Readers Respond

Bonnie (Mather) Woodman, Walker, Michigan: I am blessed to have original books from our family reunions dating back to 1858. My family held reunions every year for over 100 years in Goshen Township, Ohio. At each reunion, the designated historian would record the past year’s births, marriages, and deaths for every family in attendance. I have been transcribing these records for use by area libraries.

Linda Whitmore, The Villages, Florida: My father, Olof Fabian Johnson, was born in Sweden in 1900. In 1923, after graduating from engineering school, he immigrated to the US, where he worked as a highway engineer on the federal interstate highway system. After his death in 1978, I found a multi-page resume detailing much of his educational and professional background. He had not talked about his past with me, so these pages filled in many gaps in my knowledge of his life.

Marisa Palkuti, Scottsdale Arizona: When news of family births and deaths came by a phone call from a relative, my mother, Aileen Saylor Williams, recorded the news on a post-it note, which she stuck on the inside back page of her phone book. As the family genealogist, I kept a careful eye on that book; when mom died it was the first thing I saved. Those little notes listed thirty years of births and deaths, as well as information about my siblings and l after we moved hundreds of miles away. I'm now writing our family history, which will be called The Post-It Notes Diary.

Donna Tyler Hollie, Baltimore Maryland: In 2000, a cousin bought and renovated a house previously owned by our family members, the Tyler family of Fauquier County Virginia. Knowing I was pursuing a master's degree in history, my cousin offered me the "junk" in his attic. That “junk"—information and objects collected by four generations of our Tyler family—inspired and informed my thesis and dissertation on African American history. Upon my death, the collection will go to the Library of Virginia.

Ann E. Robinson, Cambridge, Massachusetts: My genealogy work started with the Robinson family Bible, first kept by my paternal 3rd great-grandfather William Morrison Robinson (1808-1892). According to a note at the end of the original listing of births, deaths, and marriages, the information was copied "from the old family bible" on William’s 75th birthday. The Bible includes information about his parents and their families, as well as his own children and grandchildren. Over the years, birth, death, and marriage information has been listed on separate pages, and marriage announcements, letters, and news clippings have been added. After William Robinson’s death, the Bible was updated by one of his daughters, followed by four of his grandchildren, then my grandmother (who married into the family and added information about her own family), and finally my mother (who also married into the family).