From Paper To People
87 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★ - 55 ratingsTake your ancestors from names on paper to multidimensional people who lived, breathed, loved, lost, and helped you to be who you are. Benefit from 40+ years of experience in folklore, history, genealogy, law, and tools of FamilySearch, Ancestry, Newspapers.com and more. I learn from my many mistakes, I teach from those lessons. I interview genealogists and authors. I discuss Reparational Genealogy - how Anglo- or European-American researchers can assist African-American researchers in restoring connections destroyed by centuries of chattel slavery. I even give recipes from ancestral meals in the Family Cookbook episodes. And if YOU want to be interviewed, let me know!
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Episodes
The Family Cookbook: Deep Fried Biscuits and Homemade Apple Butter
April 06, 2022 22:14 - 13 minutes - 13.5 MBToday's episode is a Family Cookbook episode that I've wanted to make for quite a while. It features two of my favorite foods from the area where I went to college (and where MANY of my ancestors lived for over a century) - Deep Fried Biscuits and Homemade Apple Butter, from Indiana. See the shownotes for the recipes. The part of the apple butter recipe that fascinates me is that my mother's mother would have gone through all of the boiling and sealing of jars as a child and teenager, basic...
BioADay2022 - Wiley Franklin Odom
February 01, 2022 06:42 - 12 minutes - 12.3 MBHere's another biography I developed on my quest to achieve one biography per day on my platform of choice, FamilySearch. With each ancestor, I always start with the auto-generated Life Story on Ancestry, copy it and paste it in the LifeStory field on FamilySearch. Then, I augment it with facts from census, vital, and other records, along with a little logical deduction thrown in for good measure. As I did before, I will read you the original from Ancestry and the final product on FamilySear...
News Bulletin! 4 Free African American Genealogy Seminars in February!
January 21, 2022 08:35 - 2 minutes - 3.24 MBThis February is going to be on fire with four Saturday Zoom seminars, ABSOLUTELY FREE OF CHARGE: Dr Shelley Viola Murphy's "African American Genealogy Challenges," Angela Y Walton-Raji's "Researching African/Native American Genealogy," "African American Genealogy Research in the North Carolina Portion of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor" with Renate Yarborough-Sanders, and finally, a preview of the IAAM Center for Family History presented by Dr Shelley Viola Murphy and Toni Car...
BioADay2022 - Calvin Walker
January 19, 2022 09:31 - 20 minutes - 21.3 MBHave you ever set a goal or {shudder} made a New Year's Resolution, and then not kept it? Yeah, you're allowed to look at me and point on that one. I am a terrible offender. But this year, I don't have a goal, or a resolution, I just have a hashtag. A THING, if you will. And that thing is - #BioADay2022. I am working hard to write a bio, little or big, for an ancestor, every day, for the year. And if I don't make one per day, no big deal - I'll just keep on trying. The podcast helps hold me...
Family Cookbook - Cheesecake Past, Cheesecake Present, Cheesecake Future
January 12, 2022 06:07 - 18 minutes - 18.6 MBHappy New Year, and welcome back to the post-champagne life! I have three recipes for you today, and each will appease your cheesecake cravings in different ways. The first is a traditional recipe from my mother's mother. The second is a Ricotta Cheesecake (or Ricotta Pie) from a local real estate agent, AnnaLisa Bossio. The last is one of my own creation that is small yet flexible, and can be made to suit many different allergies or special diets. Listen, bake, and enjoy! You can join my F...
Get Lost, 2021 - Hello, #BioADay2022!
December 29, 2021 15:24 - 14 minutes - 13.6 MB2021 is definitely in the running for my least favorite year EVER! It has given me reason to reexamine what I'm doing, however, both with the podcast and with my own work. Join me for a list of thank-you's, and for an introduction of the quickest, easiest solution I've found so far to distractions, brick walls, and the genealogy blues - #BioADay2022. Let's join together to hold one another accountable as we actively learn more about our ancestors by generating and augmenting short (as in, 2-...
Skelly Rellies 2021: Bad to the Bone
October 30, 2021 15:02 - 35 minutes - 32.4 MBIt's that time of year again - Happy Halloween, and Happy All Saints' Day too! This episode is full of delicious stories and delicious recipes. Dai Davies of GenealCymru and Andrew Martin of Family Histories Podcast contributed their own stories to the episode, as have I. I'm also providing you family and historical recipes for chocolate orange bars, apple crisp, apple cake, burnt butter icing, and three different kinds of pumpkin pies or tarts. Join me, Andrew, Dai, and assorted ghosts and ...
