A New Piece Of Hidden History

Crista Cowan 0:00

And so when she came on to tell her Indiana deeply rooted story, uh it was brand new information to me. And I think that's what I loved the most was that this was a piece of history that I had literally never heard about before. And then it always makes me wonder what other things exist in people's family trees that are kind of a big deal in history that I have never heard about before. Stories That Live in Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America. Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us.

Season Two Retrospective Begins

Crista Cowan 1:06

Well, we did it. We made it to the end of season two. But before we dive straight into season three, which we're ready for, we wanted to take a little time to do a retrospective about our season two and the trip we took across this country from Sea to Shining Sea, and maybe revisit some of our favorite moments and give you a little bit of behind the scenes from our favorite episodes. I've invited my producer Lisa to join me. Most of you probably know her. She has been a guest on several episodes. But week after week, she sits here in the corner of the studio and she listens to me have these conversations with my guests. She listens to me tell my own stories, and then she goes home and she listens to them all over again because she's not just the producer of this podcast, she is also the editor. And it wouldn't happen without her. And I'm so grateful for her and for all the work she puts into this podcast. And so I'm thrilled that you get to meet her, that she's willing to come in front of the camera and have this conversation with me because believe me, she has her favorite episodes too. So, Lisa, thank you for joining me. Hi, I'm so glad you're here. Hi, I'm too. We've had so much fun this season. It has been a ride and a blast. It's been great.

Lessons From Producing 50 Stories

Crista Cowan 2:26

So before we dive in and talk about our favorite episodes from the season, just looking back at like the season as a whole, what are some of like the themes or the lessons you learned from producing all 50 of these episodes?

Lisa Elzey 2:41

Okay. Well, before I give it into that bit, I honestly want to say this was your baby and your idea because season two was coming. We knew 250 was the thing, like it's a thing. And we didn't want to not do something about it. And when you said, I really want to do this, which is what we did, I was not skeptical. I knew we could, but I knew it would be a sandbox that we'd have to play in that was pretty tight. Yeah. So that's the first lesson I learned is that stories could be found anywhere. Yes. But sometimes they're going to be a little harder to find, depending on the boundaries that you set for yourself, but not with the United States, because there's so many people, there's so many angles to take. And that's the other thing that I loved is that it didn't have to be the history of the state and how does your ancestor fit into the history of the state. It could have been as light as we had an episode where someone's grandparent passed away in a state, and they have a memory of that state so synonymous with that funeral and her passing and what they discovered there in our Arizona episode, or we have something as like meaty as a revolutionary war patriot from this state, you know, all the way to a 250 kind of episode. So as long as I knew that we could go as much as broadly as we needed to, I felt way more confident that we could fulfill your request.

Crista Cowan 4:13

Because I didn't just tell you we were going to tell a story from each one of the 50 states. I also decided we should do it in a specific order.

Lisa Elzey 4:21

Yes, you did. And it was the backwards order, which I thought was kind of fun, but that meant we had to do Hawaii first. And luckily, you knew someone who was from Hawaii because I was like, Hawaii, okay, we got to find a Hawaiian story. And um, so it kind of started out with a who you knew to get us going, and then we kind of branched out from there. But what I really loved the most, I think just the overall with finding stories for this season was just the variety of people and the the kinds of stories they were excited to share.

Crista Cowan 4:56

You know, when we started the season, we did have to source stories based on the state from people we knew. But as we got rolling and people understood, oh, they knew what was coming next because we were doing it in the reverse order of when they were granted statehood, and people started anticipating, like, oh, like I can't wait till you get to my state and what story you're gonna tell. But we also had people approaching us to say, when when you get to that state, could could I be your guest? Could you tell my story?

Lisa Elzey 5:23

Yes, we had people pitching us saying, I have a great story to tell, or I know someone that does. You should call or contact so-and-so. Um, we had people saying, uh, we had people with books that had my, you know, uh people that were agents for books saying my author wrote a book about this and that. So that was exciting. I think we had more than that, more this season than the first season, which is always awesome.

Crista Cowan 5:46

It is super fun. Okay, well, so you and I have each picked our five favorite episodes from this season.

Lisa Elzey 5:52

Yes, and I would say five favorite interviews, not favorite guests because I just want everyone to know the disclaimer because I loved all of our guests for different reasons. And I don't like picking because as we were going through this list, I'm like, oh, but I love the and it was like, and I hate the phrase picking your favorite child because that's not what it is. It was just I have such fond memories of editing or or getting the pictures or hearing you talk about what your thoughts were. There's just or getting feedback from people who were listening to the episodes. Yes, and that honestly comments when we read people's comments, or um, or I there was one I remember that wrote you a really long letter almost where it like changed her life when she listened to it. And but that's really what this is all about is the ability to go into someone's story and then share it with someone else, and hopefully it touches their heart. And so that's what I want to just disclaimer. These are five of our favorite interviews, and for whatever reasons, yeah, but gosh, 50 of these stories, 50, all 50 were just so great.

Crista Cowan 6:54

They were, yeah, they were absolutely okay. So we're going to run through our favorites in the order that they aired, um, which means I get to go first.

Finding Guests By Reverse Statehood

Crista Cowan 7:03

So uh one of my favorite episodes this season was Alaska, which was the second episode of the season. Um, my neighbor who lives just around the corner from me, his name is Jay, and he is from Alaska. He grew up in Alaska, and he not only told just this like vivid story about Alaska that helped me picture it in a way that, I mean, I've been there twice, but I still was able to just see it through his eyes, which I loved. He talked about sourdough and brought sourdough starter with him and gifted you and I each a thing of sourdough starter that is a 150-year-old sourdough starter. And it sat in my fridge for about a month because I was terrified because I've never done sourdough before. And so for that month, here's what I did: I watched videos and I read blog posts and I bookmarked recipes that I found on Facebook. And then I finally got brave and I took the sourdough starter out and I fed it, and it rose, and then I baked my first loaf of bread and it worked, and I was so amazed. And I can't even describe the feeling of like being successful at something that I had perceived as being so hard, and it kind of is a little hard.

