well, 44 years and counting) to get the story of one man told. Strap in - there's a lot of procedure here, but there's also a lot of gothic tragedy and scandalous fun! Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 born in Indiana in 1886. My grandmother took over the recipe when she married in 1931. She, in turn, taught it to my mother, who taught it to me. It's a great, basic, savory recipe, and when Thanksgiving comes, I'll show you how to use it to make the most insanely good Cajun/Creole sausage and cornbread dressing you've ever had in your life! In the meantime, sit back, enjoy the new theme music written and performed exclusively for the Family Cookbook episode series, and take notes so that you can share this recipe with your family, for generations to come. Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.

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 FREE service (and two websites) called Reclaim the Records, a tax-exempt, charitable organization whose goal it is to use Freedom of Information laws at the state and Federal levels to access public, government records and make them available to all researchers. She'll even explain how you can do it yourself, how Reclaim the Records can help you, and give us a heads up about some upcoming projects. Listen in! Join the Facebook group and participate! facebook.com/groups/FromPaperToPeople and answer those three questions! Please rate and review the podcast at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H or facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy. If you want to be on the podcast from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the Zoom platform and a good mic and earphones (how about that Family Cookbook series??), you can contact me at https://bit.ly/2Kxb6rm. Stop by the website at ancestorsalivegenealogy.com (social media links there, too!). Sponsor the podcast at patreon.com/AncestorsAlive for super-fantastic rewards, and now at Ko-fi: http://ko-fi.com/frompapertopeople. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2lmhYha.