Skelly Rellies, Jeffreys and Consecration, Oh My!
September 20, 2021 07:00 - 4 hours - 12.5 MBI have three things on my mind today, and all opportunities for sharing and growth: Share an mp3 recording of an ancestor's story that you think is interesting, unique, creepy, or fun! I will edit it into the Halloween, Skelly Rellies episode of the podcast. Soft deadline is October 15, hard deadline is October 20. Don't be a Jeffrey, part #9,237 - there's been some jackery-peggery and we need to nip that stuff in the bud. Learn, teach, and serve the community by consecrating your talents...
A Zoom Class, Simulcast on Clubhouse!
August 31, 2021 13:25 - 4 hours - 5.81 MBAt long last, a proper Zoom class! I'm holding my first class on September 5, 2021 at 3pm ET - cleaning trees in Ancestry, and the basics of FamilySearch, in order to get moving on transferring reparational trees (for those who want this service). If you attend, you'll learn a lot of basics FOR FREE. If you're LDS, we need you all the more - only LDS Church members have the capacity to transfer trees, and there are people who really would like to utilize this service. Time to put your resear...
My DAR Patriots, July 4th and Me
July 04, 2021 12:06 - 12 minutes - 11.5 MBIt's July 4th, and I'm feeling reflective about what patriotism means to me. I'm discussing my Patriot ancestors, the 29 (or so) men who participated in, or supported, the American Revolution. What I've found is that patriotism isn't as simple as it seems. Please join me. NEW: I'm on Clubhouse @ancestorsalive. You can join my Facebook group by visiting this page for the link. Please follow my YouTube channel here - I will be doing more videos face to face, and perhaps even some live, wit...
All About Blogs with Lisa Lisson
June 06, 2021 10:29 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBHave you ever wondered what it takes to have a genealogy blog? Whether amateur or professional, blogging is a great way not only to publish family information, but to find information from others. Lisa Lisson, author of the "Are You My Cousin?" blog, stopped by for a chat last year and told me all about it. Listen in and learn why blogging is good for your work, platforms, content, publication to social media, the use of mailing lists, and blogs that Lisa herself reads. She has a lot of terr...
The Family Cookbook - Things That Go On, With, Or Next To Things
May 28, 2021 16:00 - 10 minutes - 9.24 MBIsn't it high time for a 2021 episode of The Family Cookbook? I think so, and not just because it's grilling time in the Northern Hemisphere! I'd love to interview you about your family's foodways, but in the absence of your recipes, here are four of my maternal grandmother's: Pepper Hash, Chutney, Sweet Watermelon Pickles, and Crisp Cabbage Relish. Serve these up at your next barbecue, or when grilling for the family. They come from the kitchen of a well-traveled Omaha, Nebraska girl! You ...
Patreon Updates Announcement
May 25, 2021 04:00 - 5 minutes - 4.68 MBFirst, a big welcome and thank you to Lorraine Anderson, Jenna Robertson, Jeanne Arp, Margaret Eves, and Charles Andrews! Some things are changing at my Patreon - there are new quarterly loyalty rewards in some categories, and I am dropping the $1 and $2/mo support levels. From June 1 on, the lowest support level for the podcast will be $5. Please support me - we have monthly giveaways as well as those loyalty gifts! You can join my Facebook group by visiting this page for the link. Plea...
An Interview with Michael W Twitty, part 2
May 22, 2021 01:46 - 49 minutes - 45.2 MBFinally, part two of my January 2021 interview with Michael Twitty, in which we talk much more about food than we did in the first half. We start by discussing how genealogy is a part of becoming whole, which enables us to be of service in this world. Then, we talk about how food isn't just food. There are revelations about fufu. Michael makes all kinds of links between foods from the African continent and Southern cuisine, and even finds the origins of dance movements in cooking and war. He...
An Interview with Michael W Twitty, part 1
February 20, 2021 20:14 - 39 minutes - 36.6 MBI don't know how to introduce this - I GOT TO INTERVIEW MICHAEL TWITTY!!! </fangirling> We talked for so long that I was able to break the discussion into two episodes. This is part one, in which we talk DNA and how it doesn't serve Black researchers, writing as a protection of memory the ultimate smallness of the world, human interconnectedness, and many aspects of Blackness as they relate to power and powerlessness - ultimately, finding the power in self-knowledge, including the ugly stuf...
