Author Nathan Dylan Goodwin (The Sterling Affair) joins Lisa Louise Cooke live from England for a conversation about writing, DNA, Criminal Cold Cases, and his new book The Chester Creek Murders.
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Click here to order Nathan’s new book The Chester Creek Murders.
Episode 47 Elevenses with Lisa
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Watch the Show on March 11 at 3 pm CT
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In the new Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Episode 163, you’ll hear what’s happening with a trove of 160,000 pieces of undelivered mail dating back to the 1600s, an adoptee’s personal response to Premium Episode 162, and tips on finding U.S. Navy photos. Plus, hear the exclusive interview with Joe Everett of the Family History Library at Brigham Young University in Utah and thoughts from Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard on DNA crime samples.
To Premium eLearning members: get out your earbuds! A new episode is ready for your listening pleasure.
Host and producer Lisa Louise Cooke starts off Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast 163 with a fascinating news update about “The Prize Papers” Undelivered Mail. About 160,000 undelivered (and in some case, unopened) letters are currently being cataloged by the Prize Papers Project. These letters span from the 17th to the 19th century. Though these letters may not have been written by your direct ancestors, they can provide a rare glimpse into the daily lives of folks just like them. Lisa will fill you in on what’s been discovered and what you can expect as this project progresses.
Do you have old family letters? What supporting detail can be gleaned from them about the life that your ancestor lived? Even the seemingly mundane could be a treasured detail! Stay tuned for updates about this exciting collection, and in the mean time, take steps to preserve the letters in your own collection. (Check out the Archive Lady Melissa Barker’s easy 4-step process!)
Other highlights of Premium Podcast Episode #163
We love when our members write in with their personal stories and questions. It’s a chance for us to hear what your challenges are so that we can help, and to share in your successes when you make a breakthrough. We received many wonderful responses to Premium Episode 162 about dealing with the unexpected with your DNA results. In this episode, we’ll share a particularly powerful response from a listener. In this episode you’ll also get expert advice from our wonderful contributors:
Military Minutes Michael Strauss answers a listener’s question on finding U.S. Navy photos
An interview with Joe Everett of the Family History Library at Brigham Young University in Utah (image left)
A new Book Club recommendation
Follow-up thoughts from Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard on DNA crime samples
New Member? Here’s How to Listen to the Premium Podcast
Whether you want to listen on your smartphone, or your computer, we’ve got you covered. The “Premium Podcast Feed” allows you to listen to the Premium Podcast and get new episodes automatically on your computer or mobile device. As new episodes are uploaded, they will automatically be added for you while you are a Premium Member. Sign into your membership in the upper left corner of the main menu, and then visit the Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Help page for full instructions.
Premium eLearning Videos
The latest new addition to the Premium Video collection included with membership is Comparing the Genealogy Giants: Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, Findmypast and MyHeritage. Veteran industry insider Sunny Morton covers the 4 major records website’s best features and strenghts, cautions or challenges for working with each one. This full-hour video includes a downloadable handout. Click here to sign in and watch it now! (Not a member? Join Premium eLearning today for less than $5 per month!)
Lacey Cooke
Lacey has been working with Genealogy Gems since the company’s inception in 2007. Now, as the full-time manager of Genealogy Gems, she creates the free weekly newsletter, writes blogs, coordinates live events, and collaborates on new product development. No stranger to working with dead people, Lacey holds a degree in Forensic Anthropology, and is passionate about criminal justice and investigative techniques. She is the proud dog mom of Renly the corgi.
Beloved American novelist Fannie Flagg is our newest Genealogy Gems Book Club author! Nobody can spin a story quite like she can, as she proves in The Whole Town’s Talking. You’ll love the stories of her funny, foibled characters in this intergenerational saga of a small, fictional town in the American Midwest.
The Whole Town’s Talking is best-selling author Fannie Flagg’s newest novel.A Swedish immigrant plants roots in the American Midwest and advertises in Swedish-American newspapers for a bride and neighbors to settle the land. Thus begins the town of Elmwood Springs, Missouri, the setting of several of Fannie’s previous novels.
Over several decades, descendants of the original settlers populate the town. As residents die, they appear again among their neighborly dead in the local cemetery. They continue to gossip and chatter and, occasionally, suffer. (One poor man finds himself buried between his first wife and his second, who didn’t get along in life and still don’t.)
Much-loved characters from other Fannie Flagg novels appear in The Whole Town’s Talking (or at least their ancestors do). Swedish immigrant Lordor Nordstrom is an ancestor of young Dena Nordstrom from Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! Among his neighbors are the fascinating families of spunky Elner Shimfissle, her nervous niece Norma and Poor Tot from Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven. We even hear echoes of Neighbor Dorothy, the famous housewife with the radio show in Standing in the Rainbow.
