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A house and people from the American frontier.

The Wild Blood Dynasty

What a little-known family reveals about the nation’s untamed spirit.
by Adam Begley via The Atlantic on May 14, 2024
Burkhard Bilger’s uncle (as a baby) and grandfather, Gernot and Karl Gönner, Aulfingen, Germany, early 1930s.

The Trouble with Ancestry

Two family histories by Americans connected to Europe’s twentieth century through their fascist grandfathers seek to occupy the void between history and memory.
by Fintan O’Toole via New York Review of Books on August 31, 2023
Detail of faces on a family tree.

The Pocahontas Exception: America’s Ancestor Obsession

The ‘methods and collections’ of genealogists are political because they have a great deal in common with genealogy as a way of doing history.
by Thomas W. Laqueur via London Review of Books on March 30, 2023
Artwork of trees with multicolored roots.

Yearning for Roots

We're born with a hunger for connection with our ancestors – both biological and spiritual.
by Peter Mommsen via Plough Magazine on December 5, 2022
Family register sampler sewed by Abigail Barnard, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1833.
Exhibit

Finding Ancestors

The many ways of knowing those who came before us.
Birds-eye view map of Johnstown, New York.

The Stories We Give Ourselves

I wish I’d asked my grandfather more questions.
by Brittany Thomas via Contingent on August 26, 2022
Drawing of a man looking up at a DNA strand spiraling upwards from him

Our Obsession with Ancestry Has Some Twisted Roots

From origin stories to blood-purity statutes, we have long enlisted genealogy to serve our own purposes.
by Maya Jasanoff via The New Yorker on May 2, 2022
Photos of children from the cover of "The Crisis," 1916

‘Anxious for a Mayflower’

In "A Nation of Descendants," Francesca Morgan traces the American use and abuse of genealogy from the Daughters of the American Revolution to Roots.
by Caroline Fraser via New York Review of Books on April 21, 2022
Graph of the data from the genome study, in which every data point is represented by a line which connects to other lines to show family trees

Largest Human Family Tree Identifies Nearly 27 Million Ancestors

Researchers create massive genealogical network dating back 100,000 years
by David Kindy via Smithsonian on March 22, 2022
"We are the Spirit Rappers," 2016, By Amy Friend.

The Weight of Family History

It’s never been easier to piece together a family tree. But what if it brings uncomfortable facts to light?
by Colin Dickey via The New Republic on March 21, 2022
A collage of Joe Biden photos.

5 Things You Didn’t Know about Joe Biden’s Roots

A genealogist takes a closer look at Joe Biden's family history.
by Megan Smolenyak via Medium on January 12, 2021

On Ancestry

A scholar of the history of race sets out on an exploration of his own family roots, and despite his better judgement, is moved by what he discovers.
by Justin E. H. Smith via jehsmith.com on May 6, 2020

The Genealogy Boom Has Hit a Roadblock. The Trump Administration Plans Huge Fee Hikes for Immigration Records.

The fees could rise nearly 500 percent for files documenting the arrival of millions of immigrants to the U.S. between the late 19th and mid 20th centuries
by Sydney Trent via Washington Post on December 5, 2019

This Long-Ignored Document by George Washington Lays Bare the Legal Power of Genealogy

In Washington’s Virginia, family was a crucial determinant of social and economic status, and freedom.
by Karin Wulf via Smithsonian on June 18, 2019

Slavery and the Family Tree

How do you make a family tree when you may not know your family history?
by Whitney Nell Stewart via Black Perspectives on May 15, 2019
George Washington with numbers pointing to proportions of his head for measurement.

George Washington: A Descendant of Odin?

Yvonne Seale on a bizarre and fanciful piece of genealogical scholarship and what it tells us about identity in late 19th-century America.
by Yvonne Seale via The Public Domain Review on February 8, 2017
Alice Rhinelander surrounded by well-dressed family members awaiting the jury verdict in Rhinelander v. Rhinelander.

How an Interracial Marriage Sparked One of the Most Scandalous Trials of the Roaring Twenties

Under pressure from his wealthy family, Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander claimed that his new wife, Alice Beatrice Jones, had tricked him into believing she was white.
by Bryan Greene via Smithsonian on November 20, 2024
1905 Sanborn insurance map of San Francisco, damaged by the fires after the 1906 earthquake.

