Sabrina RileyMar 24 minGreat-Grandpa's Vaudeville DaysAs I was growing up, I frequently heard about my great-grandfather William "Bill" Morris's days as a vaudeville stagehand in Muskegon, Michigan. The story ne...
Sabrina RileyAug 12, 20187 minStoring Your Family Treasures for PreservationOver the past several weeks on Facebook I have been chronicling my progress in organizing my grandparents' collection of family photographs and papers. For r...
Sabrina RileyJun 13, 20184 minLessons From My Grandfathers"Matriarchs" established that the women in our family are the storytellers. That doesn't mean the men have taught us any less. Their lessons have been commun...
Sabrina RileyMay 11, 20183 minMatriarchsWhat makes one family a clan and another family a loosely connected network of households–if they even know each other? Is it simply a function of a mutual e...
Sabrina RileyMar 21, 20186 minMystery of the Missing Native American DNA Part IIIt was Wayne Winkler's observation about the fluidity of Melungeon race identity in the United States Federal censuses that prompted me to look at another pa...
Sabrina RileyNov 19, 20175 minDavid Stevenson's Civil WarFort Foote occupied what felt like a remote place four miles south of Alexandria and eight miles south of Washington, D.C. With no access by road and despite...
Sabrina RileyAug 28, 201710 minThe Stories Your Grandparents Don't Talk AboutWe all have them. The stories at which our grandparents only hint and won't satisfy us with answers, usually because they are too painful to think about. I g...
Sabrina RileyMay 16, 20177 minDeep Diving in Church ArchivesOne of the most important reasons for researching family history is to create a deeper emotional connection to family by better understanding the lives and m...
Sabrina RileyMar 19, 20175 minA Case of Patronymics and VariationsThis blog post is for my mother who has been suffering a twinge of inferiority complex since the discovery of my father's illustrious Nantucket Island origin...
Sabrina RileySep 18, 20163 minDNA: A Corrective ToolSince I last posted about my own DNA results, a number of my family members have participated in our family DNA project. The results are fascinating and surp...
Sabrina RileyJun 11, 20168 minMystery of the Missing Native American DNA Part IThe deeper I dig into DNA genealogical study the more convinced I become that race is an artificial construct of the human imagination, created by imperial p...
Sabrina RileyApr 17, 20166 minForgotten Life of SignificanceOld College View Seventh-day Adventist church about 1945-1946, corner of South 49th Street and Prescott Avenue. Today I feel compelled to preserve the memor...
Sabrina RileyApr 1, 20164 minConflict of InterestOften just identifying ancestors back to the 1600s or earlier is a major achievement. Understanding something about the time period and culture in which they...
Sabrina RileyMar 18, 20166 minConvergenceAfter all of the time I spent on my Nantucket Origins post, I hadn't planned to write again so soon about my New England ancestors. Instead I planned to retu...
Sabrina RileyJan 24, 20164 minNantucket OriginsFor the month of November I had thought it would be fun to revisit the Puritan origins of my family. But the process of reviewing the information I have on t...
Sabrina RileyNov 12, 20154 minOn the Trail of the AndersonsThis week I received an inquiry requesting information about Mary Elizabeth Anderson (1887-1982) from a gentleman who believed she served as a missionary in ...
Sabrina RileySep 12, 20154 minTreasures From the AtticNot long ago my cousins Karen and Errol (whose paternal grandmother, Blanche, was a sister to my great-grandfather, Clint Fox) had the difficult task of clea...
Sabrina RileyJul 2, 20155 minThoughts on Copyright for GenealogistsA couple weeks ago I had the privilege speaking at the monthly meeting of the Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society. While my topic was not copyright...
Sabrina RileyJun 17, 20154 minLincoln's Last Friend in Muskegon, MichiganFact checking family traditions can be pretty simple, especially when they are related to well-documented events. Several family traditions surround the Civi...
Sabrina RileyMay 10, 20154 minUsing DNA When Records and Documents are MissingAlthough I've been interested in the contributions DNA testing has made to history and genealogy ever since DNA testing proved that Sally Hemmings' descenden...
