by jennifer | Jan 28, 2016 | Family History, Thursday's Things
An ashtray? Who even smokes anymore? And those few folks who do still smoke, don’t do it sitting inside, where an ashtray is there to catch that ever growing length of ash. No, today people smoke outside, hovering just beyond the posted limit (“No smoking...
by jennifer | Jan 14, 2016 | Family History, Food, Thursday's Things
I don’t know if you guys remember this post, the one in which I bemoan the lost family recipe of kichel. It was a treat my great-grandmother made that my mom adored. And I wanted to make it. Problem was, the recipe was nowhere to be found. My mom bought bakery...
by jennifer | Jun 30, 2015 | Food, Genealogy, Writing Research
Baking. Writing. Being a mom. Hey, it’s summer! Let’s do all three. What could go wrong? Yeah, right. In combining both my genealogy and writing research, I had the great idea of trying to re-create some of the recipes that 1) my family has mentioned...
by jennifer | May 11, 2014 | Family History, Writing Life
Recently I went to New Orleans for a girls’ weekend, and geek that I am, I took a few hours for myself to sneak over to the New Orleans library to research my family in the Times-Picayune. My grandfather was a real estate developer in the area, so I knew there...
by jennifer | Sep 25, 2013 | Methodology
*To a genealogist, at least. First a follow-up to the last post. Yury had problems commenting on the blog, but he wrote me: I think the best candidate is “Жмудская”. There is no clear “Жм” on the document, but those could’ve easily be...
by jennifer | Sep 10, 2013 | Family History
One of the genealogical mysteries I’ve had is how to figure out from where people come. On my father’s side, he was always told his grandmother’s family was from Vilna. But that same grandmother had a half-sister who told her grandchildren that they...