In Nina’s own words, “loveren collections serves to reconnect folks to the land and everyday perennial plants. Throughout the years, I have been learning from various lineages and communities including the San in Namibia, the Oglala Lakota in SD, and have been yearning to retrace my own ancestral steps back to the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine. I would like to explore and share this deep intimacy with the land and trace back ancestral plant knowledge from the Hutsuls (where 3 of my grandparents came from). I plan to continue teaching about female hormonal health, ceremonial healing, herbalism, and sustainable growing practices in Chicago through the Permaculture Chicago Teaching Institute, but would like a deeper understanding and sensitivity to my lineage to Eastern Europe. I believe by understanding my own ancestral practices, I can help bring awareness and sensitivity toward other communities (Native American + African) that are often appropriated without reference.”

Grant funds will assist with the purchase of books for research in European ancestral herbalism and ceremony (specifically from the Carpathian Mountains and Eastern Europe), which could be accessed as a free library source through the Permaculture Teaching Institute in Chicago. Nina speaks Ukrainian and would like to translate various texts into English as a way to help keep these traditions alive and well in Chicago, where a large Ukrainian and Polish community resides. Nina shares, “I think this knowledge will serve as a tool to reconnect after immigration while healing urban soils in the city.”

As a reminder, you can apply for a Seton Shields grant here. Don’t miss checking out the cool projects I’ve had the opportunity to contribute to over the years, plus an article that will give you a behind-the-scenes peek into my grants program (and might help you increase your odds of being selected when you apply)!

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Meghan Markle, Michelle Obama, trace families to Jonesboro – This Megan talks about THE Meghan. And Michelle!

Photo Credit: The U.S. Army under Creative Commons license

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Tips for Tracing Your Family Tree – Um, so my “Who Do You Think You Are?” book was supposedly the inspiration for the series Who Do You Think You Are?

#HeyJohnKelly: Trump Chief of Staff Takes Heat Over Assimilation Comments

Unclaimed but still remembered – I have worked with Lackawanna County, PA for over a decade to keep the number of unclaimed people to a minimum, but it’s lovely to see the way the exceptions are treated.

My great-grandfather had the awesome name of Yurko Sydorko. What’s the most amusing/unexpected name in *your* family tree?

Photo Credits: Chuck Kennedy/Public Domain (photo of Michelle Obama) and Northern Ireland Office/Creative Commons license (photo of Meghan Markle)

The post Genealogy Roundup, May 17 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Decorating with genealogy. Entrance hallway now adorned with Dad’s slides of Europe.

So honored to have researched Michelle Obama’s roots! I know her ancestors are smiling!

Photo Credit: VW Escape under Creative Commons license

The post Genealogy Roundup, February 28 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

A grandmother’s trove of Civil War photos goes to Library of Congress

Genealogy lesson from Michelle Obama on Twitter . . .

Forgotten Lives Remembered in Special Funeral Service – Love this. Ann Lacertoso-Berardelli, who works with the Lackawanna County Coroner’s Office, was the one who sent it to me. Lackawanna was the first county I ever worked with on Unclaimed Persons cases. They’re the ones I cold-called after reading an article about this phenomenon that was entirely new to me at the time. They invited me to visit and entrusted me with cases when no one else was even thinking of genealogists in this capacity. So ultimately, they were the impetus behind the creation of the volunteer Unclaimed Persons group. Lovely to hear of local students getting involved this way.

Trace the face: how tech has changed the way we find missing people – “Google for refugees”

Photo Credit: The James and Sophia Clemens Farmstead, one of the oldest and last remaining landmarks in Longtown, Ohio. The Clemens house is listed by the National Register of Historic Places and Longtown is recognized by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Photo by Nyttend | Public Domain

The post Genealogy Roundup, June 1 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

‘Mr Big’ Chris Noth lands in Ireland to research his ancestry – Chris Noth films in County Cavan, Ireland & Serbia for “Who Do You Think You Are?” So next season includes Mr. Big & Molly Ringwald

A Father’s Invisible Presence – Susan Johnson Hadler shared her incredible story on the very first TV show I ever worked on – “Ancestors” on PBS. Recently, she wrote a book about her rediscovery of the father she had never known, and Utne Reader has included an excerpt. Take a read and a browse. You won’t be disappointed.

Cameron Boyce Shares His Grandma’s Story In a Black History Month Video for Disney – Loved this video. Hope you will, too.

Mother, daughter reunited after 82 years of separation

The Merry Cemetery – Who thinks ALL cemeteries should be merry ones?

