Seven Tips for Researching Family Heritage

When I was writing my historical novel Brookhaven, I initially relied upon two main sources – the records of births and deaths in the old family Bible, and the charts and genealogical lines in the Family Search web site. 

My ancestors in Mississippi served as the approximate inspiration for the McClure family in the novel. I borrowed many of the first names outright from the family Bible. I borrowed one name wholesale, to remind me of what I almost missed.

 

The Bible records mentioned the death of a Jarvis Seale in 1862. It didn’t mention birth, marriage, or anything else about the man. Some research in Family Search told me who he was – the husband of a great-great aunt. He was the only in-law included in the Bible records. The Family Search information only had the relationship reference and date of death. I still didn’t know what my great-grandfather had included him when others had been left out. Another web site, Find-A-Grave, showed his monument stone in a small-town cemetery in north Texas, which really made no sense.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: A page of records from the family Bible.

“Gravely Concerned” by Rhys Dylan

It begins with a funeral. DCI Evan Warlow of the Wales Police is attending the funeral of his ex-wife, Denise, who’d died from complications of alcoholism. His two sons are there, one traveling all the way from Australia. The relationships are uneasy; much of the family had been splintered because of the divorce and Denise’s drinking problem. Then Warlow’s phone buzzes. 

A six-year-old boy has vanished from his family’s home. His mother and sister had been distracted with a fire at an adjoining property. The fire was extinguished, but the boy was gone. It isn’t just that there are few clues; absolutely no clues can be found anywhere. The fire department determines that the fire had been deliberately set. It appears it was staged to facilitate a kidnapping.

 

Rhys Dylan

Gravely Concerned is the fifth in the DCI Evan Warlow series by Welsh writer Rhys Dylan. The story is compacted into less than 24 hours, and it’s told to show how Warlow and his team move from zero clues and motive to ultimate resolution. 

 

Dylan has published 19 novels in the DCI Evan Warlow series, of which Suffer the Dead is the fourth. A native Welshman educated in London, Dylan wrote numerous books for children and adults under various pen names across several genres. He began writing the DCI Warlow series in 2021. He lives in Wales.

Dylan fills Gravely Concerned with tension, relieved by the police team’s camaraderie and the humor it engenders. He also allows the reader to know some of what’s happened, which cleverly both relives and adds to the tension. This is a story of every parent’s nightmare, told well and expertly. 

Related: 

The Engine House by Rhys Dylan.

Caution: Death at Work by Rhy Dylan. 

Ice Cold Malice by Rhys Dylan.

Suffer the Dead by Rhy Dylan.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Novel Wisdom and Epic Truth – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Defense of the Upper Chesapeake: Maryland’s First Trial in the Revolutionary War – Drew Palmer at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The West’s Strange Genius – Michael Jensen at Lost Arts.

 

‘Feminine Hands’: The Hidden History of Women in Medieval Book Culture – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Aleksandr Solzhenitzen: “We Have Ceased to See the Purpose” – Daniel Sundahl at The Imaginative Conservative.

Not only our work

After Leviticus 2:1-2 

We offer not only

our work to the Lord,

we are to offer

the best of our work,

not the grain

but the flour,

flour with oil

poured on it,

with frankincense

the offering becomes

a rite, a handful

taken with the oil,

burned as 

a memorial to the Lord,

pleasing in its aroma,

given from the heart.

 

Photograph by Nick Hawkins via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

On Praying Psalm 130 – poem by Joel Kurz at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

8 Things Caregivers Should Know About Dementia – Gaye Clark at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Faithful Churches Can Rescue Cities – Greg Morse at Desiring God.

Saturday Good Reads – March 14, 2026

Forty years ago, I was taking a course called “The Nature of Story,” and one of the books we read was Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It. Only 10 years old at the time, it was deservedly already a classic, and it would eventually be made into a movie with Brad Pitt, Tom Skerrit and Brenda Blethyn (who became Vera the detective on PBS Masterpiece Mystery).  The novel has just turned 50 years old, and Brandon McNeice at Front Porch Republic has a reflection. 

You may not know the name Philo Farnsworth, but he invented what was likely the most influential technology of the 20^th century – the television. In 1921, when he was 14 years old, he realized how images might be transmitted through electric current. And the rest, as they say, is history. Jason Clark at This Is the Day has a retrospective.

 

At Mere Orthodoxy, Nadya Williams interviews Mark Graham about his new book. The subject – the history of Christianity told in 30 key moments. 

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution by Chris Mackowski – review by Kelsey DeFord at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Have You Seen the First Declaration? – Michael Auslin at Patowmack Packet.

 

Pontiac, taxes and mobs: The American colonists battle Parliament – Keli Holt.

 

The Siege of Boston, General Washington, and Phillis Wheatley – Patrick Hastings at Library of Congress Blog.