From Fire Hazards to Family Trees: The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

Created for US insurance firms during devastating fires across the 19th and 20th centuries, the Sanborn maps blaze with detail the aspects of American cities.
by Tobiah Black via The Public Domain Review on June 12, 2024
AI-generated image of the “shiny object ancestor” experience.

Shiny Object Ancestors: The Ones We Can’t Resist

Tracing the family history of some of today's most popular celebrities.
by Megan Smolenyak via Megansmolenyak.com on May 21, 2024
Sunrise over the Appalachian Mountains

Thicker Than Water: A Brief History of Family Violence in Appalachian Kentucky

Knowing I come from people who lived hard lives and endured terrible things is difficult. Knowing that I come from someone who ruined lives haunts me.
by Angie Romines via Literary Hub on January 10, 2024
A photograph of four people on donkeys from the late 1800s.

A Question of Legacy

Some of my ancestors had money, and some held awful beliefs. I set out to investigate what I once stood to inherit.
by David Owen via The New Yorker on January 2, 2024
Five generations of a family pose at the plantation where they were enslaved, soon after Union forces arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, 1863.

More Than 100 U.S. Political Elites Have Family Links to Slavery

Among America's political elite, 5 living presidents, 2 Supreme Court justices, 11 governors, and 100 legislators have ancestors who enslaved Black people.
by Tom Lasseter, Lawrence Delevingne, Makini Brice, Donna Bryson, Nicholas P. Brown, Tom Bergin via Reuters on June 27, 2023
James Dent Walker.

A Major Group of Family Genealogists Apologizes For Past Racism

The National Genealogical Society is one of the oldest, largest groups dedicated to helping families trace their ancestries.
by Sydney Trent via Retropolis on May 31, 2023
A precolonization map of the Northeast, showing Abenaki homeland, at the Musee des Abenakis.

Review of Records Fails to Support Local Leaders’ Claims of Abenaki Ancestry

Questions are swirling in New Hampshire around attempts by two local groups to gain tribal recognition.
by Julia Furukawa via New Hampshire Public Radio on May 22, 2023
Petroglyphs in southern Wyoming, probably dating to the early 17th century, include well-preserved images of horses and riders, depicted with riding equipment and shields.

Horse Nations

After the Spanish conquest, horses transformed Native American tribes much earlier than historians thought.
by Andrew Curry via Science on March 30, 2023
A courtroom or public civic room full of people, with white and black people sitting on opposite sides of a railing.

When Tribal Nations Expel Their Black Members

Clashes between sovereignty rights and civil rights reveal an uncomfortable and complicated story about race and belonging in America.
by Philip J. Deloria via The New Yorker on July 14, 2022
Graph of immigrants showing a peak of western/Northern Europe in 1860, a peak of southern/Eastern Europe in 1910, and a peak of all other locations ca. 2018.

Today’s Newcomers Succeed Just As Quickly As Ellis Island Immigrants

Using records digitized in part by amateur genealogists, economists have upended conventional wisdom about which immigrants succeed and why.
by Andrew Van Dam via Washington Post on July 1, 2022
Statue of a man reading to children: the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial, Annapolis, Maryland.

Black Genealogy After Alex Haley’s Roots

"A lot has been hidden from Black Americans. And so there is always a longing to know who you are and where you come from.”
by Menika Dirkson via Black Perspectives on June 17, 2022
DNA strand.

Finding Our Roots? History and DNA

DNA tests have become popular tools to rediscover lost ties to the past, but the links they forge do not always stand up to historical scrutiny.
by James H. Sweet via Perspectives on History on March 22, 2022
Joe Biden

How Joe Biden Became Irish

The president has skillfully played up his Irish roots, but the story of his ancestry is more complicated.
by Ben Schreckinger via Politico Magazine on September 14, 2021
Hungerford Deed

New Analysis Reveals More Details About Smithsonian Founder's Illegitimate Family Tree

The newly recovered 1787 Hungerford Deed, detailing a contentious squabble over property and prestige, can now be viewed in a new virtual exhibition.
by Alice George via Smithsonian on August 10, 2021
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