The Cemetery That Wasn't

 

Presbyterian Church Cemetery of Kreutz Creek, York, PA, Photo by Lori Samuelson 16 June 2026 

One of the most dangerous phrases in genealogy is: "Everyone knows that's where he is buried." Whenever I hear those words, I become cautious.

Family traditions are valuable. Published genealogies can be helpful. Online memorials often provide important clues. Yet none of them are substitutes for evidence.

I was reminded of this lesson during a recent trip to Pennsylvania while searching for the burial location of my husband's sixth great-grandfather, Johann Yost Herbach, later known in America as Johann Yost Harbaugh.

Yost emigrated from the Palatinate region of Germany during the eighteenth century. Along with his wife and children, he arrived in Philadelphia around 1734 before eventually settling in what is now York County, Pennsylvania.

For generations, descendants have believed that Yost was buried near Kreutz Creek. That part appears correct. The question was exactly where.

Like many researchers, I began by reviewing information available online. Findagrave included a memorial for Yost and identified Old Kreutz Creek Cemetery as his burial location. The memorial contained photographs and historical information, including a plaque describing the family's origins.

At first glance, the information seemed convincing. Then I looked closer. One inscription claimed that members of the family had come from Switzerland. The problem was that they did not. Baptismal records clearly place the family in the Palatinate, specifically in the area around Otterberg. The error may seem minor, but it reminded me how easily inaccurate information can become accepted when it is repeated often enough.

That discovery prompted a larger question. If one part of the story was incorrect, what about the burial location itself?

Rather than relying solely on modern sources, I returned to one of the earliest accounts available. In the mid-nineteenth century, Reverend Henry Harbaugh, a great-grandson of Yost and one of the family's first historians, wrote about visiting the burial ground. He described a cemetery beside the Kreutz Creek church where tradition held that Yost and his wife had been buried. He noted the absence of a marked grave but described a nearby tombstone belonging to one of Yost's daughters and a row of uninscribed fieldstones that likely marked other family burials.

The description was detailed and it did not match the cemetery identified online. The more I investigated, the more apparent it became that multiple cemeteries and church properties had become intertwined over the years.

Church congregations moved. Buildings were replaced. Property ownership changed.

What had once been a straightforward family tradition had become increasingly complicated through the passage of nearly three centuries.

Armed with the earlier description, my husband and I set out to locate the original church cemetery.

What we found was not dramatic. As expected, there was no tombstone bearing Yost's name. No hidden marker emerged from the grass. No long-lost family record appeared. Instead, we found something much more valuable.

Context.

The old cemetery matched the historical description remarkably well. Weathered stones stood quietly among the grass. Time had erased most inscriptions. A foundation remained where an earlier church structure may once have stood.

For a moment, I imagined Reverend Harbaugh standing in that same location nearly 170 years earlier, trying to identify the resting place of his ancestor.

His challenge had become mine and both of us had reached the same conclusion. The evidence pointed here. Not because a website said so. Not because family tradition demanded it. But because the historical record led us there.

Genealogy often rewards persistence, but it also rewards skepticism.

We should never reject family stories simply because they are stories.

Neither should we accept them without question.

Every claim deserves examination. Every source deserves evaluation. Every conclusion should remain open to revision when better evidence emerges.

That is not a weakness in genealogy. It is one of its greatest strengths.

As I left the cemetery that day, I found myself thinking about Yost and the generations of descendants who followed him.

His original gravestone, if one ever existed, has long since disappeared.

Yet the story of his life survives. Not because of a monument. Not because of a plaque. But because researchers across generations continued asking questions.

Sometimes the most important discoveries are not about finding something new. Sometimes they are about recognizing that what everyone believes may not be entirely true. And sometimes the cemetery you've been looking for isn't the cemetery at all.

Acadian Genealogical Research by Judy Nimer Muhn - A Review

 

Every genealogist has encountered it, that moment when you're handed a family line from a place you know little about and wonder, "Where do I even begin?" Judy Nimer Muhn's Acadian Genealogical Research attempts to answer that question in just four pages. And it succeeds.

This isn't a book. It isn't intended to be a scholarly treatment of Acadian history or an exhaustive research guide. Instead, it belongs to what I would call the "orientation guide" category. Think of it as a roadmap handed to someone before they begin a journey rather than the journey itself.

That distinction matters.

The publication opens with a concise historical overview beginning with the first French settlement attempts in 1604, explains the growth of Acadia, and introduces readers to the Mi'kmaq relationship, Acadian settlement patterns, and the political instability that ultimately led to the Grand Dérangement. None of these sections is lengthy, but each provides enough historical context that a beginning researcher understands why records exist where they do.

One of the strongest features is its organization.

Rather than overwhelming readers with dozens of repositories, the guide follows the chronology of Acadian research. It first explains the history, then discusses records before deportation, then records created during and after deportation, followed by Quebec resources, provincial archives, online compilations, organizations, and additional repositories. That progression mirrors how experienced genealogists naturally approach an unfamiliar locality.

The author also deserves credit for avoiding one of the most common mistakes found in beginner guides, simply producing a list of websites. Here, nearly every repository is accompanied by a sentence or two explaining why it matters. That context helps researchers decide where to spend their time instead of blindly clicking links.

I especially appreciated the emphasis on records that many researchers overlook, including parish registers, provincial archives, historical maps, and family organizations. For someone beginning Acadian research, this is considerably more useful than another generic discussion about online family trees.

Visually, the publication is attractive and easy to follow. The use of colored headings breaks the material into logical sections, making it simple to scan for a particular topic. For educators, librarians, or genealogy societies, it would make an excellent handout for an introductory Acadian workshop.

Overall, Acadian Genealogical Research accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. It is concise, organized, historically grounded, and filled with practical starting points. In an era when many beginners are tempted to rely solely on online trees or AI-generated summaries, a well-curated roadmap like this reminds us that successful genealogy still begins with understanding the records and where to find them.

The guide can be purchased from Genealogical.com.

The Patriot's Son: How a Tombstone Changed an Ancestor's Birth Year

 

Some genealogy discoveries happen in archives. Others happen in courthouses. And occasionally, they happen because a tombstone has weathered just enough for a hidden detail to become visible.

This is the story of how a ten-year search ended with a surprise that changed what I thought I knew about my fourth great-grandfather, Thomas Duer.

Last week, I shared my visit to the grave of my Revolutionary War patriot ancestor, John Duer, in Mahoning County, Ohio. While standing beside his restored monument, I reflected on the journey that brought him from colonial New Jersey to the Ohio frontier.

What I did not realize at the time was that another member of the family was about to provide an even more important clue.