Lisa Elzey 8:26

No, there's no perception. Flat out is hard. Okay, pause. We gotta pause. The listener, viewer, we're pausing because I I have I have feelings, I have thoughts. So we were watching this whole at work, this whole journey of you discovering things. And then you would say something like, I got such and such thing on Amazon for my blah blah blah blah that I need to do with the sourdough. I I don't even know the words, the fucking thing.

Crista Cowan 8:49

You gotta scale the proof. I got yes, I got proofing baskets.

Lisa Elzey 8:53

I don't know what that says, but sounds great. Yes, and you got all the the like knickk-knacks, uh-huh. And then, and then you made your first loaf.

Crista Cowan 9:00

And then I made my first loaf of bread. And that was magical. It was magical. And it not only was magical, it started me on this journey because it's now been almost a year, and I am now a sourdough baker.

Alaska And The Sourdough Era

Crista Cowan 9:12

Like I literally have a routine where every Saturday I pull the sourdough out and I feed it, and then I feed it again on Sunday after church and put put it back in the fridge and then take my little part out and let it do its thing. And then I make dough on Saturday nights. And when I'm on the phone with my dad for our Sunday night call, I do our little, I do my little stretch and folds every half hour, and then I let it bulk proof overnight. And then Monday mornings I get up and we get on our team call and I take our team call from um home almost every Monday morning because I have to like shape my sourdough loaves and get them ready for cold proofing. And then I stick them in their little baskets and I put them in the fridge. And then on either Tuesday mornings or Wednesday mornings before work, I bake. And I usually now I'm in the habit of baking between two and four loaves at a time. I just love that I have some for myself and some to give away. And it's just become this like rhythm of my life, this 150-year-old sourdough starter that we benefit from. Because apparently I am in my sourdough era.

Lisa Elzey 10:21

Sourdough era. But it's so fun. And what I do love about that, aside from the sourdough part, is traditions become a part of us when we choose to take them on, like the mantle of that, and then the consistency of that, it was just a great way to kick off the, you know, our second episode, kicking off that whole like feeling of the season.

Crista Cowan 10:39

Yeah, yeah. And there was also this interesting thing that happened. So, because of the order in which we did these episodes, um, the episodes in the West like had a very different feeling than the episodes in the Midwest, and had a very different feeling than the episodes on the East Coast. And so every state kind of has its own unique flavor, but there were some themes around that. So we get to your first favorite on your list.

Utah Handcart Discovery And Rescue

Lisa Elzey 11:06

Yes, which is Utah. I loved the Utah episode, and that was with our friend Michelle Urkenbreck. Michelle is near and dear to my heart, she's a very dear friend of mine. I am here at Ancestry because of Michelle. And um, I will forever, forever be grateful for my journey here because of her, and uh on all the things that she's taught me and continues to teach me. She's a magnificent storyteller. She is. She knows the parts of a story and what makes a good story, and she uh reminded me of those things in family history. And uh I just love her for that. And so when we talked about who should be Utah, it's not like we didn't have 900 people to choose from. Right. We could have chosen so many people to come and talk about their family history. You could have spoken about your own. It would have been easy to get someone in the office. But we knew that Michelle would have been the right choice because she's a great storyteller. The thing that I wanted her to talk about, and I think you did too, was the story that she had a connection to was the Willie Martin Handcart Company. And if you haven't listened to the episode, it's a a group of people that came west to Utah and they came a little too late and they got trapped in Wyoming in the weather. Some really horrible things happened, many died, they had to be saved. It was just a horrible situation. And there are many diaries that are written about that experience. So that's the one thing those pioneers especially were really good at was writing about their experiences. They wrote their stories down so we didn't have to guess how they felt. They told us. And so I do not have any Mormon pioneer heritage at all. And but I have heard this Willie Martin Hankart story all the time. So anytime Pioneer Day would come around, Pioneer Day is the founding of Utah as estate, July 24th. But it would always come around because it's about the pioneers coming and we talk about the hard things, and that story always was brought up. Yes. And people almost would wear it as a badge of honor, kind of like, I have an ancestor from this, they survived and they they were resilient and as they should. But it was just a story that I was very familiar with growing up, um, you know, hearing it. And but what I loved about this episode, in my head, I was like, it's gonna be Willie Martin, I already know it, but I love Michelle and she tells a great story, it's gonna be great. So I'd already kind of decided in my head what kind of of you know story it was gonna be. It totally was not that. It was a completely different way of telling it because my friend who has a degree in family history from Brigham Young University, sorry, Michelle, did not know she had an ancestor who was in the Willie Martin Hanker Company. Right.

Crista Cowan 13:50

Because when you have a million pioneers on every branch of your family tree, you have to focus on some of them.

Lisa Elzey 13:56

Yes. And so I I just was so like shocked by that. So she's telling her discovery story, and I was totally drawn in. And I hope our listeners and our viewers were too, because it was it was surprising, but it was also beautiful the way she was telling the story. Another thing I love about Michelle is her feelings are so right at the surface at any given moment. She's a tender so and um she felt those feelings of those moms that were burying their babies, or she felt those feelings of of woe and and sadness and desperation. And yeah, she felt that and she felt it in their words on the page. She felt it just in the in the place, and she would have the opportunity to go there and she has children of her own. Just I don't know, I was just swept up in it, and her crying, and then you crying because she's crying, and I'm crying. I'm like, and I don't cry easy. You don't I'm not an easier cry, and I'm not trying to be like, I don't cry easy, but I don't. And so when I'm teary, it's because I'm watching two of my dear friends, and I'm probably gonna get teary now, but watching two of my dear friends like connect and have this beautiful moment of like story, and then having you surprise her and tell her, Oh, by the way, no spoiler over. If you haven't listened to the story, push pause, go listen to the episode. Um, but have you tell her, oh, my my person, I found out, went and saved your person from the snow. And then we guys, we had to push pause. We had too many tears. It was like we had to blow noses, it was gross. We had to, it was just too much because it was like, oh my gosh, and she didn't know that. And then you like were able to share that with her in real time. And it wasn't like a gotcha, but it was a real thing that you had just barely discovered.