Promo - An Interview with Michael W Twitty
February 10, 2021 04:52 - 8 minutes - 7.94 MBI cannot believe my sheer luck in getting the opportunity to interview Michael W Twitty! Well, luck and a year of trying. The man is BUSY. In 2017, Michael published a watershed book called The Cooking Gene. It's an amazing work of research - into folklore, into genealogy, into history, and deeper into his career of choice, Southern foodways and their connection to Africa. This is a sneeky peek into the nature of our conversation, which was almost two hours long and which I am editing into ...
Your Family and the WWII Homefront - Audience Participation Time!
December 15, 2020 17:45 - 12 minutes - 11 MBTwitter bots attacked my account and I can't get in, so I have a new one - fppppodcast. Yeah, I reported a fascist and BAM! So, THAT happened. Otherwise, I want all of 2021 to be audience participation time. Please join me with your family stories about life on the homefront during World War II. No matter where you're from, I want to hear how your family dealt with radical life changes, deprivation, and even loss of family members - we need to learn from their strength and sacrifice in this...
Announcement - Record Family Holidays on Zoom!
November 24, 2020 22:37 - 5 minutes - 5.17 MBThis is not an episode so much as an announcement: it's holiday time and that means it's time for taking folklore! But, with the increased need to stay home and separate, and with more people than ever relying on devices and video chat to communicate with family, why not see this as an opportunity to use Zoom.us to not only communicate, but to record family members telling stories? Look to your elders. Show photos. Ask questions. Find out everything that you can NOW, while the focus is on fa...
Skelly Rellies 2020! trying again...
November 06, 2020 05:45 - 51 minutes - 47.3 MBYes it's Halloween, but we're not really getting scary with it - maybe a little spoopy, but more misty. And hungry. This episode has stories, a few laughs, a few recipes, and is a tribute to YOU - my audience - for sticking with me since January 2018. Next year, maybe you'll contribute a story or a recipe yourself? In the meantime, listen and enjoy as the stories I collected LAST year finally get an airing. Stay safe, and stay spoopy, my pumpkins. Wash your hands, mask up, and stay at home, ...
Skelly Rellies 2020!
October 31, 2020 03:13 - 51 minutes - 47.3 MBYes it's Halloween, but we're not really getting scary with it - maybe a little spoopy, but more misty. And hungry. This episode has stories, a few laughs, a few recipes, and is a tribute to YOU - my audience - for sticking with me since January 2018. Next year, maybe you'll contribute a story or a recipe yourself? In the meantime, listen and enjoy as the stories I collected LAST year finally get an airing. Stay safe, and stay spoopy, my pumpkins. Wash your hands, mask up, and stay at home, ...
Skelly Rellies is Coming - SEND ME YOUR RECIPES!
October 27, 2020 15:55 - 2 minutes - 1.93 MBDo you have family recipes that pertain to the Autumn, or to Halloween itself? I'd love to read them out in our upcoming Halloween episode, Skelly Rellies! Just send me the name of the person who made the recipe, why it's important to you or your family, and the text of the recipe itself. I'll read it into the episode, with full credit to you and yours. You can join my Discord server and Facebook group by visiting this page for links. Please follow my YouTube channel here - I will be doing...
Interview with Brian Sheffey about AncestryDNA
July 25, 2020 03:31 - 1 hour - 66.4 MBThis episode is super-sized, because the topic is that important: racism in genealogy and the new AncestryDNA policy that will eliminate all matches below 8cM for all users. I mention the multiple hacks and security breaches on genealogy and DNA websites within the past week, too. But more than anything, this episode allows my cousin, Brian Sheffey, to discuss his experience with multi-ethnic DNA matches and finding evidence of the identities of white ancestors among free black and enslaved ...
The Conversation in Specifics - Black Lives Matter in Genealogy, Too
July 04, 2020 02:03 - 24 minutes - 22.2 MBThis is the soundtrack of the YouTube video I released on June 10th, combined with some further explanations and discourse in reference to Reparational Genealogy. It contains challenges to White American genealogists to use social media platforms to start to publicize the facts about their slaveholding ancestors. For those White American genealogists whose ancestors didn't enslave, there are questions to answer, and the same challenge to be met, concerning the truth of how our post-Civil War...
Hygienealogy and Scaffolding in the Time of COVID
April 16, 2020 01:47 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBThe world is upside down, and even those of us who work from home are a bit, shall we say, off. I know that I am having trouble with concentrating. Are you? Today is an off-the-cuff episode. I'm discussing my solutions for the problem of being distracted and worried while needing to stay involved with my volunteer and personal genealogical work. I'm engaging in hygienealogy and scaffolding. Listen, then let me know how you're handling your family history and genealogical research in the time...