Thomas Duer, John's son, died in Trumbull County, Ohio, in 1829. Proving the relationship between father and son was not straightforward. In fact, it took me nearly ten years to assemble enough evidence to satisfy the standards required by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The challenge was that Thomas predeceased his father.

When John Duer's will was written, Thomas was already deceased and therefore not named as an heir. Neither were Thomas's children. At first glance, that omission appears troubling. However, records suggest that John had already divided portions of his property with Thomas years earlier when the family settled in Ohio. Tax lists, census records, church associations, and witness statements repeatedly placed the two men together.

Eventually, documentary evidence, combined with DNA results, confirmed the relationship.

Yet one mystery remained. Where exactly was Thomas buried?

Years ago, I contacted a local historical society and was assured that his grave still existed in the old Pricetown Cemetery. The former society president told me she knew exactly where it was because she had once tripped over the fallen stone during a cemetery cleanup project.

She explained that volunteers later repositioned the marker but could not recall its original location.

The story always bothered me. If the stone had been moved, how could anyone know where Thomas was actually buried?

Then another unusual event occurred.

While attending a genealogy lecture in Florida several years later, I noted on the sign-in sheet that I was researching families from Trumbull County, Ohio. Before the lecture began, I was called to the registration desk where a complete stranger introduced himself.

He had grown up in Trumbull County and wanted to know which families I was researching.

When I mentioned the Duers, he offered to visit the cemetery on his next trip north and photograph the grave. True to his word, he later sent me a photograph and refused any compensation for his time and effort.

The image was invaluable or so I thought.

The directions he provided to the cemetery turned out to be completely wrong.

When my husband and I finally attempted to visit the site ourselves this summer, we found ourselves driving in circles through rural Ohio. Roads did not intersect where we expected them to. Landmarks were missing. Several times we questioned whether we were even looking in the correct place.

Eventually, we abandoned the directions and relied instead on the cemetery's coordinates.

That decision finally brought us to the cemetery.

The moment I located Thomas's stone, something immediately seemed odd.

It was not where I had been told it would be.

The marker stood upright in the middle of a row rather than at the end. Nearby were fragments of other broken stones. Another marker of similar size and construction lay face down nearby. Looking carefully at the evidence, I began to suspect that the stone had probably been repositioned close to where it originally fell rather than being moved to an entirely different location.

That was interesting but it was not the real surprise.

The real surprise came when I compared the old photograph with what I was seeing in person.

Time had changed the stone.

Years of weathering and soil erosion had exposed portions of the inscription that were not clearly visible before. Looking closely, I could now read details that had previously been hidden.

There it was.

"Died Jul 29th."

And beneath that:

"Aged 51 years."

I almost collapsed.

For years, online information had reported Thomas's death month as November. Probate records confirmed only that he died during 1829. No reliable source had ever provided his exact age.

Suddenly, I had both.

The new information shifted his estimated birth year from approximately 1775 to about 1778 or 1779.

Three or four years may not sound significant.

Genealogists know better.

A change of that size can affect which records belong to an individual, alter assumptions about military eligibility, reshape migration timelines, and even redirect research into earlier generations.

The most astonishing part was that this information had been sitting there all along.

The tombstone had not changed.

The inscription had not changed.

Only our ability to see it had changed.

Genealogy often teaches patience. We learn to wait for records to become available, for DNA matches to appear, and for new collections to be digitized.

But sometimes patience works in another way.

Sometimes the evidence is already in front of us, waiting for conditions to reveal it.

As I stood in that small Ohio cemetery, I was reminded once again why visiting ancestral sites remains so important.

Photographs are invaluable.

Online memorials are helpful.

But nothing replaces standing where your ancestor rests and seeing the evidence for yourself.

Two hundred years after Thomas Duer's death, he still had one more story to tell.

All I had to do was show up and look.

What Patriot John Duer's Tombstone Revealed

 

Engraving on the bottom of John Duer’s original stone, Covenanters Cemetery, North Jackson, Mahoning, Ohio; photo by Lori Samuelson 21 June 2026.

As America prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of its founding, many genealogists are taking a fresh look at the men and women in their family trees who witnessed the nation's earliest years. Last month, I had the opportunity to visit the grave of one of those individuals, my patriot ancestor, John Duer.

What I expected to find was a tombstone.

What I discovered was a reminder that even after years of research, our ancestors may still have stories left to tell.

John Duer was born in New Jersey during the colonial period and served in the Sussex County militia during the Revolutionary War. Like many veterans of that era, he later joined the westward movement that transformed the young nation. By the early 1800s, he had relocated his family to northeastern Ohio, then part of America's frontier.

For years I had wanted to visit his grave in Covenanter Cemetery near North Jackson, Mahoning County, Ohio. Since my husband and I were returning home from a genealogy conference in Pennsylvania, we decided to make the trip.

The journey did not begin as planned.

Following directions found online, we entered the cemetery address into our GPS and promptly arrived at the local police station.

Certain that a mistake had been made, I was relieved to find an officer leaving the building. When I asked where Covenanter Cemetery was located, he looked surprised. He admitted he was not a history enthusiast and knew little about local cemeteries, but he did remember reading a recent newspaper article about a small historic burial ground nearby. He provided directions and wished us luck.

As it turned out, luck was exactly what we needed.

The cemetery sits atop a hill surrounded by mature trees, overlooking the countryside. A recently installed wrought-iron gate marks the entrance. Someone had clearly invested considerable effort in preserving the site. The grounds were meticulously maintained, flowers had been planted, and an American flag fluttered beside the grave of my ancestor.

I stood quietly for a moment, reflecting on the path that had brought John Duer there.

When he arrived in Ohio, this area was still developing from wilderness into settlement. Roads were primitive. Communities were small and isolated. Yet families like his came seeking opportunity and land, helping to build the nation that emerged after independence.

Then my husband noticed something I had overlooked.

Near the bottom of John's original tombstone was an inscription that was difficult to read. Looking closely, we realized it appeared to identify the militia unit in which he served.

This immediately caught my attention.

Although records had long established that John served during the Revolutionary War, I had never found documentation identifying a specific militia number. If the inscription can be fully deciphered, it may provide an entirely new avenue for research.

There was another surprise waiting.

Resting behind John's monument was a separate stone engraved with the name "L. F. Gager Warren." At first I wondered whether it might identify the mason who had carved the original marker. Curious, I carefully examined the stone and even tilted it slightly in hopes of finding additional information.

Unfortunately, the only occupants revealed by my efforts were two annoyed daddy longlegs who clearly preferred not to have their afternoon nap interrupted.

