What Unites Us
What unites us as a family? In 2022, during my talk at the 75th Hagenbuch Reunion, I took a few guesses. I began with the most obvious thing that we all share: the Hagenbuch...
Category: Opinion
Rambling Through the Byways and Crossroads of Genealogy, DNA, and Ethnicity
Last week I was having one of my “bed times” as I just wasn’t sleeping well. Uh, I wasn’t sleeping at all! Most of this is my cancer issues and the side effects of...
Tell Them the Story
As a warning to our readers, this article describes a suicide in the early 20th century. While writing my last article about November dates, I was looking through the photo archives for images of...
How It Begins
The other day my eldest son, William, pointed to a photograph hanging on the wall and asked, “Daddy, what is this picture of?” The photo he was referencing was taken during the summer of...
Every “Thing” Has a Story!
I have been thinking about this article for a few weeks. It is what I would call an opinion piece or maybe better—ramblings! Lately, due to some less-than-good news about my prostate cancer, I...
DNA, Genealogy, and Our Search for Identity
A few weeks ago, I read a story about a man who suspected that he was not the father of his daughter. The little girl had brown eyes, when both parents had blue eyes....
Genealogical Obsession: Nature or Nurture?
In March of 2015, I wrote an article tracing my journey of becoming a genealogist through my unique family experiences. Since then, Andrew and I have written hundreds of articles about not only our...
The Seven Year Itch
Not only is it good to know where we came from, but it is also good to know where we are going. I often think about those few days, seven years ago, when Andrew...
Remembering James H. Hagenbuch: Final Thoughts
In late 2018, I stumbled upon the Find-A-Grave page for Private James H. Hagenbuch (b. 1922). That evening I wrote to my father: Hey Dad, While working on my article I found what is...
Picnics in the Cemetery
Cemeteries are spooky places, right? After all, during Halloween, people set up plastic gravestones in their front yards to scare the trick-or-treaters. Shortly after arriving in California in 2008, the friend I was staying...
