• Ancestry in Eastern Kentucky

    Just over two years ago, I took a DNA test to figure out anything I could about who my father’s biological family were. (He had been adopted at birth, a fact we always knew and my grandparents were open about, though they had never been given any information about his biological family or origins). Two years (and much research) later, I found myself on a plane late one night in late August to Lexington, Kentucky. The next morning, we drove two and a half hours east to an isolated, rural, very hilly area. It was green, with winding roads that twisted and turned, revealing interesting panoramas of hilly landscape and…

  • A Summer (Nearly) Gone

    This month has been a mixed bag as far as months go. I began the month with family, spending the week of the fourth of July working and watching the neighbors put on an impossibly long, loud and undoubtedly expensive fireworks show.   Week one: Fourth of July There’s something about the Fourth of July that always sneaks up on me. I am usually still in that early-summer haze, where I can scarcely believe that I can actually go outside without wearing a jacket, when suddenly, boom! (literally, boom, bang, crack), it’s Independence Day, and everyone is setting off fireworks and roasting s’mores and boating on the lake. I spent…