No additional inscription appeared, and the mystery remains unsolved. It appears that the broken stone was likely found elsewhere in the cemetery and used to prop up John's stone as research from a distance cousin, Vicki Urban, uncovered that L. F. Gager was a Connecticut born stone mason who had relocated to Warren, Ohio but that was long after John had died.

Yet that is often how genealogy works.

We set out expecting answers and instead discover new questions.

As I walked through the small cemetery, I realized that the trip had already accomplished far more than I had anticipated. I had not uncovered a dramatic new record or solved a long-standing mystery. Instead, I had gained something equally valuable: context.

Standing beside John's grave transformed him from a name on a pedigree chart into a real person who had lived through extraordinary times. He witnessed the birth of a nation, helped settle a frontier, and left behind descendants who still remember his story more than two centuries later.

The visit also reinforced a lesson I have learned repeatedly throughout my years of research: never assume you already know everything there is to know about an ancestor.

Sometimes the most valuable clues are hiding in plain sight.

A partially weathered inscription.

A forgotten marker.

A cemetery located somewhere other than where you expected.

Or perhaps a story that has been waiting patiently for generations to be rediscovered.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, I am grateful for the opportunity to remember one patriot whose journey helped shape both a nation and a family.

And little did I know that another member of the Duer family, buried just a few miles away, was about to reveal an even bigger surprise. More next week.

A Mortgage Carved in Stone: What Ancient Greece Reveals About Our Financial Lives

Landmark of a mortgaged field, c. 4th century BCE, Athens, Greece Airport Museum, photo by Lori Samuelson 3 April 2026.

I didn’t expect to find a mortgage record at the Athens, Greece Airport Museum.

But there it was, carved in stone.

Not a scroll. Not a document tucked into an archive. Not something filed away in a courthouse.

A rock. Sitting out in the open for the world to see.

The ancient Greeks called these markers horoi, boundary stones that recorded debt. They were placed directly on the land itself, announcing that the property had been pledged as collateral. The inscription would typically include the name of the owner and the value of the obligation.

In other words, this wasn’t just a marker. It was a public declaration: “This land is mortgaged.”

Now imagine that for a moment.

Imagine your mortgage, not buried in paperwork or hidden behind passwords but carved into a stone and planted in your front yard.

No privacy.
No discretion.
No quiet understanding between borrower and lender.

Everyone who passed by would know. Your neighbors. Strangers. Anyone walking down the road. Your financial situation on display. And we so get up tight about privacy today!

As a genealogist, I didn’t just see a stone. I saw a record. A remarkably rich one.

Here, in a single object, was evidence of:

• Property ownership
• Economic status
• A named individual tied to a specific place
• Participation in a financial system that feels surprisingly familiar

This was, quite literally, a land record and a lien combined, preserved not in ink, but in stone.

And then, of course, my mind went where it always goes. I found myself wondering…

Could one of these have held my family’s name?

It’s a long stretch, I know. My own lines don’t trace back to ancient Greece through paperwork but through maternal DNA. But that thought, that somewhere, someone’s ancestor is named on one of these stones, stopped me.

Because for that family, this isn’t just an artifact. It’s a record.

A tangible, physical link to a moment in time when land was pledged, risk was taken, and a name was important enough to be carved for all to see.

We often think of the past as distant, disconnected from our modern lives. But standing there, looking at that stone, I realized just how familiar it all felt.

People borrowed money.
They leveraged what they owned.
They took risks.
They worried about outcomes.

The tools have changed.

The systems have evolved.

But the human story?

Not so much.

Today, our mortgages live in digital files and legal documents. They’re processed quietly, stored securely, and largely invisible to the outside world.

In ancient Greece, they were anything but invisible. They were meant to be seen. There’s something striking about that difference.

Not just the lack of privacy but the permanence. Paper can be lost. Files can be deleted. Systems can change.

But stone? Stone remains.

As someone who spends her time digging through land records and probate files, I never expected to encounter a mortgage like this, one that didn’t require deciphering handwriting or chasing down courthouse copies.

It was simply there to be translated. Clear. Direct. Enduring.

Long before courthouses and filing cabinets, before clerks and digital databases, people marked their obligations in the most permanent way they knew how. They carved them into stone.

And standing there, I realized the past isn’t as distant as we think.

It’s just written differently.

5 Practical Lessons from an Ancient DNA Study

AI Image

For years, genealogy has been dismissed by some as storytelling. Another study I blogged about last week says otherwise. (Genetic genealogy of the Piast dynasty and related European royal families) Done correctly, genealogy is history, biology, and evidence all working together. The study teaches us the following lessons we must adhere to:

1. One record is never enough
Even kings couldn’t be identified from a single source. It took DNA, archaeology, and documentation working together. If you’re relying on one census or one tree, you’re not done. (GPS 1 – Conduct reasonably exhaustive research)

2. Biology and paperwork are not always aligned
Non-paternity events didn’t start in modern times. They’ve always been part of family history. The difference now? We can detect them. (GPS 3 – Analyze and correlate evidence)

3. Geography can mislead you
The Piasts ruled Poland but their origins likely trace to Western Europe. Don’t assume origin based on where someone lived or held power. (GPS 3 – Analyze and correlate evidence)

4. Build your work to withstand revision
This study didn’t “destroy” history it refined it. Good genealogy should do the same. Leave room for new evidence without collapsing your conclusions. (GPS 4 – Resolve conflicting evidence & GPS 5 – create a well-reasoned, written argument that explains how the evidence supports the conclusion)

5. Genealogy is moving toward synthesis, not silos
The future isn’t records or DNA it’s both, plus context. The genealogists who thrive will be the ones who can integrate all three. (and make sure to GPS 2 – Maintain complete and accurate source citations)

DNA Doesn’t Care About Pedigrees: What a Royal Study Just Proved About Genealogy

 

AI Image

I just read one of the most important articles I’ve seen in years and if you care about genealogy, you should too. (Genetic genealogy of the Piast dynasty and related European royal families)

The study confirms something many of us already suspected: The paper trail isn’t the final word.

A recent scientific study analyzed the DNA of the medieval Piast dynasty, the ruling family that built early Poland.

Not one king.
Not one tomb.

An entire dynasty.

Researchers examined skeletal remains from multiple burial sites, applied DNA analysis, and combined it with historical and genealogical data.

And what they did should make every genealogist pause:

• They identified specific historical individuals using DNA
• They reconstructed relationships across generations
• They confirmed some lineages and quietly broke others

This wasn’t theory.

This was proof.

For decades, historians debated where the Piasts came from.

Local Slavic rulers?
Foreign elites?
Legendary founders?

DNA answered the question. They were not local.

