A native Georgian, James Hughes Callahan (1812 - 1856) migrated to Texas to serve in the Texas Revolution in exchange for land. In Seguin, Texas, where he settled, he met and married a divorcEe, Sarah Medissa Day (1822 - 1856). The lives of these two Texas pioneers and their extended family would become so entwined in the events and experiences of the nascent nation and state that their story represents a social history of nineteenth-century Texas. From his arrival as a sergeant with the Georgia Battalion, through the ill-fated 1855 expedition that bears his name, to his shooting death in a feud with a neighbor, Callahan was a soldier, a Texas Ranger, a rancher, and a land developer, at every turn making his mark on the evolving Guadalupe River Basin. Separately, Sarah's family's journey reflected the experience of many immigrants to Texas after its war of independence. Thomas O. McDonald traces the pair's respective paths to their meeting, then follows as, together, they contend with conflict, troublesome social mores, the emergence of new industries, and the taming of the land, along the way helping to shape Texas culture as we know it to this day. With a sharp eye for character and detail, and with a wealth of material at his command, author Thomas O. McDonald tells a story as crackling with life as it is steeped in scholarly research. In these pages the lives of the Callahan and Day families become a canvas on which the history of Texas - from revolution, frontier defense, and Indian wars to Anglo settlement and emerging legal and social systems - dramatically, inexorably unfolds.

Whether you're eager to hold on to EU citizenship post-Brexit or simply interested in exploring your family's past, learn how to research and document your Irish ancestry with this essential guide, newly updated to include the latest genealogy tools. The purpose of this book is to highlight the most important documentary evidence available to the family historian wishing to research their Irish ancestry. It is aimed primarily at researchers whose time in Irish repositories is limited, and who want to know what is available locally and online. It covers more than eighteen individual sources of information, making it simpler to organise your search and easier to carry it out both locally and on the ground. This books covers: - Where to begin - Researching online - Civil registration - Making sense of census returns, wills, election records - Migration, emigration - Local government and church records

The Hatfield-McCoy feud has long been the most famous vendetta of the southern Appalachians. Over the years it has become encrusted with myth and error. Scores of writers have produced accounts of it, but few have made any real effort to separate fact from fiction. Novelists, motion picture producers, television script writers, and others have sensationalized events that needed no embellishment. Using court records, public documents, official correspondence, and other documentary evident, Otis K. Rice presents an account that frees, as much as possible, fact from fiction, event from legend. He weighs the evidence carefully, avoiding the partisanship and the attitude of condescension and condemnation that have characterized many of the writings concerning the feud. He sets the feud in the social, political, economic, and cultural context of eastern Kentucky and southwestern West Virginia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining the legacy of the Civil War, the weakness of institutions such as the church and education system, the exaggerated importance of family, the impotence of the law, and the isolation of the mountain folk, Rice gives new meaning to the origins and progress of the feud. These conditions help explain why the Hatfield and McCoy families, which have produced so many fine citizens, could engage in such a bitter and prolonged vendetta

The New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and Indie Bound Bestseller

'Those who like to insist that blood is always thicker than water should read Inheritance, and let their own hearts slowly and gently expand.'-- The Observer

'All my life I had known there was a secret. What I hadn't known: the secret was me.'

In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. Everything she had believed about her identity was a lie.

Shapiro's parents had died when she was in her twenties. With only a handful of figures on a webpage, Shapiro sets out to discover the truth about herself and her history.

Inheritance is a genetic detective story; a memoir that reads like a thriller. It is a book about secrets -secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover.

Genealogically and historically, Kent is an important maritime county which has played a prime defensive role in English history. It is large and diverse and replete with great houses, castles and other family homes, many with their own archives. It is also a fascinating area of research for family and local historians, and David Wright's handbook is the perfect guide to it. For thirty-five years he has been working with the various Kent archives, and his extensive experience means he is uniquely well placed to introduce them to other researchers and show how they can be used. He summarizes the many different classes of Kent records, both national and local. For the first time he draws together the best of modern indexing and cataloguing along with other long-established sources to produce a balanced and up-to-date overview of Kentish genealogical sources - where to find them, their contents and utility to researchers. Tracing Your Kent Ancestors is essential reading and reference for newcomers to family history, and it will be a mine of practical information for researchers who have already started to work in the field.

