I was scandalized when I first learned that the reason my 2nd great-grandparents Christian FASIG and Catharine Ellen FASIG had the same last name was because their fathers were brothers.  Picture my mouth in that stunned and astonished “O.” Christian and Catharine were 1st cousins?!  This must be wrong, I thought, feeling terribly embarrassed and even somehow alarmed at the discovery. But yes, it turned out, Christian FASIG, born July 28, 1825 in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.; dying Nov. 18, 1901 in Kankakee Hospital, Kankakee, Kankakee County, Illinois (buried Ridge ..read more

Like many Americans with southern United States ancestry, I found slavery in my line:  some of my ancestors were slaveholders; some collateral kin were slaves.  And if anyone came from “far away” to America, it was this group of people, slaves: forced immigrants to this country. In the February 17 & 24, 2020, issue of The New Yorker magazine, there’s an article titled, “Can Slavery Reenactments Set Us Free?,” by Julian Lucas.1  “Remembrance culture,” reads a line beneath a compelling illustration by Anthony Russo, “posits that we must not only honor history but relive i ..read more

Photos are magic is how I look at it:  they transport me to a time and place outside of where I am. How can I have a favorite?  I don’t, not really — one favorite is continually getting joined or replaced by, a new favorite. But I count among my most prized photos, this one of my paternal grandmother at age eighteen, emailed me anonymously: Golda Ametta GREGER At Age Eighteen I am totally charmed by this photo; I was when I received it and I still am.  From the expression in her eyes and on her face to her hair to the necklace she’s wearing to her dress to the belt around her wa ..read more

LUCKY ME! I thought with delight and open-mouthed disbelief when I began researching my ancestry in the late-ish 1990s. Way back in 1907, the “New York Genealogical Association” had published a huge book giving detailed data on my Buckner line all the way back to my British ancestors who helped colonize America! Titled, The Buckners of Virginia and the allied families of Strother and Ashby1, the impressive and thick volume was edited by William Armstrong Crozier for a descendant named William Dickinson Buckner, and, Crozier had a stellar reputation.  The book provided detailed descendant ..read more