Every year, Granny would pull this handwritten mustard pickle recipe out on a morning when the foothills of the Canadian Rockies outside her door were ablaze with autumn color. She’d be in a hurry—the hard killing frost was always so unpredictable. She had to get to her garden.
My husband and I took our first family history trip years ago in a small 15 ½ foot trailer. With four small children, we crossed several states to attend a huge family reunion. Hundreds of relatives gathered to celebrate reconnecting our California roots with their Southern branches after a 110-year separation. Tears flowed as relatives embraced cousins thought for decades to be lost.
You may not realize it, but two ancient cultural forces that have been at odds with each other for centuries—work and play—are finally starting to bury the proverbial hatchet, at least in the Western world.
Consider the following:
I was hiking with my friend, a doctor. We were an hour from the city, surrounded by trees, bugs, and sunshine. It was a holiday weekend, and we were there to relax.
Kelli Estrella
Artisan Cheese Maker
Estrella Family Creamery, Washington
Kelli Estrella remembers when her cheeses started to become “special.” It happened shortly after she convinced her husband to knock out a section of the floor of their new home so she could dig out a cheese cave, a place where her homemade cheeses could mellow and ripen better than in a refrigerator.
What’s the shortest distance between two—or 20—points? An electronic map of your ancestors’ migration.
American families rarely stay in one place. Whether your ancestors were early colonial settlers or 20th century immigrants, your people were on the move.
Just as maps were vital to explorers and travelers in the past, they are indispensable to us today.
If the concept of squatter’s rights seems more like lore and legend than like something legal, you may want to rethink your view—squatter’s rights are very much a fact of land law today, just as they were 50, 100, and 200 years ago.
Three city directories in the 1870s show your ancestor was a brakeman. How can you learn more?
1. Compile a list of the years that city directories were published for the location. You’ll find catalogs with this information in major libraries and at historical societies.
2.