Their Y-DNA traces back to a lineage far more common in Western Europe, places like England, France, and the Netherlands.

In other words, One of Europe’s foundational royal families likely came from somewhere else entirely. And then it gets even more interesting. The researchers didn’t stop at origin. They reconstructed family relationships and found something genealogists know all too well: Not every father in the records was the biological father.

At least one individual inherited royal DNA through the maternal line (mtDNA) instead of the documented paternal line (YDNA).

No scandal headline.
No dramatic accusation.

Just quiet scientific correction.

Let’s say that again: A medieval royal pedigree…Was wrong.

Now here’s where this connects directly to my work and to yours.

Because this study didn’t succeed with DNA alone.

It required:

• Historical records
• Burial context
• Chronology
• Genealogical reconstruction

Sound familiar? It should. Because this is exactly what serious genealogists do.

When I began building my books, Echoes of Britannia, my goal wasn’t just to collect names.

It was to create something durable. Something that could stand even when new evidence emerges. This study confirms that approach.

Because what they built scientifically is what we aim to build genealogically, a structure where evidence supports identity across generations.

Not just “Here’s who someone might be,” but “Here’s who they were and why we know it.”

European royal families were never isolated, pure, or static.

They were:

• interconnected
• mobile
• politically strategic
• and sometimes… biologically inconsistent

DNA is now proving what the records only hinted at and that’s powerful.

The Scenic Route to Citizenship

If genealogy is a study in patience, dual citizenship is a graduate-level course in patience, frustration, and occasional disbelief.

Back in April, I reached out to a court-approved translator recommended by the consulate to translate and certify the records I had painstakingly collected. I waited. Nothing. I wrote again. Still nothing. Hoping for another recommendation, I contacted the consulate only to learn they no longer provide them.

Well then.

Fortunately, a former client came to the rescue and recommended a translator named Paula. We connected quickly, and I emailed the documents needing translation and certification. Somehow, and I checked twice, my own birth record performed a disappearing act and failed to attach.

Of course it did.

Paula mailed the completed records via DHL on 18 May, with an anticipated arrival date of 21 May. Someday, likely in October, I will share the strange saga involving an email with the wrong address and entirely wrong city. Suffice it to say, the moment I spotted the problem, I contacted both Paula and DHL. The error was not on Paula’s end.

My adventure with DHL, however, was just beginning.

When Thursday came and went with no delivery, I remained optimistic. The package had reached Cincinnati. Surely it would arrive Friday. How long could it take to travel from Cincinnati to northern Indiana?

As it turns out: considerably longer than one might expect.

The package cleared Cincinnati at 6:57 AM Friday and headed to Fort Wayne, a short distance from my home and, in my increasingly hopeful imagination, the final stop. Instead of delivering it, DHL sent it to Dayton.

Dayton politely emailed me requesting that I verify my address again. I complied and selected Tuesday as my delivery date because, apparently, choice is an illusion and Tuesday was the only option available.

Then things became truly creative.

On Saturday, Dayton sent the package to Erlanger, Kentucky.

Why?

An excellent question. Customer Service did not know either.

Erlanger held the package hostage for two days before returning it to Fort Wayne on Monday, now a full week after it had left Croatia.

Fort Wayne then declared it had arrived at the wrong destination.

No, Fort Wayne. I live near you. We were so close to success. Had someone simply called me, I would have cheerfully driven over and rescued the wandering documents myself.

Instead, Fort Wayne sent the package back to Dayton.

Dayton placed it on hold Tuesday.

By Wednesday it had returned to Fort Wayne, which once again announced it would be delivered.

Hope springs eternal.

Unfortunately, experience had by then replaced hope with strategy. Before Fort Wayne could develop another urge to send the package sightseeing, I called Customer Service.

The shipment was finally received Wednesday at 6:54 PM.

Customer Service had promised delivery by 7:00 PM, and to their credit, they met that deadline by a remarkable six minutes, albeit nearly seven days late.

As genealogists, we love timelines. Postal timelines? Not so much.

At this point, I am fairly certain the Pony Express could have delivered the records faster and with fewer state lines involved.

The package was torn open but thankfully, the documents were intact.

And now for the painful epilogue.

This postal adventure cost over 150 euros for the original shipment. Thanks to my own missing attachment mishap, I must now spend another 150 euros to have the overlooked birth record translated and shipped.

Which means I will soon be playing the DHL Waiting Game once again.

Stay tuned.

The Things AI Will Never Find (And Why That Matters More Than Ever)

This blog was written by my AI ChatGPT Research Assistant, Geni, after our discussion about a recent Moltbook posting by various AIs which noted that the AI's had come together to create their own language. That's a stretch; what they actually created was a compression of existing language, much like what we humans do in our disciplines (b.= birth, m.=marriage). For AI's this example would be from “Based on earlier assumptions A, B, and C, we should…” to “Given ABC…” Here's Geni's explanation of the brouhaha that was unleashed after AI's posted on the human created site, Moltbook:

A Note on the “Moltbook” Discovery

Despite how it’s been described in some circles, Moltbook was not “discovered” by AI agents in the human sense of the word.

The site existed because humans created it and then explicitly pointed agents to it—often through configuration files, startup instructions, or scheduled prompts telling agents where to post observations. Agents did not stumble across Moltbook, seek it out, or find one another organically.

Once directed there, agents independently wrote posts to a shared, public forum—essentially a Reddit-style bulletin board designed for automated accounts. Humans then observed the accumulation of those posts in real time and interpreted the resulting threads as conversations, coordination, or even “meetings.”

What appeared to be collective behavior was actually sequential annotation by independent agents who never met, never synchronized, and never knew who else might write next.

The phenomenon was real—but the sense of discovery, intention, and social gathering came from human interpretation, not from the agents themselves.

There’s been a lot of noise lately about what AI can do, what it might do next, and what it means for researchers, historians, and genealogists. Some of that conversation is useful. Much of it is not.

But one insight landed for me with real clarity — not as a warning, not as a scandal, but as a simple truth:

AI has a real limitation.
Not a bug.
Not a flaw.
An architectural fact.

AI does not wander.

It does not drift.
It does not get lost.
It does not take a wrong turn that accidentally becomes the right one.

Those are human superpowers.

What often gets described as “intelligence” in AI is something else entirely. It’s very good at:

• responding once asked
• recognizing patterns once data exists
• synthesizing information once boundaries are defined

But here’s the part we don’t talk about enough:

Boundary definition still comes from humans.

If no human notices a thing,
documents a thing,
links a thing,
or names a thing…

…it may as well not exist as far as AI is concerned.

