Congratulations Michelle Obama! You Have a White Rapist in the Family! or In First Lady’s Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery

t We are all one people now. Did you know that black Americans have white ancestors? And shockingly, that white folks may have some chocolate in their cream? Although I enjoyed the NewYork Times piece on Michelle Obama for what it was: another contribution to the Roots 2.0, Henry Louis Gates Jr. enterprise of personal (re)discovery through genealogy, I generally receive these types of stories with no small amount of consternation and head shaking. To be blunt, what is the big deal ? Yes

Vote for Your Favorite Genealogy Blogs

The polls are now open until 5 November at Family Tree Magazine for voting on your favorite genealogy blogs. The categories (described in detail on The Genealogy Insider blog post ) , and number of blogs to vote for in each category, are: * All-Around (vote for 3) * Cemeteries (vote for 2) * Genealogy Companies (vote for 1) * Genetic Genealogy (vote for 1) * Heritage (vote for 4) * How To (vote for 3) * Local/Regional (vote for 3) * News/Resources - vote for 4)

An Honor Just to be Nominated

Family Tree Magazine (not a magazine I have written for in the past) wants to highlight the Top 40 Genealogy Blogs in their May 2010 issue. In addition to many of the blogs I read daily written by many people who have become good friends, What’s Past is Prologue has been included among the nominees! You can find it in the Personal/Family category. Other categories include All-around, Local/Regional, Cemetery, Photos/Heirlooms, Heritage, News/Resources, How-to, Genealogy Companies, and Ge

Ancestry Magazine: Technology triggers memories

A journalist and a genealogist for some three decades, Howard Wolinsky's When Genealogy Tech Triggers Memory appears in the current issue of Ancestry Magazine. In his story , Howard's story discusses the Holocaust and his personal quest for family history. My grandparents left the Russian Empire two generations before Adolph Hitler’s “Final Solution” killed off two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. But my parents never told me anything about family members killed in the Shoah, the Hebrew wor

Bloomberg News talks genealogy

Tracing the Tribe loves it when non-traditional (e.g. financial news) media writes about genealogy. Today, it was the turn of Bloomberg News columnist Rich Jaroslovsky to detail family history software programs as he tried out Family Tree Maker 2010. Although he details what the subscription costs are for Ancestry, and provides some information for Mac users, as well as where other costs of gen research might be found (DNA testing, publications and more), he didn't mention free downloadable s

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