The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: family tree

  • Pieces of Family Stories

    Tales of who you were will eventually be overtaken by a swirling fog.

  • Shards of the Past

    So much of our history is oral.

  • We Will Survive

    A longtime reader and friend made a very simple and yet extremely profound point the other day. She said, “We are all descended from survivors.” Wow. Yet another epiphany of the obvious! Think about it. Every single direct branch of your family tree consists of someone who survived long enough to pass on his or…

  • Time out of Mind

    I’ve been watching this great series on the TLC channel called “Who Do You Think You Are?” in which celebrities trace their family trees. In one episode, supermodel Cindy Crawford discovers she’s a direct descendent of Charlemagne. No one in her family knew this. The question is, how on earth is that possible? I mean,…

  • Our Expanding Family Tree: Cousins Coming out of the Woodwork

    One of the largest and oldest organisms on earth is Pando, a Quaking Aspen clone in Utah that covers over 106 acres. Looking at it, you’d assume that it was just a bunch of individual trees, but it’s actually one organism, and it’s thousands of years old. We didn’t know that until recently. I think…