Crista Cowan 15:54

I had gone looking for because I knew a little bit about what story she was gonna share. Yeah. And and I I it had never occurred to me to look to see if my ancestors had been involved. Like I knew they hadn't come across in the Martin and Willie handcart company, but I also knew the story, because we've heard it our whole lives, about the men who were sent to rescue them. Yes. And it had never occurred to me to look to see did anybody in my family tree participate in that? So I went looking for it intentionally before that episode. And the fact that I found it and the fact that I could share it with her. Um, I love her dearly.

Lisa Elzey 16:31

Yes.

Crista Cowan 16:32

But that just was a whole different level of connection.

Lisa Elzey 16:35

It was, and it was something unexpected. And I love that I was able to see a story that I had heard so many times before, but I saw it in a new light with new new eyes and new people, but they're my friends that I've known forever. So I just that will always I will always treasure that. And it makes me love Utah even more.

Crista Cowan 16:57

Okay. So as we did this state-by-state thing in the order of when they became states, one of the things that surprised me was that sometimes, like, we weren't just marching east. We go from Utah and now we're gonna go back west to Oregon.

Oregon And Remembering The Forgotten

Crista Cowan 17:14

Right.

Lisa Elzey 17:14

I love this episode because it has Phyllis Zegers, who is a dear sweet friend. Phyllis. I love Phyllis so much.

Crista Cowan 17:22

Now, the thing about the organ story is there was actually a part one to the organ story that you and I told in season one. We did. And so what I loved about this organ episode was that it was kind of like the rest of the story.

Lisa Elzey 17:36

Yes, it was a very behind the scenes, even more.

Crista Cowan 17:38

Yeah.

Lisa Elzey 17:39

Uh it was it was her side, right? So I told my side, my discovery, and and how I was able to share that with the person that had the question. And then he got to share how he took it and went and did his thing. But we didn't share how I was able to find what I found because of Phyllis. Yeah. So Phyllis is a she's just she's just amazing. Her whole project that she worked on was completely selfless. It was not her person, it was just people that were forgotten. And it has to do with the Oregon State Hospital. It has to do with, again, the like if you listen to the episode in season one, it has to do with the cremains in the uh Oregon State Hospital that were kind of not abandoned, they were just forgotten because no one had claimed them. When I discovered Phyllis taking all of these death certificates and putting them on Find a Grave, because that's how she was giving back to the community, was putting the information on the public site, find a grave. And that's how I found the death certificate in connection with the story that I was doing. Then I realized she'd been posting all these things. I really think if I'm looking back, it's the first time that it really came to me to as an idea that I could do something like this. That I could do a community project that is not my own family. I mean, aside from my job, of course. I'm just saying that that I could give back in a way that isn't something that I'm doing for my work or doing for my own family, but I could choose to help people just like her. And it's beautiful and it's it's accessible. I don't know. It just was so wonderful. And then that she did this long before we had the Oregon State death certificates on Ancestry. She was driving and like they knew her by name, they would have things prepped her. She they they trusted her. Like they were like, Oh, if Phyllis is doing this, then we're fine. Like just the beautiful relationship she created from that. I don't know. She's just a lovely person. I loved getting to know her. And the best part, too, we asked if she would come here and interview, not just with us, but with Ancestry. But then we asked, Well, could we also get you for the podcast with Krista? It's not an Ancestry thing, it's studio sponsored by Ancestry, but not. And she's like, Oh, yes, of course. And we said, We'll give you a tour. She goes, Oh, that'd be great. So we had lunch and I don't know, it was just the loveliest day.

Crista Cowan 20:03

And I love this whole idea of like when we start telling stories, they don't always have to be our own stories. So, like Phyllis was talking about her contribution and her journey, but really her whole experience is making sure other people's stories aren't forgotten, making sure other people's people aren't forgotten. And I think that that like just that becomes part of who we are as family historians when we get into this work. And she has just really embraced it in a lovely way.

Lisa Elzey 20:36

Yeah. And I love that you say that because we just had an experience the other night where I was getting blubbery about an entire family that kind of disappeared when I was researching them for, you know, different reasons. People got diseases or accidents or whatever. And the whole family, pretty much they had no descendants that survived. And I was so upset about that. And so, like, well, who will remember them? Because no one is left to tell their story. No one's here. No one's looking for them. No one's, no one's remembering them. And Phyllis found a beautiful way to put their story out there because it's still a story. They still contributed in some way. They still have lives, they still had experiences. There's still value in their life here on this earth. And just because they didn't leave a descendant doesn't mean they don't have value. And so anyway, I just I'm grateful to hear that. Okay. Oh my goodness. You have value. If not anything for your sourdough. That is your that is your path to legacy. Oh, yummy, good for me. But no, but you know how some people are like, well, they kind of leave the the ones like, oh, but they didn't have any descendants. And they kind of just leave them in the tree, right? I think that happens a lot. It does. Where we just kind of don't explore who that person was because we don't have any descendants for us to go find or whatever. And I don't know. I just have like a rekindled fire, uh, kind of like with our episode. About the nuns. Yeah. Right? That was that kind of feeling like we gotta get them off the page and put them out there so people can see. And so Phyllis just really exemplified that.

