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I've been doing genealogy long enough to know that not everyone is excited to learn about pedigree collapse in their own family tree. It can feel uncomfortable, even alarming, the first time you spot it - two lines on your pedigree chart that should stay separate, quietly merging into the same ancestor. But here's the thing every genealogist eventually learns: pedigree collapse isn't a scandal. It's math. What Pedigree Collapse Actually Is In theory, your family tree doubles

While tracing the experiences of Jewish families in Germany during the Nazi era, I repeatedly encountered references to suicide shortly before deportation orders were carried out.

Fountain Creek, near Pinon, Colorado, along the old Cherokee Trail, with Pikes Peak in the background. This location is near Independence Camp and the early Benesch Ranch. June 2026. One of the greatest joys of historical research is finding someone who knows the land as well as the records. Recently, I had the privilege of spending a day with a new friend, Nancy Prince, whose roots run deep in Pueblo County. Her family descends from early Czech immigrants who settled along F

Glen Eyrie Lodge, Colorado Springs. House of William Jackson Palmer after remodel by Peabody and Stearns. c1885. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glen_Eyrie_Lodge,_Colorado_Springs,_1885.jpg As genealogists, we often focus on dates, places, and relationships. Occasionally, however, a name itself becomes a clue. Such is the case with Philip Weidemaier's son-in-law, Glen Eyrie Martin, born in 1887. The name immediately caught my attention. Today, Glen Eyrie is one of Col

"National Archives Record Group 28: Records of the Post Office Department," database with images, National Archives (nationalarchives.gov : accessed 8 June 2026), NAID: 68244688, image 474 of 910. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/68244688?objectPage=474 Most residents of Fountain know that their community takes its name from nearby Fountain Creek. What many may not realize is that before Fountain became the town we know today, the little settlement was

Evergreen Cemetery (Colorado Springs, Colorado), Philip Weidemaier (1862-1907), Mary L. Weidemaier (1867-1961), Glen E. Martin (1887-1971), Hazel W. Martin (1891-1970), and John M. Diebold (1909-1969) monument inscription. When most people walk through a cemetery, they see names and dates. Genealogists see questions. Recently, I found myself standing before the gravestone of Philip Weidemaier in Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. The stone appeared straightforward enough

Standing quietly above the Arkansas River valley, historic Swallows Cemetery preserves the memory of the families who helped shape this early southern Colorado community. Last week, I happened upon a small historic cemetery near Pueblo West quite by accident. Nestled quietly among the rolling hills and prairie grasses, the cemetery overlooked the blue waters of Pueblo Reservoir. It was peaceful, beautiful, and seemingly untouched by time. I stopped simply because I was curiou

There are evenings when genealogy feels almost miraculous. . . . And yet, some days, I end my research feeling less like a historian and more like a reluctant computer technician.

It’s one thing to read about a route on a map; it’s another to realize that the ground outside your door once carried wagons, families, and the daily uncertainties of westward movement, and that someone wrote it down as it happened.

In 1879, Charles Friskey was living in Colorado City when he died of typhoid fever. Like many genealogical questions, what seemed at first to be a straightforward search for a burial place has turned into something far more complex.

After three years of online study, I have reached a milestone that once felt very far away—I have graduated from Brigham Young University–Idaho with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Elk Mountain began as a stagecoach stop along the Overland Trail . . .

"Cliff was shaking pecans out of the trees for the pickers to sack and sell in Blackwell, Kay County, Oklahoma."

A message appeared in my Ancestry mailbox from a writer explaining that his great-grandfather, William Michael Ladney, was born in 1915 in Brooklyn, New York. His original surname was Ladkany.

A delightful message landed in my Ancestry inbox from a woman who had come across an old newspaper article mentioning members of the Melick family in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. She thoughtfully passed it along to Melick researchers like me. How kind of her to take a few extra minutes to do that.

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