Every family has a story to tell. This is yours. Think of your favourite family holidays, recipes, jokes and often repeated tales. Wouldn't it be great to record them before they're lost to history? Harriet Green and John-Paul Flintoff are journalists who have spent years drawing the best out of their interviewees. Here they prompt you to do the same with your nearest and dearest - whether it be re-enacting an old family photo or crafting a letter to someone you miss, remembering much-loved family pets or quizzing your parents about their earliest memories. You'll become a doodler, detective, cartographer, historian, anthropologist, peacemaker and author. And most importantly of all, you'll be talking things over with the people that matter to you most, from grandparents to children. The more you put in, the more valuable this book will become; a moving, unique record of the people who came before you and something to pass on to future generations.

This fully revised second edition of Chris Paton's best-selling guide is essential reading if you want to make effective use of the internet in your family history research. Every day new records and resources are placed online and new methods of sharing research and communicating across cyberspace become available, and his handbook is the perfect introduction to them. He has checked and updated all the links and other sources, added new ones, written a new introduction and substantially expanded the social networking section. Never before has it been so easy to research family history using the internet, but he demonstrates that researchers need to take a cautious approach to the information they gain from it. They need to ask, where did the original material come from and has it been accurately reproduced, why was it put online, what has been left out and what is still to come? As he leads the researcher through the multitude of resources that are now accessible online, he helps to answer these questions. He shows what the internet can and cannot do, and he warns against the various traps researchers can fall into along the way.

The Black Country in the West Midlands is an important site for family historians. Many researchers, seeking to trace their ancestry back through the generations, will find their trail leads through it. And yet, despite the burgeoning interest in genealogy and the importance of the region in so many life stories, no previous book has provided a guide to the Black Country's history and to the documents and records that family historians can use in their research. In this accessible and informative introduction to the subject, Michael Pearson looks at the history and heritage of the region and gives a graphic insight into the world in which our ancestors lived. He concentrates on the role the Black Country played during the industrial revolution when the development of mining, industry and transport transformed the economic and social life of the area. This was a period when living and working conditions were poor, families were large, children worked from an early age, often in the mines, and life expectancy was less than 20. And it was the era in which the Black Country took on the distinctive identity by which it is known today. As well as retelling the fascinating story of the development of the Black Country, the author introduces the reader to the variety of records that are available for genealogical research, from legal and ecclesiastical archives, birth and death certificates to the records of local government, employers, institutions, clubs, societies and schools.

The companion how-to guide to the hit TV series-with advice for anyone starting their own genealogical search.
In the groundbreaking NBC series "Who Do You Think You Are?" seven celebrities-Sarah Jessica Parker, Emmitt Smith, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Broderick, Brooke Shields, Susan Sarandon, and Spike Lee-went on an emotional journey to trace their family history and discover who they really are, and millions of viewers caught the genealogy bug. With the official companion guide, anyone can learn how to chart their family's unique path. Featuring step-by-step instructions from Megan Smolenyak2, one of America's top genealogical researchers, this book offers everything readers need to know to start the journey into their past, from digging through old photos, to finding the best online resources.

A Mind of Her Own: Helen Connor Laird and Family, 1888 - 1982 captures the public achievement and private pain of a remarkable Wisconsin woman and her family, whose interests and influence extended well beyond the borders of the state. The eldest child of William Duncan Connor, a major figure in Wisconsin's emerging hardwood lumber industry and its turbulent turn-of-the-century political scene, Helen Connor Laird spent almost her entire ninety-three years in central and northern Wisconsin. Nevertheless, her voracious reading and probing mind connected her to the world. Her early life in frontier communities, home influences, Presbyterian background, and education, as well as the talents she recognized in herself, impelled her to lead. Marriage, duty, and four sons did not stem that desire. By the time her third child, Melvin R Laird Jr, became secretary of defense in 1969, she had served in leadership positions in her community, district, and state. While business absorbed her competitive family, her own interests lay elsewhere: in politics and education. Throughout her life, she kept records of the evolving world she and her family inhabited, and of her own emotional states. ""Remember, we are all lonely,"" the ""closet poet"" said. Spanning almost a century, the family's history speaks to the way we were and are: a stridently materialistic nation with a deep and persistent spiritual component.