Crista Cowan 22:09

Well, I love that. Yes. Okay, now we're gonna go from Oregon all the way, we're gonna skip ahead to the Midwest.

Iowa Gravestone Recipes And Traditions

Lisa Elzey 22:15

Yes. West is done.

Crista Cowan 22:17

You found this story in Iowa that is so cool.

Lisa Elzey 22:22

Yes. So okay, Iowa. Iowa is a beautiful state. I could have told so many different stories. Uh, here is what happened. We so we populate, just to give a little behind-the-scenes, little production behind the scenes. When we find stories, we put them in our spreadsheet and we populate where they're gonna go and we see little holes of where we don't have a story and where we might need to uh, you know, tap into our brain or tap into friends or look online and see if we want to go and pitch a story to some people. And Iowa was one of those places where we didn't necessarily have someone we knew offhand or or had something. And so I was thinking, okay, where do where do I want to tell the story? What do I want to tell? And I'd been following this Instagram. She's amazing. Her name's Rosie Grant. She's awesome. And she was posting all of these different recipe headstones that she had been capturing. It's the most random thing. Right? She'd found all of these headstones that people had been so obsessed, or at least been personified or identified with their recipe that they put it on their headstone when they died to be remembered by. She'd written a cookbook where she had put all of these recipes together. She had gone and visited the families of the people that had passed away. It wasn't just here's the recipes, make the thing. It was the story. It was why this recipe. It was, I'm gonna go make this with the family. I loved that. It was to me, this is like a genealogist dream gift. In fact, I gave it to you for your birthday. You did.

Crista Cowan 23:52

So much, and it's so funny because one of my dearest friends, um, she listened to the episode and then immediately she texted me and she said, Well, I guess I will return the birthday gift I got you.

Lisa Elzey 24:06

I'm so sorry, Mel. I love you. I'm so sorry. But yes, I did give it to you for your birthday. It just happened to coincide with holiday coming up.

Crista Cowan 24:14

Yeah.

Lisa Elzey 24:15

And so I immediately was like, Oh, we should do this for Iowa episode. Oh my gosh, does she have any recipes in Iowa? I she did. She had two. Yeah. And so I reached out. This is one of the things.

Crista Cowan 24:27

Which actually, okay, let's just let's just talk about the fact that in a recipe cookbook, there's like what, like 50-ish, yeah, 45 recipes. Um, so the fact that she had two from the state of Iowa is really kind of odd because it's a smaller state. Yes. There's a million other opportunities or places. I've I've followed her Instagram, like there are other places she could have put, but these two recipes like had stories attached. They did all of her recipes.

Lisa Elzey 24:53

And I think it really speaks to Iowa that they are family driven. They are story driven as a state, I think, and they're tradition driven too. And I think that traditions run deep there, you know? So uh this is one of my first big pitches, right? So I don't know this person. I follow them on Instagram. I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna cold, cold pitch this person and be like, hi, which is what we do, you know. Hi, my name is Lisa, and I'm the to produce this podcast. And here's Krista. Isn't she awesome? And you know, would you like we'd love to have you come and chat with us? Immediately she responded, she's so awesome. And uh got me in touch with her agent, her book agent. They got everything set up and we had her on the podcast. Literally two weeks later, Rosie is on the Kelly Clarkson show. And I'm like, we got her before Kelly Clarkson got her. This is amazing. Because her book was coming out right before holiday, and then her book became a New York Times bestseller. So I was like, I felt pretty proud about that. You should feel pretty proud about that. Got her first, but I mean, not first. But anyway, I just love her. She's just very down-to-earth, and she had great stories to tell. It was right before Christmas, so I thought it'd be fun to make the Christmas cookies, which I did, which are delicious. They are delicious, and she told the story behind that one because it was our Christmas kind of episode, December episode. But there were two recipes, and the other was for a cheese dip, which I also made. Here's the cheese dip. And this is the Red Lantern cheese dip. And the story behind this one, it's a woman named Deb, and she was a waitress at this Red Lantern restaurant. It was like a roadside restaurant in Iowa. And this uh police officer would come often and dine there, and it ended up being her husband later. They got married. So I think she has an affinity for that place, probably because that's where she met her husband. And apparently, the cheese dip is very much like everyone has their own recipe, their own version of it. Their own version, but they all said that dub's was best. So I thought it'd be fun since we made the cookies from Iowa. We should probably have the cheese dip and you know, cheese dip.

Crista Cowan 27:03

Well, okay. I mean, I feel like we show and eat some eat some cheese.

Lisa Elzey 27:09

We should try some cheese dip. I think we should try. This is where this is the part, this is the awkward part where you eat on camera where everyone loves watching it. So we're gonna, it's a chilled cheese dip.

Crista Cowan 27:17

Oh, yeah, it is. But it didn't break the cracker.

Lisa Elzey 27:20

Cheers. Cheers.

Crista Cowan 27:22

Um, that's really good. Oh wow. Yeah, there's a lot of levels on that.

Lisa Elzey 27:27

I think I could put some of that on your sourdough.

Crista Cowan 27:30

Oh. Yeah. I think that's it. That's really yummy. That is yummy.

Lisa Elzey 27:36

I could see how that could be like a total make the cheese diet, bring it, bring it to the party.

Crista Cowan 27:41

Yeah, like you're always asked to bring that.

Lisa Elzey 27:43

Yeah, bring it. That's so yummy. If you need a gift for a fellow genealogist, family historian, it's amazing. It's called To Die For, a cookbook of gravestone recipes. So you can get it online. It's awesome. Okay. Yes. Where are we going next? I don't know. Baba.

