Become a family history detective (the fun way!)

All of genealogy can be thought of as a treasure hunt or a detective mission: You’re searching for clues to the past, one document at a time. But beyond the paper trail, there are other paths you can follow to help you understand your ancestors’ lives, to flesh out their stories, and to add texture to your family narrative.

3 ideas for going on a family research adventure

Search for treasures at home.

Have you searched your attic and basement for boxes of photos or scrapbooks or other items your parents or grandparents saved? Too often, particularly when a family elder dies, we just stash these boxes away because we are overwhelmed dealing with logistics of the loss, or too emotional to rummage through them. Check out this free guide for tips on how to navigate that process, including what to search for, where to look, and how to handle the waves of grief that may ensue.

Search for treasures at family members’ homes.

Maybe you’ve seen a photo of your extended family on the mantle at your cousin’s house for years and never thought to ask for a copy for yourself. Or maybe you know your brother inherited a separate box of Dad’s things after he passed, and you never thought to inquire as to what was within. I guarantee you that every person on your family tree has some clues to your own family history—all you need to do is ask. Consider arranging a visit: You bring the meal, and invite them to bring out those dusty boxes. You bring the questions, and invite them to share some stories. You bring your curiosity, and invite them to get excited about the past along with you. Make this particular detective mission one centered not just one fact-finding, but on building connections!

Take a fact-finding trip.

It might be as simple as driving 20 minutes to the street where your childhood home was located, or as elaborate as creating an entire itinerary and traveling out of the country to your family’s homeland. After jotting down some questions about various PLACES from your past, consider if any of them might be answered by undertaking a trip.

A few ideas:

• Perhaps an ancestor is buried in a cemetery that is not indexed on Find-a-Grave: Go there, physically, and take photos of the headstone to determine (or confirm) your ancestors’ names and birth and death dates. Are there other family members in the plot that might be new to you, too? (Why don’t you upload one—or a few—photos of other grave markers to the Find-a-Grave website while you’re at it? Someone will be grateful one day.)

• Maybe there was a diner or mall or bowling alley where you made frequent visits as a child with your family? If you want some sensory input to help you travel back in time to access your memories, putting yourself in the environment will help. (A recent trip I made to my hometown, for example, flooded me with memories in the most unexpected ways—turning on a road I had forgotten about where a close childhood friend had lived, and driving by my high school parking lot…)

• Did you determine that you are almost 100-percent Italian through a DNA test? Or uncover Ashkenazi roots you didn’t know were present in your bloodline? Consider traveling to places where your ancestors may have lived. There is now a whole industry built around heritage travel. You could hire someone to craft a custom itinerary based on your family history, or just visit a new country where you have roots to immerse yourself in the culture, hear the language, and eat the food. Make sure to prepare like the detective you are by having at least a handful of specific objectives during your travel. It might be visiting a specific address you unearthed on a genealogy document, or visiting a local archive to answer specific questions you’ve had trouble answering through online repositories. Maybe there’s a ‘lost’ recipe you’d like to recover—find a restaurant that caters to locals and might be able to help you. 

Grab a notebook, a pen, and your camera, and get ready for adventure, family history detective!

Beware of family history project creep!

You’re almost done with your latest family history project…and then a sibling drops off ANOTHER box of stuff. What do you do?

Over the years I have created an array of resources for those in my community who prefer a DIY approach to their family history and memoir projects. Some of those resources provide nitty-gritty, step-by-step directions on how to do something (such as create a tribute book, say), while others offer broader inspiration (like ideas for fun family photo books).

One thing almost all of them have in common, though, is some reference to overwhelm. Why? Because it’s the thing I hear from prospective clients and DIY’ers most—how daunting they find the project before them. How they can’t imagine ever finishing—or they don’t even know where to begin. How they start with enthusiasm, and at some point abandon the project due to burnout.

As a professional personal historian and longtime editorial project manager, this is something referred to as project creep. And, frankly, it sucks.

What is project creep?

A quick AI overview makes it clear that project creep is generally a professional term:

“Project creep, also known as scope creep, is when a project's requirements or deliverables increase beyond what was originally defined in the project plan: 

Definition: Adding features or functionality without considering the impact on time, costs, or resources 

How it happens: Often starts with small changes that build up over time

Can lead to: Decreased quality, reduced team morale, customer dissatisfaction, and project failure.” *

YOUR personal family history project has only one client and one stakeholder, and that’s you. So while you aren’t worried about some other customer’s dissatisfaction, you are concerned with your own, right?