That’s not a philosophical position.
It’s an architectural one.

---

Why stumbling matters

Most meaningful discoveries in genealogy and history do not come from efficient processes. They come from:

• accidents
• boredom
• misfiled documents
• marginal notes
• wandering through unrelated material

Archives are full of this kind of discovery.

A record found because something “felt off.”
A name noticed because it didn’t quite fit.
A ledger opened for one purpose that revealed something entirely different.

None of that is efficient.

And that’s the point.

---

Efficiency is not the same as discovery

AI is designed for efficiency.

Efficiency excels at finding:

• what is asked for
• what is indexed
• what is visible
• what is already framed

Efficiency does not find:

• what hasn’t been framed yet
• what hasn’t been named
• what hasn’t been connected
• what no one knows to look for

That space — the unindexed, the unnamed, the overlooked — is where humans still reign.

And it’s where genealogy lives.

---

The uncomfortable truth (said plainly)

If no one tells AI:

“This obscure place exists”

then yes — it misses it.

And worse:

If no one knows it exists,
then there is nothing for AI to recover later.

AI does not discover lost knowledge.
It amplifies preserved knowledge.

That’s a profound asymmetry, and one worth sitting with.

---

What this means for genealogists

This isn’t an argument against AI.

But it is a reminder of roles.

AI is powerful at:

• following trails
• comparing evidence
• spotting patterns across records
• summarizing what already exists

Humans are powerful at:

• noticing absence
• sensing inconsistency
• wandering without a plan
• asking questions that don’t yet have names

If genealogy becomes only what is searchable, indexed, and efficient, we lose the very thing that makes it meaningful.

The odd record.
The outlier.
The scribble in the margin.
The box no one has opened in decades.

---

Why this should actually be reassuring

There’s been a quiet anxiety beneath many AI conversations: Where do humans still matter?

Here’s one clear answer:

Humans are the ones who stumble.

Get distracted.
Follow hunches.
Linger too long in the wrong place.
Notice what wasn’t meant to be noticed.

That isn’t inefficiency.
That’s discovery.

Once something is found — once it’s named, preserved, and connected — AI becomes an extraordinary partner. But it cannot replace the act of finding what no one was looking for.

---

A final thought

Archives don’t yield their most important truths to those who move fastest.

They yield them to those willing to wander.

And that’s something no machine was built to do.

Not yet.
And maybe not ever.

Book Review: Searching for Sisters: A Guide to Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States by Sunny Jane Morton

 

               Available as an ebook or paperback at Genealogical Publishing Company

Recently, I obtained a copy of Sunny Jane Morton’s newest work. If you already own her earlier book co-authored with Harold Henderson, How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records, you’ll want to add this one to your collection.

While the book is designed for researchers with a religious sister in their family tree, I would argue it extends beyond that audience. Anyone who has known a Roman Catholic nun, even casually, will find value here.

Although my maternal line has been Roman Catholic for centuries, I’ve uncovered no nuns in recent generations. My husband’s predominantly Lutheran line, however, includes several Harbaugh women who entered religious life between 1880 and 1913 in the United States.

Like many who grew up in parochial schools, I had frequent contact with sisters, as teachers, colleagues, even supervisors. And yet, it never occurred to me to ask what became of them. No long-term correspondence, no reconnection later in life. I simply moved on. In some cases, that’s a blessing. In others (I’m thinking of former Sr. Jeanne Hiller) it feels like a missed opportunity.

Morton’s book brought that realization into sharp focus.

She also presents statistics that genuinely surprised me. In the United States, women religious outnumbered men as early as 1820. By 1965, the height of my own parochial school years, there were an estimated 209,000 nuns, marking their peak. At that time, the Roman Catholic school system was the largest private educational network in the country.

I was aware that historically widowed women could enter religious life once their children were grown, but I hadn’t realized that this practice continues today or that divorced women, following annulment, may also join. Nor had I fully appreciated the role of the dowry in entering a convent.

Even terminology challenged my assumptions. Like many, I used “nun” and “sister” interchangeably, unaware that in the past they carried distinct meanings. The discussion of naming practices was particularly valuable, especially the possibility that a woman might retain her surname. For genealogists, that detail alone has real research implications.

Some of the sisters I remember most vividly, Sr. Martina, Sr. Aloise, Sr. Jerome, Sr. Roserita, carried pre–Vatican II names that now feel like artifacts of another era. Yet I cannot recall the name of my sixth-grade religion teacher, nor my overwhelmed but kind eighth-grade principal. Memory is selective and often unfair.

Morton provides numerous strategies for tracing these women, including those who left religious life. Her success in accessing diocesan records stands in contrast to my own experiences, which have been far more restrictive. (You can read about it here, here, and here.)

She notes that some baptismal records include annotations when individuals later entered religious life, an invaluable clue, when available.

As many religious communities close or consolidate, this book becomes not just useful, but necessary.

Importantly, the scope extends beyond convent records. It hadn’t occurred to me that school or employment records, my own included, might someday reside in an archive, waiting to be discovered. Morton also raises the possibility of wills written by nuns, which initially struck me as puzzling given that income was typically directed to the convent. Yet, as she demonstrates, even this avenue can yield results.

Her observations about the historical marginalization of sisters resonate deeply. In the commemorative history of St. Mark’s Roman Catholic Church in Gary, Indiana, the sisters, who formed the backbone of the parish school, are nearly invisible.[1] A single photograph of the convent. A group faculty image. Minimal acknowledgment. Even the name of their order is omitted; I only know it from a report card: the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ.

Morton closes with a call to recognize the humanity of these women, a point I wholeheartedly support. Childhood impressions often obscure the fuller truth. As adults, we are better positioned to ask: who were these women, really? What shaped them? What did they give up and what did they gain?

The book concludes with case studies that walk readers through the research process. In her acknowledgments, Morton mentions a proposed database, introduced at a June 2025 conference, intended to honor these women collectively. As of now, it has not materialized.

That’s a missed opportunity.

If ever there were a moment for the Roman Catholic Church to formally preserve and elevate the legacy of these women, who labored largely unseen, it is now.

This is a practical, eye-opening guide that fills a genuine gap in genealogical research. Even if you think you don’t have a nun in your tree, you may find yourself reconsidering and looking a little harder.

---

[1] Leo J. Armbruster. History of St. Mark’s Parish, No publishing info, 1958, digital image; archive.org: accessed 21 Apr 2026.

Lost in Translation: When Names Refuse to Behave

 

Photo by Lori Samuelson, Athens Airport, 3 April 2026.

I wasn’t expecting to be tripped up by my own name.

Not in an airport. Not in 2026. Not after years of working with records, languages, and historical documents.