Alabama Jewish Roots And Migration

Lisa Elzey 28:02

My dear friend. So I need to set this up. Uh, we reached out to people uh at Ancestry, friends of ours, when we're again looking for some different states, and we have a few friends who are like, oh, we'd love to talk to that person, this person, they're dynamic, interesting. Like Julie Merrill, which is one of our most recent uh Ancestry Progen stories. We didn't have anyone for Alabama, and then I remembered, oh my goodness, Noah. Noah is from Alabama. So Noah Lapitas, who is a pro genealogist here at Ancestry, is from Alabama, but he moved to Utah to work for Ancestry Pro Genealogists. But then when we went remote, he was able to move back to Alabama. Noah's Jewish. Right. And I'm like, okay, you're from Alabama. I'm like, so did you like move there? He's like, no, no, my family's from here. I've always been there. You don't think Jewish in Alabama when you think Jewish like migration. Right. There's certain pockets of Jewish migration that you just kind of think about. So we thought, okay, that's really interesting. We'd love to hear that. So the I need to give a little backstory about Noah. Noah is one of the genealogists on the team of amazing genealogists that helped crack the case for A Dream Delivered, the Lost Letters of Hawkins Wilson. But what's really great, he had only been at Ancestry for like three or four months.

Crista Cowan 29:22

At the time of the Hawkins Wilson project.

Lisa Elzey 29:24

Yes, he was brand new. And I'm like, hi, I heard I get to use you on our team. My name's Lisa. Are you ready to go? And he's like, yeah. So we kind of forged this awesome fun friendship over this treasure hunt of trying to find this information. And it could not have been more fun and frustrating and maddening and exciting and exhilarating and emotional. So I love that we got to have that friendship forged that way. Uh, but I also just love him as a person. He's an extremely magnanimous, amazing person.

Crista Cowan 29:56

Well, and this was the surprising thing about this episode because I had heard about Noah from you. I had watched you kind of lead this team of researchers in this project for a year and a half. And genealogists by nature, people who go into genealogy as a profession in particular, um, like they're so whip smart and they're so tenacious, and they have to be to do the work that they do. And I admire that so much about them. But we have this joke around the office where we say if you ask a genealogist what time it is, they'll tell you how to build a clock. And so I'm always a little hesitant when you're like, we should get this genealogist on the podcast. And I'm like, oh, but can they tell a story without telling us how to build the clock? And I was so delighted by Noah because he can tell a story. And he's clever and funny and little Noah. And his stories about, yes, being little Noah with the little backpack at the library, wanting to go to archives for his birthday.

Lisa Elzey 30:59

And but I just I just love he had such a drive for the work that he was doing, uh, the work of righting wrongs with injustices with as of uh being a lawyer before he was a professional genealogist. And so for him to share his Jewish heritage and learn something new, I did not know about. I did not know how to have the history of Jews in Birmingham and Matt Holstettl that came over together. Like it was almost like a lifting of history that just kind of planted itself. Uh and that he helped discover that. It just was lovely. And Alabama. Alabama. And the next one I think is still is kind of in the Midwest. So Alabama, the deep south. Yeah. Now we're kind of, I don't know, it's Indiana. Is that South? Is it West? Kentucky. It's kind of on the border, isn't

Indiana Free Black Communities

Lisa Elzey 31:46

it?

Crista Cowan 31:46

Yeah, it's not south. No, it's always so interesting to me because there's some states that are just small enough or have a predominant enough culture that you think of it and you think of one thing. Indiana is one of those long states, right? Um, and there are different pockets of culture in the state of Indiana. And so here's why I picked Indiana as one of my favorite episodes from the season. Two reasons. One, it was our hundredth episode.

Lisa Elzey 32:15

Yes.

Crista Cowan 32:15

And that was kind of a big deal for you and me. I know. Like when we started this, like I think we were just like, let's just try a season or let's just try 20 episodes and see what happens. And then we have just kept going and going. And it's been a lot of work, but it has been, I think, fun and we have learned things. And so the opportunity we had to just celebrate that we made it a hundred episodes was a big deal for us.

Lisa Elzey 32:42

I think so too. I when I think hundred episodes, I think of like friends on NBC having an NBC cake, hundredth episode. Like it was a big deal. It was a big deal. And I remember at the very beginning of the podcast almost saying, Okay, well, if we need to take a break, we can, right? And you're like, yeah. And I'm like, okay, like we had no idea. I didn't know what my workload would be. You didn't know, like, we just didn't know. And the fact that we've had just roll a week, yeah, every week. We've not missed a week. And I'm really proud of that for us.

Crista Cowan 33:13

You should be proud of that for sure. Because you do a lot of work.

Lisa Elzey 33:16

Well, and you post it.

Crista Cowan 33:17

So high five us. Okay. Okay, so here's the other reason I loved Indiana. So our guest was Lisa Fanning. And Lisa is a genealogy colleague. Um, she is somebody that I know in the industry. I didn't know a lot about her or her background or her history. And so when she came on to tell her Indiana deeply rooted story, uh it was brand new information to me. And I think that's what I loved the most was that this was a piece of history that I had literally never heard about before. And then it always makes me wonder what other things exist in people's family trees that are kind of a big deal in history that I have never heard about before. So just a brief recap of her episode. She descends from communities of free blacks in Indiana, people who um who purchased or were granted their freedom in places like Virginia and North Carolina and left to make a community of people where they could live freely. And I mean, I knew free blacks existed. I just didn't understand the depth of these communities and how interconnected those families were and how deep those family trees go. I mean, we're talking people who were freed sometimes in the late 1600 or early 1700s and have lived free all along. Um, we hear so much in this country about slavery, and it is a an awful and dark part of our history. But the fact that there were people who were still eking out livings in places and um and were granted that freedom and living with that freedom for so long was literally something I did not know before.

Lisa Elzey 35:02

I also loved that she was telling the why they ended up there because someone has, you know, said it or whatever. It's really, really awesome.

