Earlier this month I attended my sister’s beautiful beach wedding in Rhode Island, which took place on my daughter’s birthday. In honor of the coincidence of the two dates, my sister gave my daughter, who is engaged, the engagement ring that belonged to my paternal grandmother, Julia Mary (Sakusky)...
In my family, there were five of us—my parents married in 1950, and I was born the same year, in California, while my father, a serving naval officer, was deployed to Korea. My brother was born in 1955 in Annapolis, while my father was on the staff of the...
In June my husband and I drove from our home outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, to my family’s summer cabin in northeastern Pennsylvania in order to spend a few weeks with my mother before attending the Advanced DNA course at the second session of GRIP–the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh. On...
Continuing our virtual visit to my family cemeteries with my great-great-grandparents, let’s start with my mother’s side, where we’re coming to the Civil War generation. Her paternal grandfather Roland R. Neifert’s parents were Martin Neifert (1840-1912) and Harriet (Gerhard) Neifert (1939-1915). Martin is buried in Christ Church Cemetery, Barnesville,...
On Memorial Day it used to be the custom to visit family cemeteries. As a young girl, my mother did so with her grandparents, and I’m sure my father did as well. When I was a child, my family did not live close to the burial places of any...
