I am an idiot. In the space of about 18 hours, I participated in two demonstrations (one in pouring rain), tweeted about both, participated in a Twitter storm (an online protest), wrote emails to my senators and congressional representative, and prayed for Nadiya Savchenko. Nadiya is a woman to admire—a pilot who was the first […Read more]
“I’m dying.” –Tweet from a 21-year-old volunteer medic, Olesya Zhukovskaya, February 20, 2014. This update was the first thing I saw in my Facebook feed that morning two years ago. I’d woken up determined to cut back on my obsessive reading of news about Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution. Since the day in November 2013 when brutal […Read more]
The town of Osthofen, Germany, was the home of the Schott family from at least1717 to 1809. It is over 1,200 years old, and was first mentioned in 784 in the Lorscher Codex (a manuscript from the Lorsch Monastery). In 784 it was referred to as Ostova. Later names included Osthoven (1262), Osthouen (1268), Ostown […Read more]
After 20 years of doing genealogy, I thought it was about time I got myself to RootsTech, an enormous annual genealogy convention in Salt Lake City. A few first-timer impressions: The positive Tech stuff – the wifi connection was awesome and there were charging stations everywhere for my hungry electronic devices. The charging station counter […Read more]
The town of Schotten is said to be the place of origin of both the Schott family and the Schott name sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries. The official history for the town of Schotten, Germany, is that an early document mentions a church “ad scotis” or “of the Scots” that is one of […Read more]
I’ve wanted to visit Lithuania since I was a teenager. And for once, it’s not because of family roots. My interest in this small Baltic country dates back to high school in the 1970s, when Lithuania was firmly locked away behind the Iron Curtain. In fact, the Soviet Union had so thoroughly subsumed it, I […Read more]
I don’t usually write political posts, but all the controversy over whether to admit Syrian refugees into the U.S. has caused these thoughts to be burning on my heart. My day job is as a writer for an international humanitarian organization that cares for people in need, like these refugees. It breaks my heart that […Read more]
I don’t usually post recipes, but since there was so much interest in yesterday’s post about my baking powder dilemma and so many people desperately searching for this recipe, so here goes. Now, I’m not calling you a dummy, but I certainly was when I first tried to make it. My mom didn’t really use recipes and […Read more]
My mother was always blunt, or “direct” if you want to be polite. I learned to live with comments like, “Well, that hairstyle doesn’t look good on you,” or “You just have no sense of style,” (when I preferred my own tailored look to her more flamboyant, sequin-bedecked clothing suggestions). So it didn’t really surprise […Read more]
Guest blogger True Lewis blogs about family history. Her blog is a personal diary about her slave Granddaddy Ike Ivery and the Miles Daniel Family. Along with her mother’s European heritage, her ancestors come from Bullock County, Midway, Alabama, and Houston County, Georgia. With strong roots in Cumberland County, Newville, Pennsylvania, she’s been blogging for three […Read more]