Crista Cowan 35:11

Yeah, it is. And here's the fun thing, like kind of as an after the episode, right? Lisa, like, she I was just in Indiana at the National Genealogy Conference a few weeks ago, and she is on the board of directors for the National Genealogical Society, and she was there and she came up and talked to me. And we ended up having lunch together one day at a table full of people, and she was telling people I was the hundredth episode, which she's just, you know, she was so grateful to have been able to share her story and to have been able to do it at an important milestone for us.

Lisa Elzey 35:46

So that was it, Indiana. Love Indiana. I think you have the next one as well. This one is a little more close to your family tree, Louisiana.

Louisiana Cousins Find Their Place

Crista Cowan 35:56

I love Louisiana. Um, I've always kind of had this fascination with Louisiana, especially New Orleans and the culture there and the history there. And I don't so much love the weather there. I have been there in the summer when the sun was trying to kill me. But um, but um yeah, when when it came time to tell a Louisiana story, I had already told a part of a Louisiana story in episode one when I talked about the discovery of my ancestor Carrie and how she ended up in Louisiana and how that connected me then with cousins that lived there. But uh what I hadn't told as part of that story was how often I go back to Louisiana now. Um, I just had the opportunity at Christmas time to take one of my nephews on his 13th birthday trip. And to it was just so fun to be able to be there with him and have that time with him. And uh the interesting thing is that uh there was another cousin that I met on that trip with this nephew, and she's part of this same family. I had been Facebook friends with her for years, but I had never met her in person. And I had never understood why I hadn't met her in person uh until her story came out on that visit. And we started to understand that she had been intentionally estranged from the family by some things that had happened and was just kind of trying to find her way back in with the cousins and what her place was. And the moment she walked into that family gathering with those photo albums, I'm gonna cry, just like still like the like the joy and the palpability in the room of everybody going, you're one of us, and you have part of our story too. We come with parts of each other's story, and when you can put all those pieces together, it's just the coolest thing. And so to be able to sit at that table with her and hear her tell that story, I knew that when it came time to do the Louisiana episode, I wanted her to tell her story. And she did it, and she did it so beautifully. Um Arlene just love her, and I love her cute southern accent.

Lisa Elzey 38:13

I know okay, wait, can we just comment on that? Okay, it's like a different accent, right? We talked about that after because it's like New Orleans has a different accent, but it's different. But you told me this, and I didn't know this, that different parts of New Orleans have different accents. Uh-huh, mixed with a little bit as like southern drawl, but then mixed with Texas, because my dad's from Texas. So I was like, that sounds like my dad. But then it then it's it was the most interesting, yeah, strange, fascinating accent.

Crista Cowan 38:45

Uh-huh. When I was interviewing Arlene, my dad was in town. And I told him I was interviewing her, and he like came with me, and he was sitting in the studio just off camera, kind of angled so that he could see her on the computer screen while she and I were talking. And he got to meet her and talk to her and sit through that whole episode. Because what I think most of our listeners don't realize is that most of these interviews take like an hour. And then you do like the magic of editing to get them down to the story that will fit in 20 or 30 or 40 minutes. And sometimes, sometimes we let them go a little bit longer because there's just not much we can edit out sometimes. Like there's lots of chit-chat and stuff that happens. So there's there is a lot of stuff that happens in that hour, and my dad got to sit there and be there for that and interact with her. And I just every time I can share family history with my dad, it's a beautiful thing.

Lisa Elzey 39:42

That's something I really love about you and your family too, is that you aren't afraid to go meet a person you've never seen before. Maybe you knew them on Facebook, they're your cousin. And I quote cousin because like she's like my third close cousin. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like when you think cousin, you're like, oh yeah, like the person I grew up with, like that's kind of my sibling. No, these are like people that you share a great great grandparent with that you never met, but they're your cousin. They really are your cousin. Yes. But it's that takes courage. And I really admire that that you are willing to do that, and that your family gets to benefit from that. And you get to benefit too. And by the way, your nephew, I love that he chose Louisiana and he chose it for the music. Uh-huh. And the food. Well, the food is Louisiana. And he's a boy. And yeah. 13-year-old boy. Yes. And food is very important. But just that it was like the soul of that place. He knew it. And that you got to share that with him with a little family history. Yep.

Crista Cowan 40:40

Always a little family history. Yes.

Lisa Elzey 40:42

So since we're in the South, I think we should just stay there for a minute. Because I think your next episode is still in the South.

Kentucky Fathers, Daughters, And Place

Crista Cowan 40:49

Kentucky. Yes. And it's not just the South, it's also an episode about fathers and daughters. Yes. Which has such a special place in my heart. Um, because I do so much family history with my dad. He's the one who got me into it. He's the one I share everything with. He's the one who still works with me for hours on Sunday nights. Um, when we were looking for a Kentucky story, I was in uh Chicago on a business trip with a colleague and was talking about what we were doing with the season. And she proceeded to tell me that every single branch of her family tree is in Kentucky on every line for generations. And I just thought that is the most odd thing I have ever heard. Like everybody I know has branches of trees from different places, but every single branch of her family tree in Kentucky for generations. And I thought, I need you on the podcast because that's an unusual. I don't even know what your story is gonna be. But then it just so happened that around the time we were trying to schedule her to film, her dad was visiting Utah from Kentucky.

Lisa Elzey 41:49

Yeah, she said she goes, Oh, by the way, my dad's coming from Kentucky. He knows all the stories. I think he would be great to have on there. And then we're like, with you though, right? She's like, well, yeah. And we're like, no, with you. And she's like, yeah, yeah, with me. Like it, I love that she knew he was kind of the keeper. Yeah. And she also said, and he would love it.

