Author Archive

Details, Details, Details

By jonathanreddoch • Jul 11th, 2008 • Category: Features

Quick, how well do you know your Spanish-American War history? A tiny clue within a clue within a clue (and a naval battle) hides an answer to this photographic mystery.
A matryoshka doll is a brightly painted wooden figurine that can be taken apart to reveal successively smaller dolls nesting inside one another. It’s also known as a Russian nesting doll.



Money

By jonathanreddoch • Jul 11th, 2008 • Category: Features

Money on your mind? You’re not the only one. When you’re looking for an old will or clues to a financially solvent family tree, be sure to check Ancestry.com. You’ll find a list of them at the Court, Land, Wills, and Financial Records tab.



Are You an Heir?

By jonathanreddoch • Jul 11th, 2008 • Category: Features

Forget those winning European lottery announcements that keep filling up your inbox and the dreams of a jumbo prize check coming to your door. You could be next in line to score a real prize—and you might not even know it.
So who would know? An heir tracer—a genealogist assigned to a find out just who is entitled to an unclaimed estate.



X. Ackley? Exactly

By jonathanreddoch • May 1st, 2008 • Category: Features

I’ve had tremendous success uncovering ancestors from my mother’s side of the family, but my father’s family had always been a dead end, so to speak.
My father, Henry Ackley Sackett, who went by the name Harry, died in 1999. We knew his dad’s name was Henry, and his dad’s dad’s name was Orsemus.



Without Glory

By jonathanreddoch • May 1st, 2008 • Category: Features

Standing on her toes while the serviceman measured her, Viney Ruth Rogers still barely squeaked past the minimum height restriction to work at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio.



Where oh where can they be . . . Finding Family Manuscripts

By jonathanreddoch • May 1st, 2008 • Category: Features

You just know family letters, Bibles, and diaries are out there somewhere. But where? Start with a resource like this family postcard to help you find clues to stories in hiding.
Chance.
Online keyword searches such as “School Records Gibsonburg, Ohio” or “Big Rapids, Michigan history” could land you just what you’re seeking.
Gifts.



THINGS THEY DO for tombstone records

By jonathanreddoch • May 1st, 2008 • Category: Features

“It all started because one Saturday I wanted to see how the demolition was going at the old Lloyd Brothers Walker Monument Company.”
So says Christine Zywocki, the woman who sat across the street in her lawn chair with her lunch and her binoculars, keeping an eye on the old building near Toledo, Ohio.



Simple Security

By jonathanreddoch • May 1st, 2008 • Category: Features

Who needs Doc Brown’s time-traveling DeLorean from Back to the Future when a malfunctioning clothes dryer can transport you back to the simpler, backyard days of 1950s America?
When my clothes dryer broke last year, I was transported to another world.



Shotgun Weddings

By jonathanreddoch • May 1st, 2008 • Category: Features

The shotgun wedding, which has come to refer to any hasty marriage arranged because of an unplanned pregnancy, has deep roots in American family legends and folk songs, probably with good reason.
For years, the rule seemed to be that American couples were married in the bride’s hometown or county.



Returning to Their Medicinal Roots

By jonathanreddoch • May 1st, 2008 • Category: Features

As medicine advances, why do 70 percent of all people still turn to age-old remedies? Turns out our ancestors actually were onto something.
In the fall of 1978, just six months after her daughter’s 13th birthday, Janét Booton was diagnosed with cancer. As others prepared for the worst, Janét looked into her options and decided on a treatment she really believed in.