So let’s skip the bureaucratic jargon in the AI definition, and say this: 

Project creep can happen even when you are in the driver’s seat, making decisions, and seemingly NOT adding any new requirements or aspects to your project. How?

>> Because every genealogical discovery leads to another (or to a mystery just begging to be solved). 

>> Because every time you need to learn something new (like how to export a gedcomm file from Ancestry, or where to find family history templates that meet your needs, or how to transform your family history facts into compelling stories…), you might end up going down a rabbit hole.

>> Because family photos can be distracting (in a most endearingly emotional way, but still).

>> Because there really is no “end” to your family history.

So, how do you avoid project creep in your family history project?

The following three simple steps will help you ditch the feelings of overwhelm and avoid losing focus from your family history project.

1. Set clear goals.

What are you trying to accomplish with THIS family history project? Are you aiming to create a beautifully bound family history coffee table book? If so, that large project needs to be broken down into smaller tasks to help you get there. Are you aiming to create single page synposes of all the known ancestors just on your maternal side? Then write that as your end goal, and make a list of tasks to achieve it (a list of known ancestor names; what your one-page summary will incude; whether or not you need pictures, and where to source them from; etc.).

Be clear about your end goals, and your expectations and next steps will be clear. Any time you feel project scope creeping in, ask yourself: “Is what I am doing within the scope of my original project goals?” If not, write the task down and consider revisiting it during your NEXT family history project.

2. organize your project materials.

Using the goals and resulting step-by-step approach you created, gather all the materials you think you will need to complete THIS family history project. You may prefer to work with hard copies—in which case you will need folders or a binder to organize your materials; or you may be a digital native who hates paper clutter—in which case I recommend dedicating a single external hard drive to your project (and nothing else!).

Organizational categories may include things like:

E-Book recommendation

If you want to get serious about organizing all your family history materials, I highly recommend this step-by-step guide from archivist Margot Note.

• family tree info (perhaps further broken up into maternal and paternal lines, or by couples and their children, for instance)

• family photographs (organized chronologically, perhaps, or by family member, or thematically if you plan to tell stories through your family history)

• resources (such as maps, a list of family surnames, contacts such as genealogists or family members you regularly communicate with)

• schedules or other project management info

You may also want to consider a color coding system to help you discern materials at a glance. One simple hack I have used in the past is to buy three colors of post-it notes and assign each a status—green for “ready to go,” yellow for “need more info/hold for later,” and red for “problematic/needs work.”

3. set deadlines.

If you know you must finish your project by a certain date—an upcoming family reunion, say, or a loved one’s birthday—then you know your FINAL deadline; go a step further and create interim deadlines for various aspects of your project.

Even if you have no firm end-date in mind, though, it’s crucial that you set a firm schedule if you plan to finish. Check out this post for exactly how to set a deadline for your family history project (including concrete ways to hold yourself accountable!).

—————————-

*Project creep definition and other explanatory info derives from an AI overview from Google, November 13, 2024.

Related reading

• What to do when you have too many memory-keeping ideas

• Think you’re too busy to write about your life? Think again.

• Eight things you can do to be a good steward of your own family history

What do you wish you had asked them?

Do you wish you had asked your parent certain questions before they passed away? Are your parents still living, but you know you haven’t asked them for all the stories you hope to one day hear (and pass on to your kids)?

“I wish I had asked my father about his time in the Army during the war.”

“I wish I had asked Gran about what Mom was like as a teenager.”

“I wish I had asked Mommy why she never remarried after my father left.”

“I wish I asked what the heck the ‘secret ingredient’ is in Nonno’s Sunday sauce.”

Whether it’s a seemingly small thing like how to get a favorite family recipe just right or a big thing such as why a loved one left home at the age of 16, we all have questions we wish we had asked.

I hear these laments regularly from prospective clients and from friends, from those I am coaching on their own memoirs to those who are honoring a deceased family member in a tribute book. It’s an unfortunate universal truth: We think we have unlimited time with those we love—time to do the things we want together, to share our appreciation for them, to ask them questions (about any and everything, but especially about themselves).

