I always knew my Grandma Heritage as a very cheerful and quietly brilliant woman, who had a mind for details. No surprise she worked for many years as a librarian for the Bureau of Prisons, which is where she met my step-grandfather, Dave Heritage, whom I always knew as Grandpa Heritage. They married when I was only 2, so he was the only ( Read more... )

This is my entry for Week 7 of LJ Idol Survivor. This week's prompt was "Dig It."

Can You Dig It?

Mustard kitchen counters outlasted
all my mom's 1970s design choices.
Long after the carrot-and-lemon flowers
had been replaced with rose and baby-blue blooms,
and the bold brown, yellow and white stripes
had succumbed to subdued slate and coral,
the yellow ( Read more... )

I prepared this for my husband's family back in May, in honor of the 500th anniversary of the Mayflower landing. I'm sharing it here to help other genealogists and for those who are interested in American history.

According to my genealogical research, the descendants of Margaret Waterman can trace roots back to at least six Mayflower passengers who ( Read more... )

In the free moments I've been given, since all of our summer plans for trips and camps and such were canceled, I finally returned to a project that went on indefinite hiatus five years ago when my mother died. My second volume of poetry, "Owning the Ghosts," is finally available!


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This is my entry for Week 7 of LJ Idol (therealljidol). This week's topic is "feckless."


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This is my entry for Week 4 of (therealljidol). This week, the topic is "Impossible."As a genealogist, I love a puzzle. Give me a family story with an iota of information, and I'll put on my deerstalker hat and track it down. I love to get Zen, let the thoughts stream in, until I figure out how to suss that information out ( Read more... )

This is my entry for Week 2 of LJ Idol, Season 11 (http://www.therealljidol.com. This week's topic is "Living rent-free in your head."Cradling his too-small body in my arms, I suspected something wrong about this tactile memory. Like a real-life flashback, I held his still form, stroked his oversized alien head. Only a moment before, I had been in a doctor's office, learning ( Read more... )

This is my LJ Idol (therealljidol) entry for Week 0. The topic is Introduction.


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This is my entry for Second Chance Idol (http://www.therealljidol.dreamwidth.org). This week we get an open topic, meaning we can write about anything. I'll update later when there is a voting link to share.


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Through the Goodnight line, my family is distantly related to the 44th president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama Jr. We share the common ancestor of Christian Gutknecht (1722-1795), who was the original immigrant from that line to arrive in America. While we were descended from Christian's son John Christopher (1769-1842), the president ( Read more... )