The intriguing characters in these real family history mysteries include an agricultural labourer who left secrets behind in Somerset when he migrated to Manchester, a working-class woman who bafflingly lost ten of her fourteen children in infancy, a miner who purportedly went to live with the Red Indians and a merchant prince of the Empire who was rumoured to have two wives. This book shows how a variety of sources including birth, marriage and death certificates, censuses, newspaper reports, passports, recipe books, trade directories, diaries and passenger lists were all used to uncover more, and how much can be detected by setting the characters from your family tree in their proper historical backgrounds.This book is an updated edition of Ruth Symes previous book, titled Stories From Your Family Tree: Researching Ancestors Within Living Memory (2008).

Could your ancestors write their own names or did they mark official documents with a cross? Why did great-grandfather write so cryptically on a postcard home during the First World War? Why did great-grandmother copy all the letters she wrote into letter-books? How unusual was it that great-uncle sat down and wrote a poem, or a memoir? Researching Family History Through Ancestors' Personal Writings looks at the kinds of (mainly unpublished) writing that could turn up amongst family papers from the Victorian period onwards - a time during which writing became crucial for holding families together and managing their collective affairs. With industrialization, improved education, and far more geographical mobility, British people of all classes were writing for new purposes, with new implements, in new styles, using new modes of expression and new methods of communication (e.g. telegrams and postcards). Our ancestors had an itch for scribbling from the most basic marks (initials, signatures and graffiti on objects as varied as trees, rafters and window ledges), through more emotionally charged kinds of writing such as letters and diaries, to more creative works such as poetry and even fiction. This book shows family historians how to get the most out of documents written by their ancestors and, therefore, how better to understand the people behind the words.

Starting with a photograph and some writings left by her grandmother, Thulani Davis goes looking for the "white folk" in her family-a Scots-Irish family of cotton planters unknown to her-and uncovers a history far richer and stranger than she had ever imagined. When Davis's grandmother died in 1971, she was writing a novel about her parents, Mississippi cotton farmers who met after the Civil War: Chloe Curry, a former slave from Alabama, married with several children, and Will Campbell, a white planter from Missouri who had never marriedIn this compelling intersection of genealogy, memoir, and Reconstruction history, Davis picks up where her grandmother left off. Her journey takes her from Missouri to Mississippi to Alabama, back to her home town in Virginia, and even to Sierra Leone. The Campbells lead her to locate not only their pioneer history but to find the previously unknown roots of her mother's family; to Civil War archives, where she discovers the records of the Campbells who fought with Confederate troops; to the Silver Creek plantation in Yazoo, Mississippi, where the two branches of her family history became one; and to a county near her Virginia hometown where both families started their American journey, completely unknown to each other. My Confederate Kinfolk examines the origins of some of our most deeply ingrained notions about what makes a family black or white and offers an immensely compelling, intellectually challenging alternative.

From the bestselling author of Wild Hope — a beautiful book for Advent. Open a window each day of Advent onto the natural world. Here are twenty-five fresh images of the foundational truth that lies beneath and within the Christ story. In twenty-five portraits depicting how wild animals of the northern hemisphere ingeniously adapt when darkness and cold descend, we see and hear as if for the first time the ancient wisdom of Advent: The dark is not an end but the way a new beginning comes. Short, daily reflections that paint vivid, poetic images of familiar animals, paired with charming original wood-cuts, will engage both children and adults. Anyone who does not want to be caught, again, in the consumer hype of “the holiday season” but rather to be taken up into the eternal truth the natural world reveals will welcome this book. An ECPA 2023 Christmas Bestseller. Learn more about All Creation Waits and find free resources at AllCreationWaits.com

Nancy Atherton's seventeenth in the New York Times bestselling series sees the sleepy village of Finch set aflutter by a bewitching mystery from its past. Watch out for Nancy Atherton's latest, Aunt Dimity and the King's Ransom, coming in July 2018 from Viking! Last year, the otherworldly sleuth's devoted fans secured a place on the New York Times bestseller list for Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree. Now Lori and Aunt Dimity are back on the list—and this time, they're on a witch-hunt. At first glance, the unassuming Mrs. Amelia Thistle is a disappointment to the villagers of Finch, but Lori Shepherd isn't fooled by the new arrival's bland persona. Amelia is a world-famous artist, traveling incognito, and, after unearthing a fragment of a family diary hinting that Mistress Meg, the Mad Witch of Finch, might be one of her ancestors, she's come to Finch in search of the truth.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL’S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION • A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year • National Jewish Book Award Finalist • For readers of Crying in H Mart and Wintering, an unforgettable memoir about a family secret revealed by a DNA test, the lessons learned in its aftermath, and the indelible power of love. Three months after Kyo Maclear’s father dies in December 2018, she gets the results of a DNA test showing that she and the father who raised her are not biologically related. Suddenly Maclear becomes a detective in her own life, unravelling a family mystery piece by piece, and assembling the story of her biological father. Along the way, larger questions arise: what exactly is kinship? And what does it mean to be a family? Thoughtful in its reflections on race and lineage, unflinching in its insights on grief and loyalty, Unearthing is a captivating and propulsive story of inheritance that goes beyond heredity. What gets planted, and what gets buried? What role does storytelling play in unearthing the past and making sense of a life? Can the humble act of tending a garden provide common ground for an inquisitive daughter and her complicated mother? As it seeks to answer these questions, Unearthing bursts with the very love it seeks to understand.

Is it a case of genius or criminal behavior? Have a brilliant innkeeper and her husband, a retired wildlife photographer, relied on genius or hidden cameras to reveal the love lives of their guests? These questions stir the controversy at the center of The Ultimate Voyeur. The owners of a Southern inn renowned for hospitality, Catherine Morgan and her husband are uncanny in their way of breaching barriers that people hide behind. Each chapter of The Ultimate Voyeur explores the innkeepers personal story and includes an episode involving guests. One guest, a talented scriptwriter, learns about the several hundred files compiled by Catherine and turns them with the innkeepers help into a massively popular TV program airing once a week. The episodes unfold the hidden love lives of the guests, extending from ingenious bedroom farce (The Jinx in High Jinks) to passionate romance (The Ten-Million-Dollar Wedding Ring) to something sinister (Whodunit to the Famous Mystery Writer?). The portrayal of the mystery writer strikes too close to home. Infuriated at his loss of privacy and sure that hidden cameras are to blame, he finds ambiguous evidence at the inn and plots his vengeance. In his wild retaliation that transcends his cardboard characters, the separate realms of life and art explode on contact to reveal the innkeepers inmost secrets. At the climax, one is led to fundamental insights into secrets at the heart of everybody and the chaos or compassion that results from their disclosure.