Recently, I received an e-mail from Andy Likins of Colorado that got me thinking. He told about his good fortune—receiving a family history bonanza almost out of the blue:
Last summer, I was contacted by my father’s second cousin. He is now in his 80s, was moving into a retirement home, and wanted to pass along some family heirlooms.
James R. Vanderpool, my ancestor, was just a blacksmith in the Ozark Mountains of Newton County, Arkansas, when the Civil War erupted. He became a Mountain Federal—a group of men who chose to serve on the Union side. Loyalties, however, were greatly divided in Newton County: popular men, including his neighbor John Cecil, who had served two terms as sheriff, joined the Confederate army.
I genuinely enjoy rescuing orphan heirlooms, solving mini-history mysteries so items that have wandered from their families of origin can be returned. In fact, I enjoy it so much that I do it for fun. So when I found myself wishing for a break from work recently, I decided to tackle a fresh orphan heirloom case.
One of the surprises in my lifetime has been the change in the sound of a construction site. Where I once heard hammering and hand-sawing, I now hear the sound of air compressors, nail guns, and power saws. It’s not uncommon to hear music, too—at least until the neighbors complain.
Basically, you can’t build a house or most anything else today without electricity.
Rich or poor, we all have an amazing inheritance residing in our cells, a legacy that has been passed down through thousands of generations. It’s contained in special structures called mitochondria, which are responsible for energy metabolism. Each cell has hundreds of thousands of these mitochondria, and each mitochondrion has several DNA molecules.
Mitochondrial DNA is essential to our lives.
Reasons to Celebrate
How did you ring in the new year? Are your family’s special traditions related to your ethnic background? Father Times describes New Year’s traditions around the world, from Armenia to Korea to Wales. For example, in Portugal you eat 12 grapes at midnight to ensure happiness each month of the new year.
I enjoy cutting-edge technology, but failed miserably at cozying up to blogs when they first appeared. I’ve been a bit gun-shy ever since, so I met this assignment—finding something to do with family history on YouTube—with some trepidation.
You’ve probably already heard of YouTube.
Everybody loves a genealogy challenge, but when Nampa, Idaho city employees started spending the greater part of their days locating gravesites for call-in family historians, city officials knew something had to be done.
About That Name
I knew my father as Richard Coleman. He met my mother, Helen, in Washington, D.C., around 1946. They married in 1947, and I was born in 1949.
In the mid-1950s, my father became ill with cancer, eventually passing away in Maryland in 1961. As a child, I always wondered where Dad’s family was, especially at the traditional holidays. But my father just wouldn’t talk about it.
My third great-grandfather, Samuel Mulliner, was born in Scotland on 15 January 1809. He died in Lehi, Utah on 25 February 1891. What happened between those two dates, however, is the real story of his life.
In my quest to fill in the empty spaces on my family tree, I sometimes forget that the final sum of a life is much more than when a person was born and when a person died.