Month: July 2026
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Leisure Time: Twelve Strikes and a Lifetime of Memories
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When I think about leisure time in my family, I think of bowling. This is the story of my dad’s love of the game: Friday night leagues, a junior bowling ball engraved with my nickname, Peanut, and the perfect 300 game he bowled in April 1985. It’s about the trophies…
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A Birth Announcement I Once Took at Face Value
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A 1929 newspaper birth announcement seemed ordinary: a proud father, a healthy baby boy, nothing more. For most of my life, I read it through the family story I’d been told, that this father had died before his son was born. Genealogy research revealed something else entirely. The record never…
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A Hard Choice When Your Heart Wants Everything
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This week’s #52Ancestors theme is “A Hard Choice,” and for once, the hard choice isn’t my ancestors’ story, it’s mine. Between a thirty-year paralegal career, genealogy certification coursework, building KMD Genealogy LLC, and a family that needs me present, I’m constantly choosing what gets the next hour. I used to…
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Great Aunt Ida – The Ancestor Who Stays With Me
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Some ancestors stay with you. Ida Svensson is the ancestor who stays with me. In 1998, a letter arrived from Sweden. An attorney in Kristianstad was settling the estate of a woman I had never heard of: Ida Svensson Bengtsson, my grandfather’s sister. As a newly minted probate paralegal, I…