Marybeth Lavrakas, Greensboro, North Carolina: My great-grandparents Thomas Cheese and Anne Quigley crossed racial, religious, and legal boundaries when they started their family in early 1870s Providence, Rhode Island. Thomas was descended from Black, Indian and white families of the colonial period, and generations of his family were Free Will Baptists. Anne was a Roman Catholic immigrant from Roscommon, Ireland. (Thomas eventually became an enthusiastic convert to Catholicism.) Interracial marriage was illegal at the time their first child was born in 1873. Thomas and Anne were legally married in 1884, a few years after the law changed.

Aiden Holden, Halifax, Nova Scotia: My St. John’s, Newfoundland-born great-great-grandmother, Sarah Sidney Holbrook, was a genteel Victorian lady who studied art, music, and French at a ladies’ college in Cheltenham, England. There she attended balls, sketched views, toured the countryside, and enjoyed using calling cards. In 1852, Sarah, seven months pregnant, married Thomas Holden, a poor Irish farmer and ardent Catholic, who had been clearing her mother’s land. The couple were married only eight years when Sarah died in “remarkable circumstances” in 1860. Thomas remained on his wife’s farm and raised four children to adulthood. Their relationship is recounted in Letters from Sid: Sarah Sidney Holbrook, 1822–1860: Her Family Story.

Jim Miller, Rochester, New York: My great-grandfather Wallace LeFevre (1883-1940) was an 18-year-old Protestant Republican from the small town of Middletown, New York, with an eighth-grade education when he met Mary Elizabeth Whelan (1878–1955) in 1902. Mary was a 24-year-old Catholic Democrat from Jersey City who'd graduated from normal school. Wallace’s family was involved in the temperance movement and had colonial roots. Mary’s dad, the son of Irish immigrants, had been a saloon keeper. Somehow the marriage worked, lasting until Wallace's death. My grandmother, their only surviving child, grew up with close ties to both families.

Erin Pittman, Davidsonville, Maryland: My 2nd great-grandfather Taylor Holt was born in 1868 in Kankakee, Illinois, to Presbyterian parents descended from 17th-century New England settlers, including one Mayflower line. My 2nd great-grandmother Frances "Fanny" Kyle was born in 1867 in Amherst County, Virginia. Orphaned by age nine, she was raised by relatives. In 1887, Taylor moved to Leadville, Colorado, to work as an assayer. The next year, Fanny visited her half-brother there, and she and Taylor met at a church social. They were engaged in 1889. Fanny and Taylor exchanged hundreds of letters before marrying. I inherited their correspondence, which covered everything from local gossip to poetry and politics. Despite their divergent views on many topics, especially politics, they always returned to the one thing they agreed on: they couldn't wait to get married.