In The Whole Town’s Talking, Fannie Flagg captures the broad sweep of Midwestern history while staying grounded in the stories of everyday people. It’s easy to fall in love with the folks from Elmwood Springs, to cheer them on in their struggles and successes, to match-make their children, to laugh along with them (and sometimes at them, bless their hearts). Their foibles and quirks likely will remind you of many on your family tree. That’s all the better, given Fannie’s premise that these folks continue to live on and take an interest in our lives. To a genealogist who falls more in love with her ancestors the more she knows buy medication online forum about them, I find this a pretty irresistible notion.
Special thanks to Genealogy Gems Premium member Richard in Sacramento CA, who recommended The Whole Town’s Talking! He loved “the time span, the family relations and the discussions as folks entered the cemetery and the town changed.”
There’s more of Fannie Flagg to love….
In fact, Richard has read all of Fannie Flagg’s books. He thinks several of them would be “valuable reads” for the Genealogy Gems Book Club.” I agree wholeheartedly! I’m a longtime Fannie Flagg fan, ever since I saw the movie version of her classic novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.
I can’t resist recommending Fannie’s second most-recent novel, too: The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion. The main character is Sookie, a lovable Southern woman (she is Dena Nordstrom’s best friend in Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!) Sookie discovers she is not who she thinks she is. After a huge family secret is revealed, she questions everything she has ever believed about herself and her family. Sookie launches a secret search for a new sense of identity under the nose of her loving but domineering mother. She navigates the effects of her discoveries on her sense of identity, her marriage and her daughters’ lives. It’s funny, it’s poignant–and along the way she learns about a fascinating and little-known chapter in American history.
If you would love to take a genealogy travel adventure to your ancestral homeland, consider who might help you make it happen. Get inspired and ready with these tips!
“What I would really like to know is if you have any travel agent/agency that is great for Europe travel to do my own ‘Who Do You Think You Are.’ Any help or direction you can give would be much appreciated.”
I have just the thing for Joyce’s travel question! In the free Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 115, I interviewed Kathy Wurth, who specializes in family history tours of Europe. (You will find her contact information here on the show notes page for the episode.) Even if she doesn’t go to the locations you want to visit, I’m sure that she could help match you up with a travel consultant who does. Tell her “hi” for me!
Before you set off on your own genealogy travel adventure, get inspired and get ready! Here are some great resources for doing just that:
Get inspired! Listen to or read about these genealogists’ travel adventures to ancestral homelands that I’ve covered on Genealogy Gems in the past:
She Left Me the Gun: My Mother’s Life Before Meby Emma Brockes. An award-winning journalist tells the story of her discovery of her mother’s tragic childhood in South Africa. This is a genealogical journey, complete with trips to archives, poring over old court cases and dramatic reveals. This is the ultimate how-to book for exploring and sharing sensitive family stories because she shows you how it’s done. Listen to an excerpt of our interview with Emma Brockes on the Genealogy Gems podcast episode 174 and the full-length interview in Premium episode 118.
Three Slovak Women, Second Edition by Lisa Alzo. A popular genealogy expert’s story of three generations of Slovak women in the steel-producing town of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, and the love and sense of family binding them together. Click here to hear Lisa in the free Family History Made Easy podcast talk about her reasons for researching her family history and what she’s learned along the way, including in her travels in Eastern Europe.
If you want to take a genealogy travel adventure–or invite someone else to–please share this article with them! Just email a link or It’s easy, it’s free–and maybe you’ll pick up a travel companion! Happy travels!
In our interview, Nathan talks about how his intrepid genealogist hero, Morton Farrier, tracks down years-old family mysteries while dodging threats and evil glares of his nemesis librarian at the local archive. He explains more about the Downton Abbey-type setting for The Lost Ancestor’s ancestral tale. And he comments on the challenges of trying to come up with genealogical mysteries that have such consequence for the present that they inspire a backlash of modern crime.
Lacey has been working with Genealogy Gems since the company’s inception in 2007. Now, as the full-time manager of Genealogy Gems, she creates the free weekly newsletter, writes blogs, coordinates live events, and collaborates on new product development. No stranger to working with dead people, Lacey holds a degree in Forensic Anthropology, and is passionate about criminal justice and investigative techniques. She is the proud dog mom of Renly the corgi.
In fact, Richard has read all of Fannie Flagg’s books. He thinks several of them would be “valuable reads” for the Genealogy Gems Book Club.” I agree wholeheartedly! I’m a longtime Fannie Flagg fan, ever since I saw the movie version of her classic novel 
I hope you enjoy Miss Fannie Flagg as much as Richard and I do! The immortal storyteller herself will join us on the Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast in two months. So go read 
by Lisa Alzo. A popular genealogy expert’s story of three generations of Slovak women in the steel-producing town of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, and the love and sense of family binding them together. 
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