The Family Cookbook - Keep it Sweet for COVID
March 26, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 12.7 MBAre your kids bored with homeschooling yet? How about some good, old-fashioned Home Ec! Were you required to take Home Economics in order to graduate? I may be dating myself, but I was. We had to learn how to cook, and one of the best lessons was making candy. My mom had it even better - she grew up in a household where making candy was a part of the family's culinary tradition. Some of these recipes go back to my great-grandmother, at least one goes to my grandmother's friend Mrs. Tully, an...
The Family Cookbook - Comfort Foods for COVID
March 21, 2020 09:28 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBWell, the landscape has changed a lot since my last episode! I hope that you are well, healthy and stocked and sheltering safely, not worrying about your kin. Today I have some comfort food recipes from my mother and grandmother. We're starting with an apple cake with cream cheese frosting (because on sick days, we can start with dessert), and then we're going Tex-Mex with chili enchiladas, followed by Anglo-American with chicken and Yorkshire pudding. All three of these are pretty easy to m...
George P Penn - A Little Weekend Hygienealogy
March 06, 2020 10:54 - 16 minutes - 15.5 MBThis episode is both a video and the soundtrack of that video. Normally, my videos are for Patreon subscribers only, but I thought that this quick little how-to about verifying qualifying patriots for the Daughters of the American Revolution, cleaning up their profiles in Ancestry, and using pixlr.com to make each one a unique profile photo would be interesting to a lot of people. But please, if you find value in this podcast, support me for a few dollars a month at patreon.com/ancestorsali...
Folklore with My Father
February 17, 2020 21:13 - 25 minutes - 23.6 MBJoin me in welcoming Katie Andrews Potter as the newest Root-level supporter on Patreon. She's getting a logo shot glass in May! You can join her with monthly support for all of my work at patreon.com/ancestorsalive. Back in October, I had a chat with my dad. I took a few stories from him as we discussed the differences between our childhoods. He gave me some facts, some opinions, and we discussed the importance of discretion in utilizing folklore. My dad's a brilliant and funny guy, so I h...
New Year's News Update
February 02, 2020 01:36 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MBI took a little hiatus so I could get some research done for clients, but I'm back and ready to rock! Let's have a little check in on my new paid services, a few things I think are noteworthy in this new year, and some actions we can all take to hold FamilySearch, Facebook and Ancestry accountable for some unexplained service issues. Time to get LOUD! Oh, and Happy New Year! Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast provider, at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H, at facebook.com/AncestorsAl...
Goodbye 2019, Hello 2020!
December 30, 2019 03:54 - 11 minutes - 10.6 MBIt's been a year, you know? Like, a YEAR. In fact, this has been Year 2 of From Paper To People, and it saw some successes as well as some...shortcomings. This is my chance to mull over what worked and where I fell short, and to thank all of the people who have supported the podcast with reviews, participation, or through Patreon support. I also discuss what's coming in 2020. CLINK! Happy New Year! Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast provider, at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H, at ...
Reparational Genealogy for the Individual in 2020
December 15, 2019 01:33 - 13 minutes - 12 MBWelcome to our newest Patreon patron, Melissa McPherson, who is supporting at the Branch level! I'm not much for New Year's resolutions, but I have a lot on my mind as we close out 2019. Highest on the list is this question: How do we participate fully in Reparational Genealogy? I've had a lot of people ask me that question, but until this moment, I think that my answers have been inadequate. Today I'm making my appeal for a practical means of participating in getting your enslavers' names o...
The Family Cookbook - The USCIS Rule and the Post-Thanksgiving Recipes
December 06, 2019 16:46 - 19 minutes - 17.9 MBFirst, we welcome a new Patreon patron, Linda Sparks, and announce that the podcast is now available on Deezer! And of course, this episode is about food and carrying current or new traditions forward for future generations, but first, we have some business to take care of. Did you know that the Federal agency in charge of immigration records here in the United States is proposing a rule that would increase document search and delivery fees by up to 492%? Yeah, I was pretty horrified too. Fo...
My Interview on Genealogy Adventures
October 17, 2019 07:00 - 1 hour - 60.1 MBAre you familiar with Genealogy Adventures? You should be. They are two cousins (both cousins of mine, actually) who interview different guests about different topics on a weekly basis. This is the audio of our Sunday, October 13th interview about Reparational Genealogy, and we had a lot of fun while having some serious discussions, as well.You can find them on Facebook at facebook.com/genealogyadventuresusa, where this video is available and where the Facebook Live transmission was SUPPOSED...