 

Isaiah Thomas and the Declaration of Independence – Sherman Lohnes at the Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Glories of Small Towns – K.E. Colombini at Front Porch Republic.

 

George Washington’s Warning About Religion Still Matters – Andrew Fowler at Real Clear Religion.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Misfits and Moral Injury: Why Shusaku Endo Matters Today – Brian Volck at Church Life Journal.

 

Wrestling Coach Bets on Tolstoy and Dante to Save the Classics – and Young Men – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Life and Culture

 

Science Has a Big Fraud Problem – Joe Nocera at The Free Press.

 

The Celtic Mind: How Adam Smith and Edmund Burke Saved Western Civilization – Bradley Birzer.

 

Iran

 

Two Days Over Iran – Michael Smith at Unlicensed Punditry.

 

Who’s That Source? Iran Edition – Jillian Butler at Racket News.

 

The Blood Libel Comes to Iran – Michael Oren at Clarity.

 

Jeffrey Sachs Is Trying to Fix The New York Times’ Coverage, One Email at a Time – Emily Kopp at Racket News.

 

Iran Can’t Hold the World Hostage – Matthew Continetti at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked).

 

Faith

 

All the Stars We Never See – Even Patrohay at Front Porch Republic.

 

American Stuff

 

Framing History: ‘I could not die in a cause more sacred’ – Melissa Winn at Emerging Civil War.

 

Poetry

 

“Two Sewing,” poem by Hazel Hall – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Learning by Poetry: Dans la Nuit – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“The Homestead,” poem by Joseph Bottum – A.M. Juster and Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

I’m With You – Mari Frangoulis

Painting: Woman with Romance Novel, oil on canvas by Johann Baptist Reiter (1813-1890).

An offering from work

After Leviticus 1:1-4 

Work is that

five-day thing,

left behind

on the weekend

when we rest,

when we relax,

when we worship.

But not left

behind exactly,

because we’re

instructed to bring

our work, the fruits

of our work,

to worship, given

as an offering

to the Lord. 

Knowing it is

an offering

changes what

we understand

work to be.

 

Photograph by Josh Boot via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“God’s Indignation,” poem by Commodianus – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

Life with the Machines – Ian Harber at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

In the Desert of the Heart – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

“Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us,” hymn by Dorothy Ann Thrupp – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Growing Power of Willful Ignorance – Seth Lewis.

Poets and Poems: Seth Wieck and "Call Out Coyote"

We lived in Texas for five years. My job had me traveling all over the United States, but our home was in Houston. Texas is a big state, so we became familiar with only parts of it – southeast Texas, East Texas, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, the border area near McAllen, and South Padre Island. I had to travel several times to West Texas, flying into Midland and then traipsing all over the Permian Basin oil country to write stories. Later I would become familiar with the Hill Country southwest of San Antonio.  

One area I never visited was the Panhandle. I’d read about it, intrigued by an eccentric millionaire named Stanley Marsh 3 (not the third) who’d had the Cadillac Ranch sculpture erected along Route 66 near Amarillo. It’s High Plains country. Wheat is grown there, as are corn, soybeans, and cotton. Historically, it’s been a major source of natural gas.

 

Its geography and people form the backdrop of Call Out Coyote: Poems, the new (and first) poetry collection by Seth Wieck. I don’t say this lightly, but this collection is a marvel of language and love for a geography and its people. I was enraptured.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“To Keep a True Lent,” poem by Robert Herrick and “We Like March,” poem by Emily Dickinson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Getting a feeling for the music of a poem – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

A Street Named Terpsichore

A flat tire introduced me

to the sirens and their mother.

Before I knew Terpsichore

as a muse or the mother of sirens,

I knew her as a street, relatively

residential, nineteenth century

homes, called shotgun houses, 

stringing each room in succession,

front to back, because properties 

were taxed on width, not depth.

Imagine a street of homes,

sometimes duplexes, with

living room-bedroom-bathroom-

bedroom-dining room-kitchen-

back porch, a long house shaped

the like barrel of a shotgun.

 

Terpsichore had sister streets, all

comprising the Faubourg Lafayette

and Lower Garden District of

the Big Easy. You walked streets

named Erato, Calliope, Clio,

Thalia, Melpomene, Euterpe,

Polymnia, and Urania, and 

Terpsichore (of course),collectively

issuing their siren calls to come

home. My personal favorite was 

Erato, named for the poetry muse,

because I had a flat tire in a station

wagon on the interstate right

at the St. Charles Avenue exit,

and I guided our car full of teenagers

bound for the French Quarter down

the exit ramp, carefully, parking 

on a street named Erato. I fixed 

the flat, not knowing that decades 

later, that Erato and her mother

Terpsichore would remind me

of a flat tire.

 

Tweetspeak Poetry has a prompt this week, involving the muses and their siren songs. 

 

Photograph: A shotgun duplex on Terpsichore Street in New Orleans.