The Ancestral Pen

From Amy's Pen I can't believe that this week marks one year since I published my first book. I spent about six months seriously writing  The Last Wagon , though it was built on many years of compiling information that contributed to it. I've been researching my ancestry and my husband's ancestry for more than 20 years, and the one thing I noticed about genealogists is we are hoarders of information, but few share that information outside other genealogy hoarding circles. I set out to change that. I wanted to find a way to share all those stories I've been hoarding for 20 years with the rest of the world and make them interesting enough that others will enjoy reading them. From Genealogy to Storytelling I've done that with  The Last Wagon , which is non-fiction (though parts are creatively written), and then my novels based on ancestors:  A Mother's Last Gift ,  His Greatest Regret , and  Where the Compass Points . These are all my Woolsey ancestors' sto...

Christmas Through the Eyes of My Ancestors Christmas has always been a time of reflection for me—not just about the present, but about the past. As a historical fiction author who writes about real people from my own family tree and the communities I call home, I can't help but wonder: what did Christmas look like for them? This year, as I've been writing and researching, I've been transported to three very different Christmases—each one a world away from our modern celebrations, yet each one filled with the same human longing for warmth, connection, and hope. Christmas with My Romani Ancestors For my English Romanichal ancestors—families like the Joles, Masons, and Rineharts who traveled through Michigan down to Oklahoma in the mid-1800s through early 1900s—Christmas was celebrated in a distinctly Romani way. Winter was when traveling families slowed their circuits, clustering wagons together on the outskirts of towns or hiring winter quarters on farm edges. Christmas gath...