Not once, but twice the William Hawley family was devastated by fire. The logging industry was a primary industry in Northern Michigan in the late 1800s and early 1900s. William Hawley’s family was no exception. William moved his family from upstate New York to Long Rapids Township, Alpena County, Michigan…
I typically research newspapers using the website Newspapers.com to find details about the lives of my ancestors that may not be available in other typical genealogical sources. When searching for information about my second great grandmother Mary Anna (Annie) Faught, I found information not only about her but also some…
The theme for week 9 of the 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge is multiples. I was struggling with this theme. Nothing jumped out at me that was interesting enough to write about. But thanks to Valerie Hughes from the “Genealogy with Valerie” blog, my writers block was cured. Valerie…
One of the many topics that I have fallen in love with as I have been researching my own family history is the history of my home town of Alpena, Michigan. Although Alpena was and still is a small town, there is so much history to share. In this blog…
I was raised in Alpena, a small town located on Lake Huron in northern Michigan. One of the early newspapers in Alpena was the Alpena Argus . Throughout my research, I have come across several newspaper articles referencing “houses of ill fame”. This peaked my interest. I could never imagine…
The blog posts I write typically relate to my ancestors or collateral lines. However, after years of research, I couldn’t help but come across some amazing, funny, tantalizing, sad and sometimes tragic stories about others. A lot of these stories come from newspapers and books about county history. I once…
In a couple of previous posts, Elizabeth Miller and the hope of a cure and The Founding of Long Rapids Township and the Role my Ancestors Played, I mentioned a letter written from William Faught to his brother, my Third Great Grandfather, George Faught. In his letter, William provides a wonderful description of…
I previously wrote a blog post called Mary Anna Faught: One Tough Lady, about my 2nd great grandmother Mary Anna (Faught) McKenzie. In that blog post, I outlined the life of Mary Anna. Since then I have come across more information that helps to tell the story of Mary Anna’s…
