Historical family photos are cherished heirlooms that offer a glimpse into the lives of our ancestors. But the images, and the stories behind them, often fade away as decades pass--the who, when, where, and why behind the photos are lost. In this book, photo identification expert and genealogist Maureen A. Taylor shows you how to study the clues in your old family photos to put names to faces and recapture their lost stories.

S.C. Perkins's Fatal Family Ties is the captivating third mystery in the Ancestry Detective series, in which Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster deals with murders in both the past and present. Lucy is just about to tuck into a plate of tacos at her favorite Austin joint, Big Flaco’s, when she gets an unexpected visit from her former—and least-favorite—co-worker. Camilla Braithwaite hasn’t gotten much friendlier since the last time Lucy saw her, but that doesn't stop her from asking a favor. In her hand is a newspaper feature on an ancestor, a civil war corporal—and a liar, according to the article. Charles Braithwaite is depicted as a phony and a deserter, and Camilla wants Lucy’s help clearing his name. Lucy would prefer to spend her free time with her new beau, special agent Ben Turner, but takes the case, making no promises that Camilla will like the outcome of her investigation. Camilla leads Lucy to the Texas History Museum, where their first clue is a triptych painting, passed down in the Braithwaite family for generations, one panel of which has disappeared. But before Lucy can get much further, a member of the Braithwaite family is murdered in his own bed, and another panel of the painting found missing. There are no shortage of suspects among the Braithwaite clan—including Camilla herself. This case will take Lucy to Houston and back again as she works to find the truth, and catch an elusive killer.

Playing Detective with Family Lore is more than one family's saga. The far-ranging origins of the author's family and the course of the progenitors' lives and those of their descendants provide a microcosmic illustration of the macro-level triumphs and tragedies of Jewish life in Eastern Europe and America. From the tiny Radekhiv shtetl to the famous Polish market town Jaroslaw, from the Russian port city Nikolayev - inside of the Pale of Settlement during the 1905 pogroms, to Jassy - rife with unique antisemitic legislation following Romanian independence, this book unwittingly traces a collective history epitomized by one particular family's combined narratives, making it a 'must read' for the 80% of American Jews who trace their ancestry back to Eastern Europe. Playing Detective with Family Lore goes beyond Researching Your Family History Online for Dummies. Offering more than a ringside seat how to mine information online, the author, a seasoned journalist, shares her expertise with budding memoirists. She explores how the skills and the logic of a Sherlock Holmes can be employed to stitch together snippets of information in order to forge a more coherent whole that may confirm, contest, augment, or complicate oral family lore. Not your run-of-the-mill memoir, the structure is a tad unique. Sprinkled at the bottom of the pages, academic footnotes are repurposed to create a new genre: Experiential Reading. The links to historical footage, photos, and short texts make reading this work closer to a virtual museum than a traditional e-book.

This all-ages guide makes genealogy fun and exciting. You'll find answers to all your family history questions using the simple, achievable steps found inside. Family History Detective includes: • Tips on how to find family history information in your own home • Websites, resources and techniques for online research • Complete instruction on locating and using census, courthouse and church records • An overview of library and archive research • Instructions on how to plan, record and organize your research • Fun ways to share your discoveries with others

Telling our personal story is one of the most powerful tools for self-understanding, the integration of information, and critical insight. This unique approach to ethnic studies and the psychology of identity is designed to utilize autobiographical storytelling to facilitate a process of transformative identity politics.

Finding Family: My Search for Roots is Richard Hill's true and intensely personal story of an adoptee trying to reclaim the biological family denied him by sealed birth records.

S.C. Perkins' Murder Once Removed is the captivating first mystery in the Ancestry Detective series, in which Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster uses her skills to solve murders in both the past and present. Except for a good taco, genealogist Lucy Lancaster loves nothing more than tracking down her clients’ long-dead ancestors, and her job has never been so exciting as when she discovers a daguerreotype photograph and a journal proving Austin, Texas, billionaire Gus Halloran’s great-great-grandfather was murdered back in 1849. What’s more, Lucy is able to tell Gus who was responsible for his ancestor’s death. Partly, at least. Using clues from the journal, Lucy narrows the suspects down to two nineteenth-century Texans, one of whom is the ancestor of present-day U.S. senator Daniel Applewhite. But when Gus publicly outs the senator as the descendant of a murderer—with the accidental help of Lucy herself—and her former co-worker is murdered protecting the daguerreotype, Lucy will find that shaking the branches of some family trees proves them to be more twisted and dangerous than she ever thought possible.

This important book examines the motives that drive family historians and explores whether those who research their ancestral pedigrees have distinct personalities, demographics or family characteristics. It describes genealogists’ experiences as they chart their family trees including their insights, dilemmas and the fascinating, sometimes disturbing and often surprising, outcomes of their searches. Drawing on theory and research from psychology and other humanities disciplines, as well as from the authors’ extensive survey data collected from over 800 amateur genealogists, the authors present the experiences of family historians, including personal insights, relationship changes, mental health benefits and ethical dilemmas. The book emphasises the motivation behind this exploration, including the need to acknowledge and tell ancestral stories, the spiritual and health-related aspects of genealogical research, the addictiveness of the detective work, the lifelong learning opportunities and the passionate desire to find lost relatives. With its focus on the role of family history in shaping personal identity and contemporary culture, this is fascinating reading for anyone studying genealogy and family history, professional genealogists and those researching their own history.

Find out all about the first Britons, nomadic hunter-gatherers who came from mainland Europe to settle in England bringing wooden spears, flint handaxes and animals with them. Stone Age to Iron Age tells the story of how these people settled and began farming the land. They built villages of timber and stone houses such as Skara Brae on Orkney. Stonehenge is perhaps the most famous monument of this period, a technological marvel of the time built by raising over 80 blue stones to create the 'henge'. The Bronze Age bought with it metalworking using copper, tin and gold to make tools and beautiful everyday objects. The Iron Age was known for its hill forts, farming and art and culture. Contains maps, paintings, artefacts and photographs to show how early Britons lived. Ideally suited for readers age 8+ or teachers who are looking for books to support the new curriculum for 2014.