If there are two things I could impart to you right now—lessons learned from these repeated regrets—they would be:

1 - Ask your parents questions now.

If your parents or grandparents are still living, start asking them more meaningful questions than “How are you?” or “Do you want to meet for dinner?” Instead…

• Interview them about their family history,

• …or get your kids to interview them.

• Encourage them to write about their life by telling them how much you really DO want to hear their stories!

• Or just start having some intentional, thoughtful conversations and hit “record” on your smartphone. (Need inspiration? I am currently listening to Laura Dern and her mother, Diane Ladd, have these exact type of conversations in the audio book of Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding) [Grand Central Publishing, April 2024]).

2 - Answer questions your own kids haven’t asked yet.

Be proactive. I guarantee your children will one day wonder about you. Not you, their parent, but you, the individual. Think about the questions you wished you had asked your now-gone family elder, and find a way to answer some of them. It could be by…

• writing in a journal devoted just to this purpose that you will one day pass on to them;

• creating a weekly writing practice to preserve your life stories;

• working with a personal historian like me to interview you to capture those “answers” (let’s chat!);

• simply having CONVERSATIONS over the phone or over dinner where you intentionally share memories and allow them “in” to your world in a deeper way (this is ideally done with adult children, but you can begin sharing your memories and life lessons in age-appropriate ways throughout their young lives!);

• preparing an ethical will (also known as a legacy letter), an opportunity to share your values in a way that takes much less time than writing a whole life story book, to be sure, but that may hold as much value to your descendants.

It’s natural to take our loved ones for granted. But I urge you to step off that easy path and take a turn towards intentionality: Ask questions. Answer questions. Sidestep regrets 💕

“Write Your Life” delivers weekly memory & writing prompts via email

Last year, I spent weeks researching courses for writing about your life. I found nearly a hundred of them, and even paid to enroll in a few to see what they were like.

Originally I wanted to be able to offer suggestions to people who reached out asking my advice on life writing courses. Somewhere along the line, though, I got motivated to create something different.

• Instead of a full-on memoir course, I wanted to teach how to write about your life in smaller narrative vignettes.

• Instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of writing—grammar, character, dialogue, etc.—I wanted to cut to the chase and get students writing their memories from the outset.

• Instead of teaching writers who want to publish and sell their work, I would target regular folks who want to capture their stories for their loved ones—and for themselves.

• Instead of providing run-of-the-mill family history writing prompts like Storyworth and their slew of copycat competitors (I offer such prompts for free!), I would create thoughtful, open-ended prompts accompanied by examples, tips, and inspiration—with real value added from my years of experience as a writer and editor.

• And lastly, instead of charging hundreds of dollars for a course you might not even have the gumption to finish, I wanted to create something truly affordable and different.

I believe with all my heart that your story matters. Your mom’s and granddad’s and spouse’s stories matter. And each one of you—every one of us who is living our story—should be able to write about them.

What makes the Write Your Life courses different?

These courses are tailor made for you. They will help you write about your life, to get your stories down on paper, and to think beyond the often trite questions in those ready-made memory journals.

You’ll look forward to getting your weekly prompts, and you will actually complete your stories.

Introductory themes are CHILDHOOD MEMORIES and FOOD MEMORIES, with new themes starting every few weeks. Themes build upon one another or stand on their own, depending upon how much you want to write.

If you enroll in Write Your Life, you’ll get weekly memory prompts, writing tips, and inspired ideas that are:

encouraging

The memory prompts go above and beyond a simple directive. You’ll explore how memories resonate for YOU. Writing beyond first impressions allows you to go deeper, to discover more than you could first have imagined. Memory cues, sample explorations, and inspirational notes provide encouragement without worry (for things like “what if I can’t remember?” or “but, I am not a writer!”).

Your stories matter—and you CAN do this!

helpful

With concise, RELEVANT writing tips from a professional, you will feel supported on your journey of capturing your stories.

This is not a course to help writers polish and fine-tune their skills. It is a course for people who want to write but don’t normally consider themselves a writer—and the writing advice you receive will be helpful but not unwieldy. Our goal: To help you write stories that are engaging and enlightening—that will entertain your ancestors with anecdotes, sure, but that go further by delving into life lessons, values, and the journey to becoming you!

flexible

You choose what day of the week you would like to receive your weekly lessons. You choose which themes to explore in depth, and which to write shorter snippets about.