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: The Great Mixing

Photo Credit: Good News Network

The post Genealogy Roundup, February 3 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Fortunately for me, but regrettably for genealogy in general, there was plenty of fresh terrain because I soon realized that everyone had a quarter of her family tree wrong. And when I say “everyone,” I mean dozens of people on at least eight family history websites.

One of Rodham Clinton’s grandmothers was a woman named Hannah Jones who was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania around 1882. If you’ve been doing genealogy for even a short time, you know to be cautious whenever you encounter a name like Jones, which happens to be the most common surname in Wales, the birth place of Hannah’s parents. Names like Jones, Smith, Johnson, Brown, Miller and Williams are a punch-line in the family history world – guaranteed to provoke a reaction from a seasoned audience – because we all know how much effort it can take to sift through the abundance of records featuring these names to find the ones we’re looking for.

So it’s astonishing that no one had taken the time to make sure that they had identified the correct Hannah Jones. As it happens, there were two baby girls born with this name in Scranton around the same time, and the other one left a more conspicuous paper trail. It’s not surprising that some researchers fell into the trap of picking the wrong one, but it’s mind-blowing that everyone did.

The wonderful online tools that make it faster to trace our family trees also make it easier to make a mistake, and the constant merging of Internet-based trees creates an unfortunate echo effect where wrong information starts to look true simply because so many are claiming it. I’ve seen this lemming phenomenon many times before, but the fact that it happened to someone whose family history has been scrutinized by so many is a serious wake-up call.

If everyone got a quarter of Hillary Clinton’s tree wrong, what about yours? Are the names adorning your family tree really your ancestors or just crowd-sourced fiction?

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This is a simple, homemade video – a narrated PowerPoint – and subsequent research has revealed more than what’s included here (for more insight, please read this recent, seven-part series and/or the “Finding Melvina” and “Road to a First Lady’s Roots” chapters of my book, Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing), but I hope you’ll enjoy this overview of the remarkable family history of our First Lady.

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: Chicago Beginnings (part 1)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: The Great Migration (part 2)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: The Great Mixing (part 3)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: LaVaughn Johnson (part 4)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: Fraser Robinson (part 5)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: Rebecca Jumper (aka Coleman) (part 6)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: Purnell Shields (part 7)

The post Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: The First Lady’s Multicultural, Great Migration Past appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: Chicago Beginnings (part 1)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: The Great Migration (part 2)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: The Great Mixing (part 3)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: LaVaughn Johnson (part 4)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: Fraser Robinson (part 5)

Michelle Obama’s Ancestors: Rebecca Jumper (aka Coleman) (part 6)

Like his future wife, Michelle’s maternal grandfather, Purnell Nathaniel Shields, arrived in Chicago as a youngster.  He was the second of three children born in Birmingham, Alabama to Robert Lee and Annie Shields, but before his tenth birthday, both his father and younger sister would be out of his life.  In the early 1920s, his mother Annie married a man named Frank Coleman and joined the northward trek, bringing her children with her.

Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, Purnell was a carpenter, but finding difficulty securing construction jobs, he spent much of his life churning through an impressive array of positions including laborer in a syrup factory, turntable engineer for the Northwestern Railroad (that is, one of the fellows who changed the directions of trains to make return journeys), relief worker for the city, garment worker, and building decorator.

Even though Purnell’s father, Robert, was a bit of a mystery man, more is known about the Shields branch of Michelle’s family tree than any other.  Robert’s father, Dolphus Theodore (or D.T. as he preferred to be called), was married four times (partly because he outlived several wives).  Robert was D.T.’s third child from his first marriage to Alice Easley.  He would also be the last one born in Georgia before the family moved to Birmingham.

D.T.’s mother, in turn, had begun her life in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  Born into slavery, Melvina was sent south to Georgia upon the death of her first owner, David Patterson (read more about this in the “Finding Melvina” chapter of Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing).  Shocking as it sounds to us today, his estate assigned her a price tag of $475 and doled her out to David’s daughter, Christianna Shields, to help ensure that all of his children would receive an inheritance of roughly equal value.  It was in Georgia that she encountered the white man who would father at least four of her children, including Dolphus.

In spite of his white father, Dolphus was also born into slavery.  Like his mother who lived nearly a century, he enjoyed a generous life span of 91 years – long enough to witness the initial stages of desegregation and just 14 years shy of Michelle’s birth.  Known to be an optimist in matters of race, D.T. lived in hopeful expectation, but even today, it’s stunning to think that the life of this one-time slave overlapped with that of his great-granddaughter, Marian, who now resides in the White House.

(to be continued)

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