Crista Cowan 42:13

Yeah, it was just really lovely to have them on the couch together. And yes, with him as the principal storyteller, but to watch her just look at him and see the love and have her just hear those stories in that forum. Stories I am sure she has heard a million times. Um, but to to have him share those with a broader audience and his love of Kentucky and his love of his family and the place that he is building for them with his own hands out of this heritage location in their family tree and the way he feeds them. Because that was a thing. Cuz turtles. Cuss turtles.

Lisa Elzey 42:57

I'm still like not over that sometimes.

Crista Cowan 43:00

Sometimes I learn things in this podcast. And then to watch him get so emotional about his own stories and just bless, bless sweet Paul Abel.

Lisa Elzey 43:10

Just seeing when he talked about how proud he is of her. I just love that. And the other thing I love about that episode is it really helps you see why place is such a character in people's family history story. Their family has not moved. And it's their place, it's their home and why people would fight for their home, why people protect it, why people died for it, why uh they they fought for land. They there's just so many bad and good things that happen over a place. And it kind of helps you understand a little more of the why, not just in America, all over, right? All over the world. Because place helps you define family and who you are a little bit. And without place, I think as humans, sometimes we feel a little adrift. And uh I love that they had such a sense of place and who they were and and they loved that about their family.

Crista Cowan 44:07

There are a lot of places, right, that mean something. And North Carolina is my family's place, and it was my episode and my story, but you picked it as one of

North Carolina Treasure As Metaphor

Crista Cowan 44:20

your five.

Lisa Elzey 44:20

I did. Okay. I'm just gonna do a disclaimer right now. I get to listen to every episode multiple ways, multiple times. I hear Chris's voice in my sleeves. I I'm not saying a complaint, but um I it was hard for me to pick. I wanted to pick one of your solo episodes because I really love that you I need the listener and viewer to know that you intentionally craft how you're going to tell the story because it means, sorry, get emotional. It means so much to you to be able to communicate it honestly and well so that your listener can connect with it in some way. You don't manipulate the story, you just want to share it. And the time that you take in the care is inspiring. So, okay, that said, it was really hard for me to choose. In fact, I think one of the ones you're choosing later was also one I was going to choose, but you chose it, so we'll go with that. Um, but North Carolina, the episode was about treasure. It was. I was all up in my Goonies feels with this one. I was You're so Gen X. I am so Gen X, you guys. Goonies was like, oh, I was such a Goonie. Um you did not tell me in your preparation. You said, I don't want to tell you this story. Because usually we prep. Like you tell me what's going on, and I give some like opinions where I think you should hit the story or you know, whatever. We work together. And this one you said, I already know where I want to go. I want to wait. I want you to hear it live. And I was like, okay, why? And you're like, I just think it'd be fun. I want you to hear the story for the first time. So I'm like hearing this amazing story about treasure and and going in the dark and burying it by the river and through the trees, blindfold, like crazy story. And I'm going, what? Like, I'm trying not, because you're just trying to like focus and speak to the camera and be all poised. And I just want to be like, what the heck? And so it was an amazing story. And I will lie if I don't admit that after the podcast that I went on Google and I looked up to see if anyone's found the treasure. I like looked up maps and I wanted like, has anyone found this? And anyway, I searched, I went down a rabbit hole for about an hour. But nonetheless, I love that story because it it kind of emphasized a few things. Number one, a good story and a good ghost, almost a ghost story. But number two, it really emphasized your theme of why it's important to tell stories. And that if we bury them, if we keep them buried for whatever reason, it could be shame. It could be, I don't have time, it could be I don't know the story. Uh, it could be an intentional burying of anger or malice of any kind. I mean, whatever reason, they'll get lost.

Crista Cowan 47:11

Yeah.

Lisa Elzey 47:12

And um maybe they'll be found again. Apparently, it's never been reported that that treasure has been found again. And that family went without for, you know, they they lost what they had. And we've had we've had lots of instances where we've heard people even we know in um at work that have lost treasures in fires, they've lost treasures in moving. Um people die.

Crista Cowan 47:37

People the number one regret of every genealogist is I didn't get the stories.

Lisa Elzey 47:42

Talk to them, or I mean, I didn't get their DNA. There's just so many different things that we regret that we miss. And so the things you can control are sharing your stories. So I love that that was a beautiful, just I don't know, just a beautiful metaphor in the story about what you're all about and treasure and treasure.

Crista Cowan 48:05

Okay, Goonie.

Lisa Elzey 48:06

All right, Goonies. Goonies never say die. Just say.

Connecticut Witchcraft And Connection

Crista Cowan 48:10

So my last of my top five is also one of my solo episodes, which might seem a little weird. Like, I love me.

Lisa Elzey 48:17

I love you too. And this was the one that I would have chosen had you not chosen it. So I'm glad you chose it. Okay. Okay. So we're gonna call, we're gonna qualify that.

Crista Cowan 48:24

Okay, so it's Connecticut. And the reason I picked Connecticut is actually twofold. One is um I had the opportunity to go to Connecticut on family vacation with my parents and one of my brothers a year and a half before this episode was gonna air. And I knew this was a story I wanted to tell. I just didn't know when it would be the perfect time to tell it. And so I have literally been sitting on this story um for a year and a half. And the fact that I finally got to tell it is a big deal. Um, I think the other thing about it that I love was that telling the story connects me again to my dad. And he and I standing on that lawn where this ancestor of mine was executed for witchcraft and going to pay honor to her at her memorial brick with my toes. Yes. Um, and like just being in those places, there's just something about walking where they walked and seeing what they saw and understanding, like we talked earlier about how place is a character and story, but place isn't just a character and story because of the place, but also because of the topography and where the trees are and where the mountains are and where the rivers are, and like all of those things are part of the story. And so understanding that and being and being in that place and breathing that air, even though I was 400 years removed from her, I felt so connected to her and to her story. And so just to be able to finally get to tell it, and like I said, to share that with my dad, um, to be in that place was a really big deal to me. And that's the experience that I want people to have. You talked about how you loved the North Carolina episode because it personifies what I want for people as far as telling and sharing story. The Connecticut episode to me personifies what I want for people to get out of this work that we do as it relates to feeling connected, connected to places, connected to our ancestors, and connected to our living family. And that's what that story represents for me.