You may write in a journal or type on your computer.

And you have a whole week to ruminate on your memory prompts and write your stories. Enough time to let the details bubble up, to call a sibling or parent to talk about the past, or to search for an old family photo album with pictures to help jog your thoughts—but not so much time that you don’t get to it at all. Because next week, another memory prompt and writing exercise is coming!

affordable

At just $132 $99 for a WHOLE YEAR course, pretty much anyone can take advantage of this learning opportunity. There’s no recurring subscription fee or annual membership required (unlike other weekly family history Q&A prompts we know of). And since prompts are open-ended and you get a PRINTABLE page each week, you can invite a friend or family member to write along with you.

Why email? Because most of us have a phone or computer, and it’s a convenient delivery method. There’s no videos to watch or long book to read; our lessons get to the point quickly and clearly, and you get to writing all the more quickly, too.

Oh, yeah, and I don’t expect you to write while staring at a screen. Each week you’ll get a beautifully designed PDF page to print out and work from (and in the end, you’ll have a year’s worth to return to or share with others!).

Why wouldn’t you enroll?

Memory journals from your local bookstore are a nice idea, but frankly I have seen too many of them gifted and never filled out. I inherited two of them from my own mom, each with fewer than three questions filled out, some with only a few words. Disappointing, to say the least…

Subscriptions like Storyworth are great if you just need a nudge without any real writing guidance or support—and if you want a simple, “free” book at the end (though, from my experience, many people never finish the prompts, and therefore never get their book). THIS course—which I took over a year to develop and which incorporates years’ worth of my professional experience guiding life writers one-on-one—is designed to encourage you to finish…whether it’s within the initial year or later ✍🏼❤️

Consider enrolling in Write Your Life yourself, or, if you want your parents’ stories, consider gifting* them with these Write Your Life prompts—trust me, inviting your family elders to share their stories with you (and preserve them for the next generation) is one of the best gifts you could give them!

Before you gift: Writing isn’t for everyone!

Remember, this is a WRITING subscription. If you know your parent or family member loves to write (even if it’s just in a journal), this may be a wonderful option for them. If, on the other hand, they groan at having to write a short note, you might not want to “gift” them something that can feel like a burden. Consider asking them if they’d be interested first, or gift them a starter package of personal history interviews, where their stories will be RECEIVED by an engaged and generous listener…

Rather Talk about Your stories than write?

If writing still isn’t your thing but you want to preserve your stories, consider TELLING them in a personal history interview. Reach out to see how we can work together—it is my honor to listen to you (or a loved one) share stories, and preserve them in a book!

A Year of Memory & Writing Prompts

Explore our year-long “Write Your Life” email course

discover & enroll

Thanksgiving story sharing, made easy

Thanksgiving is the American holiday perhaps most associated with family, food, (and football), and lively gatherings around the table make it a prime time for sharing—and capturing—fun family stories.

I’ve written a fair amount about how to maximize the holiday from a family history standpoint; here’s a roundup of some of the most helpful and popular stories on the site to help you preserve your family stories this Thanksgiving.

Family potluck: reminiscing & recipes

Family Potluck: Reminiscing and Recipes: “Collecting family recipes is one of those things that’s on many of our ‘I want to do someday’ lists but that can easily slip through the cracks. It always seems like there will be time. But instead of saying ‘next time,’ make it a priority—as well as an enjoyable endeavor!” Here, tips for easy things you can do to get your family involved in preserving your food heritage.

4 ways to give thanks through story sharing

4 Ways to Give Thanks Through Story Sharing: “Even for families who may not share stories regularly around the dinner table, Thanksgiving lends itself to some good old-fashioned reminiscence.” Here, four unexpected ideas for giving thanks and telling tales.

Thanksgiving family history questions

Thanksgiving Family History Questions: “Don’t wait until next year or when everyone is available or any other ‘better time’—trust me when I say: Now is always the right time!” Get your free guide, 55 Questions to Spark Thanksgiving Story Sharing.

Unique holiday host(ess) gift

Unique Holiday Host(ess) Gift: Preserve your family recipes and all the precious stories they call forth with this unique recipe card set that fits in standard recipe boxes. Cards capture how-to and ingredients as well as associated memories! Check out our A Taste of the Past recipe card gift set.