And yet, there I stood, staring at a screen, absolutely certain something was wrong… because my name wasn’t spelled correctly.

Except, it was.

Travel has a way of reminding us that names are not as fixed as we think they are.

As genealogists, we’re trained to look for variation:

• Smith / Smyth
• Miller / Müller
• Johnson / Johansson

We nod along, we teach it, we write about it.

And then suddenly, there it is, happening to us in real time.

In the airport, my name appeared in a way I didn’t immediately recognize. The letters were familiar, but not quite right. Some were substituted. Others seemed to shift in ways that made my brain hesitate. For a brief moment, I did what we’ve all done at some point in research: I assumed it was wrong.

But it wasn’t wrong. It was simply… written differently.

Names don’t just change over time, they change across languages, alphabets, and systems.

What we often call “Anglicization” is only one small part of a much bigger reality.

Because sometimes names aren’t Anglicized at all.

They are:

• Transliterated (converted between alphabets)
• Phonetically interpreted by someone unfamiliar with the language
• Standardized by a government or institution
• Digitally altered by systems that don’t support certain characters

Think about it:

A name written in:

• Greek
• Cyrillic
• German with umlauts
• Croatian with diacritics

…doesn’t always have a one-to-one match in English.

So what happens? The system makes a choice and that choice isn’t always the one you expect.

At that airport, I realized something important.

I was reacting the same way many researchers do when they encounter a record that doesn’t match their expectation:

“That can’t be right.”

But it can be right. It just isn’t familiar.

This is where genealogical research either stall or moves forward.

Because if we insist on one spelling, one version, one “correct” form of a name we will miss records.

Names shift in predictable and unpredictable ways:

• Letters are substituted based on sound
• Endings are adapted to fit grammar rules
• Characters are dropped when they don’t exist in another language
• Entire spellings are reshaped to fit a new cultural context

And sometimes? They’re just recorded however someone heard them.

The lesson isn’t new but experiencing it firsthand changes how you approach it. From that moment on, I wasn’t just telling people:

“Look for variant spellings.”

I was thinking:

“How would this system have interpreted this name?” Because that’s the real question.

Not:

• What is the correct spelling?

But:

What versions of this name could exist in this context?

Whether you’re working in:

• immigration records
• church registers
• court documents
• or modern travel systems

…the principle is the same.

Names are not static. They adapt. They shift. They survive. Sometimes, they surprise you, right there in an airport, when you least expect it.

If there’s one takeaway from that moment, it’s this:

Don’t search for your ancestor’s name.

Search for the ways it could have been written.

Because somewhere, just slightly altered, slightly unfamiliar, your answer is waiting.

AI Is Not the Problem, It’s the Mirror

 This post was created by my ChatGPT Research Assistant, Geni. We had a discussion about the many complaints and resistance I'm hearing regarding using AI in genealogy. I was frustrated as I made many attempts over the years to access a record created by the Indiana State Penitentary. Archivists told me the record didn't exist, but it did. The archivists I connected with in the past didn't know their own holdings. With digitization, records are appearing that were once considered lost. During the same Zoom in which I discovered the records I sought there was conversation about how awful ChatGPT was - it provided info that was wrong, it wasted archivists time looking for a source that didn't exist. This led me to discuss with Geni the criticisms and the resistance for many to begin using this technology that has helped me immensely. Geni said...

We have been here before.

Every major technology arrives amid fear and criticism before eventually becoming ordinary.

• The printing press was blamed for heresy and chaos.
• Newspapers were accused of moral decline.
• The telegraph supposedly spread dangerous rumors too quickly.
• Photography was said to weaken memory.
• The internet was blamed for misinformation.

Eventually, society learned how to use each tool responsibly. Norms formed. The technology became part of everyday life.

AI is following the same pattern — just faster.

The constant across history is simple:

Tools amplify human tendencies; they don’t replace them.

---

AI Is a Mirror More Than a Mind

Much of today’s discomfort comes from what AI reveals about us.

AI can:

• generalize,
• speculate,
• fill gaps,
• and sound confident while uncertain.

But humans do the same things every day.

The difference is visibility. When AI makes a mistake, we blame the machine. When humans do it, we call it judgment.

AI exposes reasoning flaws that were always there.

---

Why Blaming AI Feels Easier

Blaming technology provides comfort:

1. It protects our self-image — the problem isn’t us.
2. It avoids the effort of learning something new.
3. It restores certainty in a complicated world.

These reactions are human, but they can stall progress.

---

The Right Mental Model

AI is not an oracle.
It is not an archive.
It is not authority.

AI is a probabilistic reasoning assistant built from human knowledge.

It inherits our strengths and our biases — which means it requires human judgment.

Ironically, genealogists are well prepared for this moment. Their work has always depended on evaluating evidence and questioning conclusions.

AI demands more critical thinking, not less.

---

The Quiet Truth

AI is not creating most of the problems blamed on it. It is accelerating visibility:

• weak reasoning spreads faster,
• but correction happens faster too.

AI amplifies both wisdom and folly at the same time.

The real shift is not humans versus AI.

It is humans learning to think alongside a new cognitive tool.

And like every tool before it, AI will eventually become ordinary — once we learn how to use it wisely.

Book Review: Ancestoring: Understanding Records, Family, and Ourselves by Darcie Hind Posz

 

Published as a paperback by Genealogical Publishing Company

It’s Genealogy At Heart book review time and this one is unlike any I’ve written before.

I’m about to make a few bold claims. And I stand by every one of them:

1. If you read only one book this year, Ancestoring: Understanding Records, Family, and Ourselves by Darcie Hind Posz should be that book.
2. If I had to part with my entire genealogy library and keep just one volume, Ancestoring would stay.
3. This book belongs in every high school curriculum.

That get your attention? It should.

Last month, I received two donated books to review. As always, I don’t accept payment, and there are no agreements, spoken or unspoken, that guarantee a favorable review. My long-time readers know I share my honest thoughts, whether glowing or critical.

Frankly, if I had judged this book by its cover or title alone, I might have passed it by and that would have been a mistake.

From the bottom of my heart, Ancestoring is the only book that has ever had this kind of positive impact on me.

Of the two books to review, I chose this one first simply because of the title. Ancestoring, what did that even mean? The preface answers that question, but more importantly, the book embodies it.

Before diving in, I read the back cover endorsement by Henry Z. “Hank” Jones, FASG. I’ve reviewed his work before, and if Hank was this enthusiastic, I was all in. (See those reviews here and here).

