ROOTS & BRANCHES

Last week’s “Roots & Branches” began a journey backward in time – all the way back to 1991, when I first was the instructor for a continuing education class on genealogy. Neither the Internet nor DNA were a thing. But one thing I do recall telling the students in that class was that genealogy could …

As people who know me well have heard, I was not born a natural public speaker (there’s even an incident in which I caused to be “lost” a collage about which I was supposed to speak in front of the class in fifth or sixth grade). And while I never expect to become the most …

It’s often said that you don’t truly appreciate something until it’s gone. For me, that “something” is village of Blue Marsh and the so-called Pleasant Valley along the course of the Tulpehocken Creek in western Berks County. This tiny village and the valley surrounding it are gone because a dam was built that flooded the …

If you’re followed the last couple of “Roots & Branches” columns as I have become aware of more information about one of my ancestral families named Miller, you might be thinking, “Wow, doesn’t this give you hope that even lines involving common names will be solved!” But if you’ve followed “Roots & Branches” through its …