Your 10-step plan for making an heirloom-worthy family cookbook

38 Questions to prompt food memories

I am grateful to you—my personal history and tribute book clients, as well as the broader Modern Heirloom Books community of memory-keepers, memoirists, and family history buffs. I hope you find something of value among these pieces, and I wish you and yours a holiday season filled with delicious food, lots of love, and scrumptious stories 🧡🦃🍁

How to ask good follow-up questions in a family history interview

Whether your family history interview is being recorded on a couch in the subject’s living room or virtually on an iPad screen, it’s important to show interest through verbal cues and follow-up questions.

You’ve decided you want to interview your parent or grandparent to capture some of their memories and add to the family history book you are creating. You’ve downloaded recommended family history questions, thematically curated the ones you want to ask, and gathered the equipment needed to ensure you record everything smoothly. You’re good to go.

But wait! Just one small thing I’d like to remind you of: Remember to be a good listener, and to ask effective follow-up questions during the interview.

Tips for effective follow-up questions

Whether you are interviewing your mother, who you obviously feel comfortable with, or a great-aunt you have just met and who you really know nothing about, think of your interview somewhat like a conversation (albeit a lopsided one 😉). Ask a question, then provide space for your partner to reply—a quiet moment for them to think, of course, and also eye contact and an open expression on your face that invites trust and conveys real interest. 

Then, when they pause and are seemingly finished with their answer, don’t automatically jump to the next question on your page. Instead, follow your conversational instincts and ask a follow-up question.

1. Be specific.

   Instead of “Can you elaborate?”, ask “What was your favorite part about that job?”

2. Use open-ended questions.

   Encourage storytelling with prompts such as, “Tell me about a time when you felt…” or “How did you react when your brother…”

3. Seek clarification.

   If something is unclear, ask for more details without interrupting the flow of the interview. If you have a question now, chances are a future listener (or reader) will, too.

4. Follow their emotions.

   If your interview subject mentions a strong feeling, explore it further. “You mentioned feeling relieved. Can you tell me more about that?” or “How did your sadness shift over time?”

5. Be an active listener.

   Pay attention to their responses and tailor your follow-ups accordingly. Trust me, you’ll get better at this the more experience you have under your belt!

The power of family history interviews lies in both the connections they foster and the richness of the stories captured. By mastering the art of follow-up questions, you become a skilled facilitator, drawing out details, emotions, and lessons that make each story unique and deeply personal. 

Remember the magic of “tell me more.” It's a simple phrase that can unlock a world of memories. It’ll also almost guarantee that both interviewer and interviewee will want to engage in yet another story sharing session—helping you create a more complete (and compelling!) family history and weave a tapestry of experiences that will resonate for generations to come.

The power of a follow-up question

Want a sign that your follow-up questions are working? If your interview subject is engaged—nodding, smiling, or showing other signs of acknowledgement in response to your questions—then chances are their story sharing will go deeper in the best possible way!

There are numerous options out there for memory-keeping journals or email-a-week life story prompts, and they make for sentimental gifts for our loved ones. And when the gift recipient is a motivated self-starter, these gifts can yield amazing stories that can be passed on for generations. More often than not, though, these gifts don’t get much beyond the ‘good idea’ stage

I’ve certainly written about this before, but today I wanted to hone in on one simple aspect of why I think these well-meaning gifts do not always ‘work’: There’s no one listening—and no one, therefore, to ask a follow-up question.

Recently I was conducting a personal history interview with a client named Madeleine. She offhandedly mentioned that her granddaughter had gifted her a popular prompt-a-week story gathering service, and that she had only answered about two questions so far. How long had she been getting the prompts?, I wondered. “I guess about a year and a half,” she replied.

Huh?! “Why?,” I asked her. 

“The questions are silly or stupid,” she said bluntly.

I pushed her to share a few of the prompts if she could recall them. Some were indeed silly when considered in the context of the service’s goals of preserving family history, but some were, in my opinion, just poorly phrased, or in need of some probing beyond the initial ask.

One question Madeleine ridiculed was, “What do you like to do to relax?” This nonagenarian rolled her eyes as she repeated it. “Can you imagine—who cares how I relax?” she said.