The astonishing true story of a young woman's adventures, and misadventures, in the dangerous world of Nazi-occupied France. For Priscilla, pre-war Paris was an exciting carousel of suitors, soirees and heartbreak, and eventually a lavish wedding to a French aristocrat. But the arrival of the Nazi tanks signalled the end of life as a Vicomtesse, and the beginning of a precarious existence under German Occupation. Over half a century later, her nephew, Nicholas Shakespeare, found a box of Priscilla's notebooks and journals. He began investigating the rumours that she had escaped a prisoner-of-war camp and fought for the Resistance - and he finally unearthed the truth behind suspicions of disreputable love affairs and far darker secrets.

The Pattons is a portrait of the famous military family, by the novelist Robert Patton, himself the grandson of the family's most illustrious member, George S. Patton. Washington Post critic Jonathan Yardley called this one of the best books of the year.

Anyone who wants to find out about the history of their house - of their home - needs to read this compact, practical handbook. Whether you live in a manor house or on a planned estate, in a labourer's cottage, a tied house, a Victorian terrace, a twentieth-century council house or a converted warehouse - this is the book for you. In a series of concise, information-filled chapters, Gill Blanchard shows you how to trace the history of your house or flat, how to gain an insight into the lives of the people who lived in it before you, and how to fit it into the wider history of your neighbourhood. A wealth of historical evidence is available in libraries, archives and record offices, in books and online, and this is the ideal introduction to it. Gill Blanchard explores these resources in depth, explains their significance and directs the researcher to the most relevant, and revealing, aspects of them. She makes the research process understandable, accessible and fun, and in the process she demystifies the sometimes obscure language and layout of the documents that researchers will come up against.

The Kahans from Baku is the saga of a Russian Jewish family. Their story provides an insight into the history of Jews in the Imperial Russian economy, especially in the oil industry. The entrepreneur and family patriarch, Chaim Kahan, was a pious and enlightened man and a Zionist. His children followed in his footsteps in business as well as in politics, philanthropy, and love of books. The book takes us through their forced migration in times of war, revolution, and the twentieth century's totalitarian regimes, telling the story of fortune and misfortune of one cohesive family over four generations through Russia, Germany, Denmark, and France, and finally on to Palestine and the United States of America.

An author's quest to discover what really happened to his uncle in World War II To all appearances, Anthony "Tony" Korkuc was just another casualty of World War II. A gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress, Korkuc was lost on a bombing mission over Germany, and his family believed that his body had never been recovered. But when they learned in 1995 that Tony was actually buried at Arlington National Cemetery, his nephew Bob Korkuc set out on a seven-year quest to learn the true fate of an uncle he never knew. Finding a Fallen Hero is a compelling story that blends a wartime drama with a primer on specialized research. Author Bob Korkuc initially set out to learn how his Uncle Tony came to rest at Arlington. In the process, he also unraveled the mystery of what occurred over the skies of Germany half a century ago. Korkuc dug up military documents and private letters and interviewed people in both the United States and Germany. He tracked down surviving crewmembers and even found the brother of the Luftwaffe pilot who downed the B-17. Dozens of photographs help readers envision both Tony Korkuc's fateful flight and his nephew's dogged search for the truth. A gripping chronicle of exhaustive research, Finding a Fallen Hero will strike a chord with any reader who has lost a family member to war. And it will inspire others to satisfy their own unanswered questions.

Tracing family history has become increasingly popular over the last few decades and the availability of many records online means that those fortunate enough to have Scottish ancestors can easily access many of the sources they need to build their family tree. However, as research progresses, most family historians will eventually hit the dreaded 'brick wall' and find themselves unable to proceed further. This book provides a wealth of information, advice and techniques to help solve these genealogy problems and gives family historians the tools they need to track down even the most elusive forebears. Contents include: sources for Scottish family history research, both traditional archives and online resources; techniques for searching and interpreting genealogical records; planning and recording research and, finally, common genealogy problems and their solutions.