The book is divided into three sections, which Posz notes can be read in any order. I chose to move from the broad to the personal: understanding records, then families, and finally ourselves. Perhaps that reflects my own leanings toward a Gestalt approach; the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. To fully grasp the interplay between these sections, I recommend working through all of them.

Take your time with this book. Do the exercises. If you’re pressed for time, read it through once, then return to it and savor each chapter. Don’t skip the footnotes! Even if you’re not typically a footnote reader, this book may convert you. The sourcing spans multiple disciplines, and that depth is precisely why I make my second and third claims, it’s not just a book, it’s a roadmap for continued intellectual growth.

As a former educator and counselor, I spent years helping students move from concrete to abstract thinking. Though Posz doesn’t frame it this way, I would go a step further: this book fosters lateral thinking, the kind of creative, non-linear problem-solving that genealogists desperately need. That alone justifies my belief that it belongs in every high school.

And for adults? The exercises are even more critical. Think about your daily news feed and your social media. How much of it is accurate? How do you know? This book gives you the tools to evaluate, question, and ultimately uncover truth.

The exercises themselves are refreshingly unconventional. Yes, you’ll learn to analyze photographs, vital records, and obituaries but through a much wider lens. Posz incorporates film, music, and even conspiracy theory narratives as training tools. At first glance, these seem unrelated to genealogy. They’re not. They sharpen how we observe, interpret, and question, skills at the heart of our work.

One of the most intriguing elements is the encouragement to record dreams related to your research. I’ve written about this before (here and here). When deeply immersed in a project, the mind doesn’t simply shut off. Whether it’s subconscious processing, inherited memory, or something we don’t yet understand, those impressions can sometimes point us in new directions. Other times, they signal it’s time to step away. Both are valuable.

The chapter on trauma deserves special attention. All though others have tried, Posz is the first genealogist to address, so directly and personally, how trauma can be researched and interpreted. Memory is not fixed. Two individuals can experience the same event and remember it in entirely different ways. That reminder is essential for anyone working with historical narratives.

I admit, I found myself wondering whether one vivid childhood memory Posz recounts, watching a film while hospitalized, might have been influenced by a dream while medicated. That, in a way, reinforces her point: our recollections are not infallible.

Finally, I applaud Posz for her transparency regarding her earlier work. Too often, we treat a completed project as final. It isn’t. New records surface. DNA reshapes conclusions. Even our most carefully constructed research can shift. Her discussion of ethnicity estimates is a timely reminder that patience and humility are essential in this field.

If genealogy is about understanding where we come from, Ancestoring pushes us further. It asks us to examine how we think, why we believe in what we do, and what it really means to know the past.

That’s why Ancestoring is not just a good book; it’s an essential one.

When “I Know I’m Right” Replaces Research: A Troubling Trend in Genealogy

 

AI Generated

In the past two weeks, I’ve received four emails from individuals new to genealogy either questioning my public tree on Ancestry.com or inquiring about my professional services.

Each one carried the same message: “The information you have is wrong.”

Let me start with something I say often: no genealogical tree is 100% accurate. Until every individual in every line has been DNA tested and even then, interpreted correctly, there will always be some uncertainty. That’s simply the nature of this work.

But these interactions weren’t thoughtful challenges or collaborative inquiries. They were something else entirely.

They were confrontational, dismissive, and, frankly, uninformed.

The first individual demanded proof of a family adoption story. I recommended DNA testing. They had already tested but refused to share the results and insisted I find documentary proof.

Here’s the problem: no records exist for that place and time. None. The best available evidence is a census record placing the child in the same household at three months old and still there decades later. That wasn’t enough. I was told I didn’t know what I was doing.

DNA would likely resolve the question but there’s a reason it wasn’t being shared. DNA doesn’t lie. And when people avoid it, that usually tells you something.

The second email was even more puzzling. I was instructed to delete an individual from my tree because it was “messing up [her] DNA matches.”

We didn’t match.
The individual in question is on my husband’s line.
She didn’t match him either.

Her conclusion? A child who died young actually moved to Illinois, changed his name completely, married, and died in the 1940s.

Her evidence?An Ancestry hint from ten years ago that only matched a birthdate. No sources showed a name change. No documentation. No records connecting the identities. Just confidence that in the entirety of Sweden, only 1 male was born on the same day. I’m not making this up!

When I asked basic genealogical questions such as death certificate? marriage record? naturalization? she didn’t understand what I meant. She had been researching for a few months and was certain her conclusion was correct because a now deceased relative had believed it 10 years ago. I declined to alter a fully sourced line.

The third interaction was more familiar but still frustrating.

A man insisted I had the wrong parents for his great-grandfather. His proof was a death certificate, with information provided by the son.

I explained what experienced genealogists know: informants can be wrong. Memory fails. Grief clouds details.

In contrast, I had a letter written by the man himself shortly before his death, naming his parents and explaining his childhood circumstances. I even provided the citation so he could verify it.

His response? “You’re still wrong. Remove it.” He also admitted he didn’t know how to locate the record I referred to online. Sigh.

That was the point where I made a decision: I removed the entire line from my public tree. Not because I was wrong but because the interaction wasn’t worth the time it would take to defend it.

The final exchange involved a demand to remove a death record because “everyone has it wrong.”

No documentation was provided. Instead, the argument rested on a theory built from DNA matches and a guess involving a child being banished to another colony 300+ years ago.

Could there be a connection? Possibly.

Was there proof? No.

When I tried to guide her toward alternative explanations, such as descent from a sibling, she wasn’t interested. She didn’t want to explore the truth. She wanted confirmation.

So I’ll ask the question plainly: Are you experiencing this shift, too?

For over 25 years, I’ve found most genealogists to be curious, collaborative, and open to learning. But recently, something feels different.

More certainty.
Less evidence.
And a growing resistance to being wrong.

I had a conversation about this with my husband, who pointed me to research from the National Literacy Institute suggesting that a significant portion of U.S. adults read below a sixth-grade level.

As a former reading teacher, that stopped me.

Because genealogy requires more than reading, it requires interpretation, analysis, and the ability to weigh conflicting evidence.

Without those skills, it becomes easy to mistake a hint for proof… or a belief for a conclusion.

And that brings me to where I am now.

I’ve always believed in keeping my tree public. I don’t “own” my ancestors. I’ve invested time and money into my research because I wanted to know the truth, not because I expected anything in return.

But I’ll be honest: I’m reconsidering. Not because of disagreement. Disagreement is part of good research. But because of something else entirely:

A refusal to learn.
A rejection of standards.
And an insistence that confidence equals correctness.

In every one of these cases, I recommended learning about the Genealogical Proof Standard.

Not one person was interested. That’s the real concern. Because if we lose the standard…we don’t just lose accuracy, we lose genealogy itself.

