My Ancestor's Village


Book Description

Describes the life of a Kumeyaay, or Kumiai, Indian girl and her family living in San Diego area long ago. Includes a glossary of Kumeyaay words and a clarification of the different Indian groups from this area.




Our Village Ancestors


Book Description

This book will be a source of help for anybody researching their farming and countryside ancestors in England. Looked at through the lens of rural life, and specifically the English village, it provides advice and inspiration on placing rural people into their geographic and historical context. It covers the time from the start of parish registers in the Tudor world, when most of our ancestors worked on the land, until the beginning of the twentieth century, when many had moved to the towns. Helen Osborn demonstrates how genealogical records are integral to their place of origin and can be illuminated using local newspaper reports, and the work of local historians. She explores the stories of people who lived in the countryside in the past, as told by the documents that record them, both rich and poor. The book will be particularly valuable to anyone who is looking for a deeper understanding of their family history, rather than simply collecting names on the tree.




Visiting Your Ancestral Town


Book Description

A how-to guide for researching your ancestors, discovering your ancestral towns, and planning a meaningful trip to explore your ancestral homeland.




Land of My Ancestors


Book Description

While working on the UNESCO Slave Route project in the early 2000s, Botlhale Tema discovered the extraordinary fact that her highly educated family from the farm Welgeval in the Pilanesberg had originated with two young men who had been child slaves in the mid-nineteenth century. She pieced together the fragments of information from relatives and community members, and scoured the archives to produce this book. Land of My Ancestors, previously published as The People of Welgeval, tells the story of the two young men and their descendants, as they build a life for themselves on Welgeval. As they raise their families and take in people who have been dispossessed, we follow the births, deaths, adventures and joys of the farm’s inhabitants in their struggle to build a new community. Set against the backdrop of slavery, colonialism, the Anglo-Boer War and the rise of apartheid, this is a fascinating and insightful retelling of history. It is an inspiring story about friendship and family, landownership and learning, and about how people transform themselves from victims to victory. A new prologue and epilogue give more historical context to the narrative and tell the story of the land claim involving the farm, which happened after the book’s original publication.




Cave of My Ancestors


Book Description

Exploring family stories reveals the rich history of a seventh-century Buddhist shrine. As a young girl in Bombay, Kirin Narayan was enthralled by her father’s stories about how their ancestors had made the ancient rock-cut cave temples at Ellora. Recalling those stories as an adult, she was inspired to learn more about the caves, especially the Buddhist worship hall known as the “Vishwakarma cave.” Immersing herself in family history, oral traditions, and works by archaeologists, art historians, scholars of Buddhism, Indologists, and Sanskritists, Narayan set out to answer the question of how this cave came to be venerated as the home of Vishwakarma, the god of making in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Cave of My Ancestors represents the perfect blend of Narayan’s skills as a researcher and writer. Her quest to trace her family’s stories took her to Ellora; through libraries, archives, and museums around the world; and across disciplinary borders. Equal parts scholarship, detective story, and memoir, Narayan’s book ably leads readers through centuries of history, offering a sensitive meditation on devotion, wonder, and all that connects us to place, family, the past, and the divine.




The Kongo of My Ancestors


Book Description

Do you know what it is that makes you who you are? Is it your name? Your education? Your race, religion, job, or bank account? Or is it your origin, the land of your ancestors, your culture? In The Kongo of My Ancestors, Fungula Fumu Ngondji describes his quest to find out what makes him who he is. Born and raised in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Fungula has seen many changes in his home country. Fungula offers a firsthand account of his youth in a traditional Congolese village; his teenage years living in the Congo's capital city, Leopoldville (now called Kinshasa), during the time of Belgium's colonial rule; and his career as an influential journalist, labor organizer, and freedom fighter under Mobutu's dictatorship. Fungula recounts the tragedies inflicted on the people of the Congo through the slave trade, colonization, evangelization, and neocolonialism, as well as his own search for freedom and self-realization. The Kongo of My Ancestors is a powerful, passionate call to action for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and for all the people of Africa and the African diaspora.




Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records


Book Description

Of all family history sources, death records are probably the least used by researchers. They are, however, frequently the most revealing of records, giving a far greater insight into our ancestors' lives and personalities than those records created during their lifetime.Celia Heritage leads readers through the various types of death records, showing how they can be found, read and interpreted and how to glean as much information as possible from them. In many cases, they can be used as a starting point for developing your family history research into other equally rewarding areas.This highly readable handbook is packed with useful information and helpful research advice. In addition, a thought-provoking final chapter looks into the repercussions of death its effects on the surviving members of the family and the fact that a premature death could sometimes affect the family for generations to come.




Tracing Your Rural Ancestors


Book Description

Many family historians will come across direct links to ancestors who lived and worked in the countryside as farmers, laborers, landowners, village tradesmen and professionals for most of us have rural ancestors. Yet despite the burgeoning interest in genealogy, these people have rarely been written about with the family historian in mind. No previous book has provided a guide to the documents and records, from medieval times to the twentieth century, that researchers can use to find out about their rural ancestors and the world in which they lived. That is why this accessible and informative introduction by rural historian Jonathan Brown is so important.He describes the make-up of country and village society - the farmers, large and small, the farm-workers, the landowners and estate-owners, and the local business people, the tradesmen and merchants. At the same time he identifies and discusses the relevant national and local records, indicates where they can be found, and offers essential advice on how this information can be used to piece together the lives of distant and not so distant relatives. Tracing Your Rural Ancestors is essential reading for anyone who is looking for an insight into the history of rural life, work and society.




Kinfolks


Book Description

In this dazzling, hilarious memoir, best-selling author ofKinflicks Lisa Alther chronicles her search for the missing--oftenmysterious--branches of her family tree.Most of us grow up thinking we know who we are and where we come from. LisaAlther's mother hailed from New York, her father from Virginia, and everyday they reenacted the Civil War at home in East Tennessee. Then one nighta grizzled babysitter with brown teeth told Lisa about the Melungeons:six-fingered child-snatchers who hid in cliff caves outside town.Forgetting about these creepy kidnappers until she had a daughter of herown, Lisa learned that the Melungeons were actually a group of dark-skinnedpeople--some with extra thumbs--living in isolated pockets in the South.But who were they? Where did they come from? Were they the descendants ofSir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony, or of shipwrecked Portuguese or Turkishsailors? Or were they the children of European frontiersmen, Africanslaves, and Native Americans? Theories abounded, but no one seemed to knowfor sure.Learning that a cousin had had his extra thumbs removed, Lisa set out todiscover who these mysterious Melungeons really were and why hergrandmother wouldn't let her visit their Virginia relatives. Were thereMelungeons in the family tree? Lisa assembled a hoard of clues over theyears, but DNA testing finally offered answers.Part sidesplitting travelogue, part how--and how not--to climb your familytree, Kinfolks shimmers with wicked humor, illustrating just howwacky and wonderful our human family really is.




Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors


Book Description

In the 1920s there were over a million coalminers working in over 3000 collieries across Great Britain, and the industry was one of the most important and powerful in British history. It dominated the lives of generations of individuals, their families and communities, and its legacy is still with us today _ many of us have a coalmining ancestor. ??Yet family historians often have problems in researching their mining forebears. Locating the relevant records, finding the sites of the pits, and understanding the work involved and its historical background can be perplexing. That is why Brian Elliott's concise, authoritative and practical handbook will be so useful, for it guides researchers through these obstacles and opens up the broad range of sources they can go to in order to get a vivid insight into the lives and experiences of coalminers in the past. ??His overview of the coalmining history _ and the case studies and research tips he provides _ will make his book rewarding reading for anyone looking for a general introduction to this major aspect of Britain's industrial heritage. His directory of regional and national sources and his commentary on them will make this guide an essential tool for family historians searching for an ancestor who worked in coalmining underground, on the pit top or just lived in a mining community.??As featured in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine and the Barnsley Chronicle.