Conflict in Our Family Trees

This month’s writing challenge, as offered by genealogist Amy Johnson Crow, is Conflict. Over the course of human history, conflict has abounded.

Our collective family has its own share of conflict. For nearly a dozen years, I have documented many of these family conflicts, some big and some small. Here are my top 20 “all-time favorite” family conflict posts:

Doing God’s Work: The Blesseds

The theme of this month’s 12 Ancestors in 12 Months writing challenge is “Check It Out!”, something uttered regularly by family historians with each new find, myself included. With each new “discovery”, I regale loved ones and strangers alike with what I learned, whether they care or not.  🙂

So what makes this discovery any different than the hundreds of others I have made already? Why should you “check it out”? Let’s find out…

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My genealogical research has uncovered dozens of ancestors who devoted themselves to God, so many that I began a series of posts titled Doing God’s Work: Our Families’ Faithful. This is the eleventh installment. 

In the previous post of this series, I presented brief biographies of three direct ancestors who were monks. Yes, you read right… monks.

Everyday Women, Everyday Lives

In celebration of Women’s History Month, March’s 12 Ancestors in 12 Months writing prompt is Females.

For more than 12 years, I have written about hundreds of women in our combined family trees, many of them found in the pages of history books. In this post, I wanted to focus on everyday women—ten to them to be exact—who died in March. Although these women lived simpler lives than our more famous forebearers, their lives were important nonetheless, especially to those of us who proudly call them ”family.“

John Daniel Stark

On this day, 24 March 1912, John Daniel Stark, my 2nd great-grandfather, passed away.

Born on 15 April 1856, in Morgan County, Missouri, John Daniel Stark was the son of Charles Stark and Elizabeth Manes. John Daniel Stark was one of 18 known children, including five older half-siblings from his father’s first wife, Sally (Amos) Stark—James, Benjamin Amos Stark (born on 12 August 1826), Elizabeth, Rebecca (born 1829), and Nancy—and nine elder full siblings—Mary, born in June 1838; Sarah, born 2 January 1840; Margaret, born in 1842; Vienna, born 13 February 1844; Elizabeth Jane, born on 16 September 1847; Lewis Manes, born 7 January 1850; Samuel J., born in March 1852; William Shelton, born 13 March 1853; and Martha Elizabeth, born 22 April 1855.

Same Trunks, Different Branches

Thank goodness that I had a whole month to do my 12 Ancestors in 12 Months post because this one took a whole lot longer than I expected.

February’s writing prompt, Branching Out, got me thinking about the limbs and offshoots of our family trees. Although I, like most genealogists, often focus on direct ancestors, as evidenced by this blog, I occasionally scale branches of our indirect relatives, discovering distant cousins amongst the twigs.