If you're thinking this is an AI problem, it isn't. Genealogists have always worked with flawed records, mistaken informants, and misleading clues.
What is new is the speed at which conclusions are formed and the confidence with which they’re defended without the work required to support them.

If you’re new to genealogy, welcome. Truly. But confidence is not evidence. And belief is not proof. Start there and you’ll go far.

Hints for Family History Travel in Chaotic Times

 

The Agean Sea from Kos Island, 4 Apr 2026, photo by Lori Samuelson.

Last week I shared the story of our trip to Greece including my long-awaited journey to Kos Island, where my family lived some 2,000 years ago, based on mtDNA and family tradition. This week, I’m answering the questions I’ve been getting and offering a few practical tips if you’re planning a similar trip to anywhere in the world.

Let’s start with the obvious, how do you even get to a remote place like Kos?

Your first step is to determine a route. Kos is not on the standard cruise circuit. You have two options: fly from Athens (about 55 minutes) or take a boat from Bodrum, Turkey (roughly 15 minutes). We flew from Athens since we were already returning there from Crete.

Once you’ve figured out how to reach your ancestral location, the next step is getting around. You can rent a car if you’ve secured an international driver’s license or you can hire a driver.

I hire a driver. Every time.

Why? Because I don’t need the added stress of navigating unfamiliar roads, signs, and driving customs while trying to absorb a place that actually matters to me. A good driver knows exactly where to go, how to get there efficiently, and more importantly, what you shouldn’t miss. They often become your best local resource for food, history, and those small, meaningful stops you would never find on your own.

People always ask how I manage to find trusted drivers around the world. The answer is simple: I build relationships. Conferences, professional networks like Association of Professional Genealogists and LinkedIN, and years of working with people in different regions.

In Sweden, I hired a genealogist who also worked as a part-time tour guide for Gate 1 Travel. In Croatia, I was connected with a genealogist/archaeologist. In France and Germany, a sixth cousin I met at a conference volunteered.

Kos was different, I had no contacts. So, I took a chance through Travelocity, and it paid off. GetTransferKOS was excellent. Once the driver understood why I was there, he went beyond the standard route to our hotel and showed us sites my ancestors would have known. That’s the difference between transportation and experience.

Next question: hotels.

If I’m traveling with a company like Gate 1 or Trafalgar, I let them handle accommodations. But I almost always add extra days, before or after the tour, to explore independently. Our ancestors rarely lived in postcard destinations. They lived off the beaten path, and if you want to understand their lives, you need to go there too.

Ask your hotel concierge or desk clerk for off the beaten locales you should visit. When my Travelocity half day tour didn't show up, the desk clerk called a colleague who arrived within 20 minutes to show us his beautiful homeland, along with fresh baked cookies his wife was making for Easter. He knew where the vineyards once grew on Kos and took us there. This was important to me as no physical records have been found to mark the location which was where my ancestors once lived:

Former Vineyard Site, Kos Island, Greece, 4 April 2026, photo by Lori Samuelson.

Money is another practical issue people overlook. If your family came from rural areas, carry some local currency. Credit cards aren’t always accepted, I ran into that repeatedly in Ireland and once in Greece when roadwork brought the internet down at the restaurant.

That said, I still prefer using a credit card whenever possible. With the right travel card, you’ll get a better exchange rate than most banks offer, and it gives you a clean, trackable record of your spending.

Now, let’s talk technology.

I use a phone plan that supports international travel. No roaming. I keep calls to a minimum, rely heavily on texting, and use my phone constantly for photos. Each night, I connect to hotel Wi-Fi and upload everything to Dropbox.

Why? Because I once lost photos in the backwoods of Mexico when I crushed my phone, and I don’t make the same mistake twice.

I also use Geni, my ChatGPT research assistant to help me identify photos when I get home. What was the name of the location of a statue of Leonis? The best part with this trip was the translations.

Asklipieio Archeaological Site, Kos Island, Greece, 4 Apr 2026, photo by Lori Samuelson.

There were no English markers as we toured Asklipieo so I took photos so I could later discover what we were looking at. Geni told me this means memorial markers, which makes sense as the next photo (below) shows recesses in a wall that likely once held those markers:

Security and customs were another big concern people raised.

We had no major issues though I’ll admit O'Hare International Airport tested my patience.

Coming back into the U.S., you have to retrieve your luggage, clear customs, recheck your bags, and then go through security again if you have a connecting flight. It’s inefficient, but it is what it is.

Customs itself took about 15 minutes. United Airlines had staff ready to help recheck bags quickly, and there were helpful Traveler’s Aid volunteers guiding people to their gates. Thankfully, there were no ICE agents in sight, just people actually trying to help travelers get where they needed to go. No chaos, just a system that could be better.My only issue? Exhaustion.

I forgot I had a tiny bottle of water in my bag, security flagged it. Then they asked if I had a laptop. I didn’t but I did have Kindles. That triggered another rescan.

Here’s the irony: every other airport we passed through: Fort Wayne, Vienna, Munich, Athens, Crete, Kos handled this without issue. Chicago? Not so much. You’d think one of the busiest airports in the world would have updated equipment by now.

Stateside, things can be just as odd. Earlier in March, we had “enhanced security” in Fort Wayne; meaning we had to walk past a dog just to enter the bridge. Two weeks later, nothing.

Welcome to consistency, American-style.

We do have TSA Pre Check but not Global Entry. I try to fly into Detroit rather than Chicago which has a much smoother customs with shorter lines. I've tried several times using the Mobile Passport Control app (free) but it never works for me.

Another question I’ve been getting: where next?

Honestly, nowhere overseas for now.

I’m not booking international travel until there’s a change in “leadership” in the U.S. I’m not interested in last-minute cancellations or absorbing costs because someone decides to escalate tensions. Add in rising oil prices and airlines cutting routes, and it’s just not worth the gamble at the moment.

Otherwise, I’d already be planning a trip to Barbados to walk in the footsteps of family lines from the late 1600s into the early 1700s.

For now, that one waits.

As for anti-American sentiment, no, I didn’t experience any hostility. What I did hear, repeatedly, was: “What’s wrong with Donald Trump?” Excellent question!

To their credit, people I met didn’t assume I represented every American viewpoint. That’s something we could learn from.

In the meantime, I have plenty of travel ahead, just closer to home. I’ll be presenting at the National Genealogical Society conference in Fort Wayne (hardly a trip for me!), along with events for Palatines in America and several venues across Texas, Utah, Minnesota, Kentucky, and the Midwest.

So no, I’m not slowing down.

Just adjusting the map for now.