But when I followed up that “silly” prompt with my own related questions based on my knowledge of Madeleine’s life—Were there things you could do to decompress during the years you were working three jobs? Were there hobbies you wish you had more time for over the course of your life? What replenishes your energy when you are feeling low?—she had story after story. And the more I heard, the more I asked, the more it became clear that there were lessons buried in her stories.

These were stories that would not have come out—in fact, that Madeleine probably would not have even recalled—had I not been present as a curious listener. She initially dismissed the prompt out of hand when it did not immediately resonate for her. But when my follow-up questions helped her see the prompt in a new way—in a way that directly related to her lived experiences—her memories flowed.

Sometimes, a simple “tell me more” or “how did that make you feel?” can unlock a treasure trove of details that elevate a story from good to great. Follow-up questions help an interview subject move beyond one-sentence answers and delve into the details that make a story come alive. They encourage the interviewee to paint a picture with words, describe emotions, and share sensory experiences.

Beyond that, follow-up questions show your subject that you are interested. That you care about what they are saying. That’s so much more powerful than a one-sentence question posed in an email…with no one there to listen to an answer.

Related reading:

• How to ask good follow-up questions during a family history interview

• My 3 favorite opening questions to get a personal history interview going

• The alchemy of story sharing: It takes two

• When a parent doesn’t want to talk about their past

Friendly reminder: Your personal story is part of a broader family history

This is a three-part series about choices I wish my clients hadn’t made during their personal history book projects. (For what it’s worth: in my first draft of this post, I referred to “mistakes” I wish my clients hadn’t made—and then I remembered, memoir is, by definition, a personal accounting of one’s life, and far be it for me to dictate a writer’s personal preferences.) That said, clients come to me not only for help finishing the projects they envision, but for my expertise in elevating their projects to be the best they can be. So, I thought sharing a few of these differences of opinion might be instructive for those waffling over similar decisions.

CHALLENGE 1: SHOULD I INCLUDE “THE HARD STUFF” FROM MY LIFE IN MY MEMOIR?

CHALLENGE 2: SHOULD I INCLUDE A FAMILY TREE IN MY LIFE STORY?

CHALLENGE 3: SHOULD I INCLUDE CAPTIONS IN MY MEMORIAL TRIBUTE BOOK?

Why include a family tree in a book focusing on just your stories? Well, because it will give your descendants an easy way to map the supporting “characters” in your stories—and because your personal history is one piece of a broader family history, too.

“We don’t need a family tree—it’s my story, and mine alone.”

I work on all types of legacy books with my clients—from heavily-researched family histories spanning multiple generations to short autobiographical sketches of just one person, from tribute books memorializing a loved one who has passed away to heritage cookbooks. One thing remains constant in all of these projects, though, and that’s how I view each of them as an heirloom to be passed on.

Recently I finished up a memoir with a client—let’s call him Tom. He came to me with some memories jotted down in a notebook and a vague idea of how he wanted to write about his life. I coached Tom over a two-year period, and when his final manuscript was being copyedited, he decided he wanted to print books for his family members. So our journey of photo gathering and book design began.

Tom’s stories spanned his school years to his days as a grandfather, and his many cousins played supporting roles throughout his book. He told vibrant and funny stories about his own grandfather, who lived next door to him when he was a child, and affectionate tales about his maternal uncle, in whose footsteps Tom followed in becoming a teacher.

So when I suggested we create a family tree to serve as a graphic cheat sheet for his readers, I was surprised when Tom said no. It wasn’t a matter of cost, and at first I couldn’t get to the bottom of why my client was so vehemently opposed to charting his family in this way.

Eventually Tom shared that he always felt overshadowed by his older sibling, and he wanted this book to be his, and his alone. He was already the star—it was his memoir, after all. I tried reassuring him that he would be at the root of the family tree, and that we’d be using it to show all those people who were related to him. But he held fast, and I got it.

Tom’s memoir is a wonderfully crafted narrative, a quilt of memories that are woven together to shed light on how his experiences shaped the person he became. He gained insights from writing about his life, he told me, and was grateful to have taken the time to find new perspective on some of his decisions.

The irony, to me, is that he printed enough copies to distribute to his children, his grandchildren, and his cousins, and that they will in turn pass them on to their own descendants—making Tom’s personal history one piece of a broader family history. Who knows, maybe one day one of them will piece together a family tree that will make following the family history (and, dare I say it, Tom’s memoir) easier to follow.