I created these slides for the 3 September 2025 session of the  of the University of Minnesota Retirees Association’s Family History Group, aiming to share how I figured out the identity of the person I refer to as biodude. The 3 sections of the presentation address Inheriting the Genealogy Bug, Collecting Some New Stories, and Renewing My Sense of Belonging. The day marked that I … Continue reading Who Are These People? A Family History Presentation

So, I made a piece of art, a collage that hangs out alongside an essay as a sort of sound and landscape for what I’ve written – at least in my head that’s how I hold these two pieces together. I intend this little bit of an essay to externalize some of that thinking. Together all of this gets me started on pairing essays with … Continue reading Windfalls of Questions, Stories, Tarot, and Music

Old stories and new stories are essential: They tell us who we are, and they enable us to survive. We thank all the ancestors, and we thank all those people who keep on telling stories generation after generation, because if you don’t have the stories, you don’t have anything. –  Leslie Marmon Silko You likely know the “20 Questions” guessing game process that revolves around … Continue reading Flash Memoir #3 (of 5) – 20 Questions

Partly on thinking about Eve Sturges’ journal question “How Has This Experience Changed the Way You See the People Who Raised You?” In early 2018, Kathy, a newly identified maternal cousin Ancestry match, sent a message asking whether I might be able to answer some questions about her mother’s 1934 birth or adoption, maybe even about the person listed as birth mother. I could help … Continue reading On (Not) Going Missing

[O]ne thing we all have in common as humans is the need to connect with others… even if the discovery only [leads] to being able to look into eyes that looked like mine for a minute. I felt this need to connect on a cellular level and the reason was indefinable to me. – Annette L Becklund, Ancestry Discoveries (2023, p. 8) My parents had … Continue reading On the Nose

I reached a significant milestone today in finalising the payoff of the loan on my flat – nine years and a month ahead of the 30-year mortgage deadline. And I celebrate that, as I did when Donna and Dave, my parents, paid off our home in 1981, four years early. They accomplished the early payoff by shifting their work lives starting with my high school … Continue reading Today Donna and Dave paid off a second home

Feeling spurred on once again simply by reading the dedication opening the “misattributed paternity” dissertation I’ve just started reading: To everyone who is searching. I hope you find what you seek. And in the process, I hope you are seen. We all live this NPE experience in such different ways, and share the hope of being seen, of feeling seen, throughout the journey. For me, … Continue reading “I hope you are seen”