When your name is Mary Inga Anderson and you live in Sweden, you are about as easy to find as Mary Ann Jones in America.  Lots of them exist, but which one is the right one?  It is often impossible; thus, leading to one solid brick wall. However, sometimes you get lucky and a DNA match puts a crack in the wall.  Soon, it comes tumbling down.   In Front of the Wall My husband

The image above is what I always think of when my Great-Grandmother Rosa Isabell (Ellis) McCracken Apt’s brother Joe Ellis is mentioned.  He was a man with a horse on the frontier, but why did he keep moving his family?  And, why did he go to a place where the entire population of the township filled less than three pages of census forms?   The Early Years Joseph Andrew “Joe” Ellis, son of Joseph Lewis

       Some years ago, Dad told me a story and then told me not to tell people.  Well, now that all of the older generation have passed, I am sharing the story.  I think Dad thought it was too risque and might put his mother in a negative light, but I believe shows a side of my Grandma Nellie (Peelle) McCracken that many of my generation may never have seen.   Grandma, Grandpa, O’Ella, Esther,

Having joined the Society of Friends, Francis Pellett, like many other Quakers, decided to go to America where religious freedom was said to exist.  When he left Ireland, he knew where he has headed, but he had no idea that he would live in multiple states and create a huge family that would spread out over the country.   Francis in Ireland Francis Pellett is said to have been born in 1765 in Galway, Ireland.

I try to salvage every letter and diary from family as you never know what family history may be in them.  So, when the topic of letters and diaries came up, I went to a container of letters that I had, looked for old paper, and pulled out a few until I found one of interest.  The letter I chose was written January 2, 1942, less than one month after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.