October Announcements
October 12, 2019 00:25 - 3 minutes - 3.57 MBI have three quick announcements, all of which are time sensitive, so hey, why not make a quick episode of them? Tune in to watch me be interviewed on Sunday the 13th on Facebook Live, add one of my new Facebook Profile Photo Frames to your photo on FB, and be sure to submit a Skelly Relly recording for the Halloween episode by Saturday, October 26th. Join in the fun! Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast provider, at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H, at facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGene...
Naming Babies from Your Tree, aka Don't Make Your Baby Hate You
October 08, 2019 11:15 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MBMormons, do you have nine 1st cousins, all of whom are named Brigham? Non-Mormons, are you considering Kayden, Jayden, Rayden and iPod as names for your next child? STOP THE MADNESS! Follow your family history pied piper and I will lead you to consider some better sources for baby names. Well, one better source: your own family history. Genealogy can help you to get to know your ancestors in so many ways, but none is more satisfying than naming a child for an ancestor, and then telling that ...
The Family Cookbook - My Saucy Grandma
September 26, 2019 02:09 - 18 minutes - 16.9 MBMy mother's mother, Ga, was a quiet, staid woman. She was peaceful, smiling, a model DAR and Midwestern sorority sister. But underneath it all...she was SAUCY. In this episode, I'll give you some of my grandmother's "International" sauce recipes (because sauce was a staple on her dinner table), and the reasons why I think her self-written attempts at international cuisine reveal a bit about who she was and the time and place that produced her. Please rate and review the podcast on your podc...
Share Your Skelly Rellies!
September 15, 2019 22:25 - 3 minutes - 3.63 MBIt's almost Halloween, my favorite time of year, and that means it's time for stories about your Skelly Rellies! This is your opportunity to be on the podcast without worrying about a full interview - just record a family story on your phone and send it to me at [email protected]. I'll edit it together with the others I receive and we'll have us an episode all about listeners' ancestors. Don't be scared, there's nothing to it! At any time of day, from anywhere in the world, y...
What If Ancestry Takes Out a Loan - Being Prepared
August 16, 2019 21:15 - 15 minutes - 13.8 MBDon't be alarmed, but I'm about to alarm you. A little. Well, I'm going to make you think a bit, anyway. Nothing will happen tomorrow, but it sounds like Ancestry's parent company, Permira Advisers LLP, is willing to take out a very risky loan in order to fund a move that would denude Ancestry of $900 million. Yikes. I learned this from an article in Bloomberg, which you can read for yourself and assess: Ancestry.com Owners Aim to Extract $900 Million Payout With Loan. I was fueled by concer...
What's Going On...
August 02, 2019 23:58 - 10 minutes - 9.23 MBSo, have you been wondering where the heck I've been? In 2018 I was publishing weekly, yet I seem to have dropped off the podcasting Earth in 2019. I'm here to give you the reasons why, in hopes that we can hang together as I repair and resume work on the podcast. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast provider, at https://apple.co/2MLZW4H, at facebook.com/AncestorsAliveGenealogy, or at Thumbtack.com. Hire me for American genealogical research, teaching, and forensic genealogy ...
The Family Cookbook - Cakes and More Cakes
June 21, 2019 04:31 - 15 minutes - 13.9 MBToday we have a new Patron, and new law in New York that will shake up the ENTIRE GENEALOGY WORLD - even outside the United States - the Weprin-Montgomery Law. Oh, and we have two brilliant cake recipes. One is from an Army wife friend of my grandmother's in the 1940s or 1950s, but the other is genuinely the oldest recipe I've been able to find in my family's trove.if you If you like apple cake or chocolate cake (or both), you are in the right place. Get ready to take notes, because these ar...
Get Out of Your Head!
May 19, 2019 00:42 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MBNo, seriously, get out of your head, Whenever you hit a brick wall, a Jeffrey, a Jeffreytina, one of Ancestry's infamous hang-ups, someone who's a 125cM match on AncestryDNA but who won't build a tree (but asks YOU to do it for him/her), or the documents start swimming before your eyes, it's time to STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER and get out of your head and into your body. Or, at least, get into a different part of your head. This episode discusses some of the ways that I step back in order to...
