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:

Shook Us All Night Long

This month’s 12 Ancestors in 12 Months writing challenge, “Social,” proved to be more difficult for me than one would anticipate. Seriously, how hard can “social” be? Everyone socializes at least once in their lifetime, right!? However, with our ancestors, I know more about their lives on paper than about them as people. After several days of wracking my brain and pounding my head, I realized that I was overthinking the May writing prompt.

Once I paused and took a breath, instead of looking to the distant past for inspiration, I began to reflect on my own social events; times when my family and I gathered from near and far to celebrate milestones and each other. Here is one of the more memorable “social” occasions of my life…

The Day My Mama Socked It To…

It has been a long, long, long time since my junior high days… decades, in fact. And yet, there is one moment in my junior high experience that remains fresh in my mind: the time my mama, a soft-spoken woman, ripped my biology teacher up one side and down the other.

Book Review: The Key to Everything

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving” ~Albert Einstein

The Key to Everything, a novel by Valerie Fraser Luesse, tells the tale of 15-year-old Peyton Cabot. The only child of well-to-do parents, Peyton must watch helpless as his tender-hearted father, broken by the battlefield, drowns his demons in a bottle of bourbon.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Favorite Photo

It is week two in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Week’s writing challenge. This week’s prompt is Favorite Photo.

“That’s should be easy,” I thought, “as I have tons of pictures. With 3,649 images in my family tree, there’s bound to be a photo or two that would qualify as a favorite.”