The Book, Part 1
I expect most people don’t regularly read what I term as pure history. However, many people read historical fiction where the plot, the setting, and the characters are located in the past; but the...
Category: Stories
Exploring Hagenbuch Country
Over a year ago, my Aunt Barb—Barbara (Hagenbuch) Huffman—and I were chatting on the phone about the Hagenbuch homestead in Albany Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. Being an avid birder, she mentioned how wonderful it...
Treat or Treat
A usual statement out of my mouth every other week is, “I have to start an article.” And, I continue by telling my wife Linda what I’m going to write about for my next...
The Next Morning, A Conversation with Andreas Hagenbuch: Part 3
Months ago an imaginary visit and conversation with Andreas Hagenbuch was written about in two articles: Part 1 and Part 2. The visitor who interviewed Andreas one night in 1784 was John Smith, a...
Joseph Hagenbuch, Liberty Township Farmer: Part 2
There are four areas of information that make up what we know about family members: personal details (names, dates, places), photos, ephemera (birth certificates, marriage licenses, letters, diaries, etc.), and family stories. One is...
More Family Icons & Their Stories
A little over a year ago my father and site co-founder, Mark Hagenbuch, wrote an article examining the importance of “family icons.” These are objects that are prized by families for the stories attached...
Dear Diary
Along with letters, baptismal certificates, newspaper articles, old histories, and other ephemera, diaries can be a very important part of learning about past generations. Knowing this, when I retired in 2008 I purchased a...
A Continued Conversation with Andreas Hagenbuch
Newspaper correspondent John Smith continues his conversation with Andreas Hagenbuch one spring evening in 1784 as told in first person by Mr. Smith. In reference to the previous article, Andreas and his son Michael...
A Conversation with Andreas Hagenbuch
If family historians only worked with names and dates, they would not get to know the type of people their ancestors really were. Many of us have photos of our relatives and ancestors back...
Family Icons
The word icon is defined as “a thing that is revered.” In past articles many pieces of family history have been written about and described that fit this definition. Photos, books, documents, certificates, and...
