Beware of what you might find when researching your family history. My family in particular seems to have more than its share of ghosts in the closet. Here are a few that I’ve discovered so far.
Five Bad Pieces of Genealogy Advice
I’ve been at this family history business long enough, six years (the equivalent of 56 years in Internet terms), to be considered an expert. So I thought I’d jot down some of the worst advice I received during my quest, for the benefit of neophytes who want to embark on a family history project in […]
Bernard Kock Colonized Cow Island With Freed Slaves
History has been brutally unkind to Bernard Kock, my third great-grandfather. Historians use all sorts of pejoratives to describe him — swindler, scoundrel, opportunist — and perhaps with good reason. But at least some of the hostility toward Kock is rooted in the fact that he made Abraham Lincoln look like a hypocrite. Kock convinced […]