Leaves & Branches

So, were you lured by the many advertisements during the holiday season to purchase a DNA testing kit?  I saw commercials, advertisements, and social media posts from Ancestry, 23andMe, and My Heritage.  Did you take the plunge and purchase a kit or, better still, receive one as a gift?  I had DNA testing done a few years ago through Ancestry DNA.   I have had an Ancestry.com subscription for years and   I find it helpful to link my DNA results to my family tree and view the shared ancestry I have with other Ancestry.com members who have done the same.   DNA testing can lead me to people who have family pictures, documents, and stories that I have never seen or heard.   It can provide the final   blow that shatters a brick wall I have been chipping away at for years.    Let’s face it, though – what many people are really interested in is their ethnic composition.  Here is my Ethnicity Estimate: If you are only interested in your ethnic composition, it might be wise to re

Over the past couple of days I have been doing a lot of newspaper research.  I love reading old newspaper articles.  The minute detail of every aspect of small town life can be entertaining.  Can you imagine supper at your parents’ house making the local news?   How would you like the neighbors talking about the reason for your recent hospitalization over a game of cards?  Few details of small town life were off limits in the local newspapers. I will focus this post on the tidbits I found on my maternal grandmother Mary Jane Dudley Donaldson’s family.  Her uncle L.J. Dudley was an attorney and his travels throughout Highland and Clinton Counties were well documented in the local papers.  The News Herald of Hillsboro had a tantalizing tidbit about one of L.J.’s trips in its May 6, 1897 edition:  “There must be something attractive in Wilmington for L.J. Dudley, as he has been there twice in one week.” I’m intrigued, as I am sure were the citizens of his hometown of Lynchburg, O