An Interview with Melanie McComb
April 25, 2019 19:57 - 29 minutes - 27 MBWhile I truly enjoy meeting my ancestors, I have learned that the greatest joy in genealogy and family history work is the live people I meet and get to know. Melanie McComb is one of those people. I met her first on Twitter, and she taught me by example how to encounter and engage in the world of Genie Twitter. I took on her ways, and now I'm more comfortable there than in any other online platform! I've also found hundreds of friends there, and I feel comfortable asking and answering quest...
The Family Cookbook - Peanut Butter Muffins from U of Hawaii
March 18, 2019 01:57 - 9 minutes - 9.08 MBDid you ever take Home Economics in school? In the 1950s, only girls and women did, all the way through college. My mother ended up taking Home Economics at the University of Hawaii because she was trying to figure out what she wanted to do. She ended up leaving college, becoming a stewardess, meeting my dad, and having a family. But first, she learned this recipe in class. Enjoy the first Family Cookbook episode of 2019 and have some muffins soon. Please rate and review the podcast on your...
An Interview with Kenyatta Berry
January 29, 2019 15:54 - 32 minutes - 29.8 MBIf you are a fan of PBS' Genealogy Roadshow, you know who Kenyatta Berry is. If you are on Genie Twitter, you know who Kenyatta Berry is. If you have been to, or seen talks from, SLIG or RootsTech, you know who Kenyatta Berry is. And if you're one of the many people who've bought The Family Tree Toolkit, you know who Kenyatta Berry is. But if you don't, this interview is a great chance to get to know her - she's an author, a researcher, a speaker, and a TV host. She's also very funny and can...
A Family Horror Story
January 15, 2019 23:58 - 19 minutes - 17.6 MBWow, was this weekend big! Correcting one set of errors about my grand-aunt led me to find an absolutely horrific story about her, her husband, and her children. I'm telling it to you in all its gory glory, ruminating a bit on how my great-grandparents were responsible for parts of it, and drawing what genealogical lessons and morals I can from it and passing those on to you. Honestly, it's the worst story I've ever run across in my tree, involving orphan's asylums, mental hospitals, untimel...
Using Genie Twitter to Build Community
January 08, 2019 13:55 - 24 minutes - 22.2 MBHappy New Year, and welcome to Season 2! I meet so many people who have no idea about that which should not be a well-kept secret: Twitter is fantastic for genealogists! If you do the right things in the right ways (yes, of COURSE I'll teach you those), you can build a community for yourself in the genealogy section of Twitter. People are funny, kind, helpful, and they will not only help you, they'll give you the opportunity to help them with their research. Strap in and come for a ride with...
Cookies of Christmas Past
December 23, 2018 02:47 - 15 minutes - 14.5 MBIn Western culture, what's the most important Christmas food? The Christmas cookie! There are entire baking competition TV series about the creation and decoration of Christmas cookies. There are entire family traditions about families baking and distributing Christmas cookies. There are secret recipes, national recipes, traditional recipes. In fact, it's become kind-of an obsession in the United States. I'm reaching back to the late 19th- and early 20th-century for cookie recipes (along wit...
The Genie News - Podcast Edition
December 10, 2018 00:50 - 7 minutes - 6.68 MBTime for a quick episode of The Genie News, to keep you apprised of a week of good things and some things you might not have known. Listen to the end for the best news of all! The podcast is now on iHeartRADIO - you can catch it on ALL SORTS of devices using the app, or catch it online at goo.gl/YuLTe8. I give a complete breakdown of all the goodies you can get for giving at all available levels at Patreon (yes, including SWAG). We talk for a moment about the Facebook group, the future, and ...
A Yankee Thanksgiving, 1895
December 06, 2018 01:42 - 25 minutes - 23.6 MBHave you ever wondered what an old-fashioned, 19th-century, British-traditioned Yankee Thanksgiving was like? In the land of the original Pilgrims, did they really eat turkey? This episode draws on recipes from a November, 1895 issue of The Boston Globe and in it we'll explore recipes that go all the way back to the 16th century in England. We'll also learn whether mince pies really contain minced meat, whether there are plums in plum pudding, and we'll see by comparison to a menu from El Pa...
Group Folklore for the Holidays
November 19, 2018 00:19 - 22 minutes - 20.6 MBWe're talking folklore again, but this time about the hardest gathering challenge of all: you vs. a room full of your family or friends at holiday celebrations. I'll tell you about my first folklore gathering assignment at age 18, which was me vs. an Irish folk band called Dolores Keane and Reel Union. I was recovering from mononucleosis, and they plied me with Guinness until I couldn't see straight. Suffice it to say that you can learn from my mistakes. Then, I'll recommend Nancy Candea and...