When two Hungarian Jewish refugees landed by accident in Britain in the winter of 1956, they had little idea what the future would hold. But they carried with them the traces of their turbulent past, just enough to provide the clues to their past. Scattered Ghosts combines memoir, investigation and travel to resurrect 200 years of wars and revolutions, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire via two totalitarianisms to contemporary Britain. It is the story of an all but disappeared world told through the eyes of a single family ruptured by great forces, and occasionally brought together by cherry strudel. Through haphazard and fragmented possessions - a blunt-penciled letter; a final photograph; a hastily typed certificate; a protecting document; a farewell postcard from a distant place; a recipe - Nick Barlay retraces the footsteps of the vanished. There is the death march of a grandfather, the military maneuvers of a great uncle, the final weeks and moments of a great grandmother deported to Auschwitz, two boys' survival of an untold massacre, and codenamed spies operating in Cold War Britain. The ordinary mysteries and emotional legacies still resonate today in the parallel lives of far-flung family members. Diaspora, division and cultural identity form the backdrop to the story of ancestors who walked barefoot from Eastern Europe to experience Communism and Nazism, and to outlive them both. Scattered Ghosts is a family history that explores the events, great and small, on which a family's existence hinges. How did one person survive and another die? How did a Soviet tank shell cause a revolution between sisters? How did two refugees escape an invading army? Where did successive generations end up? And, ultimately, where did the recipe for cherry strudel come from?

Your ancestors come back to life when family history becomes a novel! Do you have mountains of genealogical information which, for all your time and energy, are little more than lists of names, dates and indecipherable family trees? Read Rabbit George and Me and find a blueprint of how to turn your history into an absorbing and compelling tale. A tale which will be sure to be read by present and future generations of your family. Your ancestry research will not have been in vain! Opening in the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire of the mid 1800's, and deftly weaving through to the present day, the story of "Rabbit George', his three wives and twelve children is guaranteed to be devoured by the Smith family's descendants. But the general reader will find much that is of interest, whether it's journeying to Utah to learn about distant Mormon relatives, or to the far flung places so many descendants have settled. Rabbit George and Me will take you on a trip through time, and around the world, and will deliver you back home eager to craft your own family's tale. Bring your ancestors back to life! Read Rabbit George and Me and discover a new way to ensure your family history is not only passed down, but is enthusiastically embraced by the generations to follow.

Tracing Your Pre-Victorian Ancestors is the ideal handbook for family historians whose research has reached back to the early nineteenth century and are finding it difficult to go further. John Wintrip guides readers through all the steps they can take in order to delve even more deeply into the past. Carrying research through to earlier periods is challenging because church registers recorded less information than civil registration records and little census data is available. Researchers often encounter obstacles they don't know how to overcome. But, as this book demonstrates, greater understanding of the sources and the specific records within them, along with a wider knowledge of the historical context, often allows progress to be made. Most important, John Wintrip concentrates on how to do the research - on the practical steps that can be taken in order to break through these barriers. He looks at online services, archival repositories and their catalogues, factors that can influence the outcome of research, wider family relationships, missing ancestors and mistaken identity.Throughout the book he emphasizes the process of research and the variety of search tools that can be used.

Jonathan Scott's Family History Web Directory is an information-packed reference guide that distils the best of the internet into one easy-to-use format. Themed sections cover different topics, from 'getting started' to specific occupations, and there is an index reproducing all the websites in A-Z order. His handbook is a vital source for less experienced researchers, and a handy aide-memoire for more seasoned campaigners. Web addresses are listed by topic, then in order of importance and usefulness. An extraordinary range of sites that will interest family historians is included - from records of births and deaths, tax, crime and religion, to military records and records of work and occupations. Also featured are sites that give information about archives, blogs and forums, social networking and sharing research. The internet can be an overwhelming place for the genealogist. Jonathan Scott's book provides readers with online shortcuts, tips for getting the best from well-known websites, plus the details of all kinds of lesser-known and hard-to-find sources.

Building Blocks is the history of Buckeye CableSystem. Buckeye is part of a family empire started in 1900 by the son of an immigrant in upstate New York. This book is a fascinating tale of the family's progression into the fourth generation and through the myriad of daily newspapers, radio and television stations, cablevision firms, a telephone company, a fiber-optic construction company, and other related communications and advertising firms which the family owns or has owned. This book shows some of the trials and tribulations faced by family members as they employ a nimble strategy to compete with the industry behemoths. It also examines the unique factors that have spelled success for 50 years and looks at what the competitive future holds for smaller cable and Internet firms Buckeye's size.