Lisa Elzey 50:40

I felt that when you told that story because again, you took such great care in telling that. And uh the fact that you descend from that and didn't know what a gift to know. Yeah. What a gift to know. And uh, Connecticut, Connecticut witch. I didn't know that. I was like, when you said I have a witch story, I was like, Oh, Massachusetts, you're like, no, Connecticut. I was like, what? And uh sitting on a story for a year and a half, I when we were filling in all the little pockets when we first started this, we went through all the different slots. Like, okay, I I said, okay, Crystal, let's talk about your solos. Where do you absolutely want to tell stories? The very first spot you said, Connecticut. I'm like, in my head, I was like, not Arkansas, like where you are talking about your family. I mean, Arkansas was me too. It was number two, yes. It was number two. But the first place you said was Connecticut. So it was it was lovely to learn that story, but I love even more that you got to discover it and then experience it.

Crista Cowan 51:38

Yeah. Yep, I love it. Okay, so that those are our top five apiece. Yes. Um, from 50 episodes, it was really hard to pick, but I love that we got to share not only our our feelings about those episodes, but also a little bit of the behind the scenes. Um, and this episode is airing a week after 4th of July. We've just, you know, we'll have celebrated America's semi-quincentennial. I've practiced saying that word. That's impressive. Thank you. Okay.

Delaware Courage And Season Finale

Crista Cowan 52:09

Um and the episode that we ended on was the state of Delaware. And so I know I said we were each gonna pick five episodes, but I feel like we have to talk about Delaware.

Lisa Elzey 52:20

We do, because it's the first state, you know.

Crista Cowan 52:22

It is. That is their motto.

Lisa Elzey 52:24

That is their motto because we learned that. It was such an emotional end to this journey for ancestry. I found this story of this historical person. And I thought, this is an amazing person. Well, guess where he's born? Delaware. And I thought, okay, we need someone that's connected to this story to tell this story because it's Delaware. And he saved the Declaration of Independence, guys. If you haven't listened to the episode, go listen. And then I found an author, Anna Crowley Redding is her name. And she is an author, not just of children's books, she's all these things. She's an Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter. And this was her first children's picture book. And um her story surprised me. It was emotional. I was emotional because I think it was the end of the season, but not just because that. She just hit every note for me in what this podcast was about and what this America 250 journey was about. Why you were inspired to go from state to state and share again, emotional. Why um just it was hard. This was hard. This was hard to being like, I've got to find something for this particular pocket, or this person cancel, or we're running out of time, or and and and we did it, and it was like a finish line, and it was so beautiful, and she just put this beautiful, like cherry on top with her beautiful story and experience that's so honest. And what I loved most about what she said, because she went through some hard things in in not just writing the story, which is a beautiful story, but she was experiencing life hard things at the same time. And at the end of that episode, she says, I want to continue writing about courage and what kind of courage you bring to the table. Just like our ancestors did when they came here, whenever your family was here, whether they were here from the beginning as an indigenous people, or whenever they came here five minutes ago, what courage are they putting on the table to be able to do what they did? And um that's really why I do family history because it connects me with that inner courage, it connects my family with that. I want my kids to know that we're here because someone else chose to keep going over thousands of years, which is boggling. Right. And um, it was just a beautiful wrap-up of a beautiful season um by a beautiful person, and so I'm very grateful to her for trusting us because we again, I pitched her cold, she embraced it, she nailed it.

Crista Cowan 55:21

She did, and you did. Um, and you continue to do it week after week, and I am so grateful for you. I am grateful for your friendship. I am grateful for your talents, I am grateful for your storytelling ability and your good ideas and your bold opinions. Um I am so grateful for all of it because I am a better person because of it. This is a better podcast because of it. Um, so we are celebrating with apparently cheese dip um the end of season two and the celebration of this country. And I want to just make sure we pause and celebrate that. So thank you for doing this episode with me because I think it's important that we do that, that we take time to celebrate those things. But then we're just gonna roll right into season three, Lisa.

Lisa Elzey 56:14

We're not taking a pause because we don't do pauses. We don't take vacations. We really don't take vacations. Um first of all, thank you for the beautiful things you said. And on behalf of me and I think thousands and thousands of listeners and fans everywhere who adore you, thank you for sharing. Thank you for giving yourself to people. And I know we're just having a weep fest. Sorry, it's been a very long season of awesome. But um, you every week show up and you give, and you really give and you're not afraid. That's hard, and you're not afraid, you just give and hope. And I think if everyone could do what you do, the world will be a much better place.

Crista Cowan 57:01

I love you. I love you too.

Thanks, Season Three, And How To Help

Crista Cowan 57:03

Well, so for all of you, thank you, because we couldn't keep showing up and doing what we are doing if you weren't out there listening and watching, and we're so grateful for you. Um, whether you joined us last week or whether this is the first episode you're hearing, or whether you have been with us since episode one, thank you. Um, keep listening, leave comments on YouTube, write reviews on your podcast apps, like help other people find this podcast because we believe very strongly that stories matter, that your stories matter, and that when we can tell our family stories, it connects us in ways that we can't even imagine. And so we're excited to roll right into season three next week and hope you will join us. We've got some really fun things planned for the new season. Season three. Okay, more cheese and crackers.

Lisa Elzey 58:03

Yes, do you like it?

Crista Cowan 58:04

This is delicious. I think it's so good, but it's very rich. It is super rich. I think I can have one more.

Lisa Elzey 58:10

They said very specifically don't get the real bacon, get the fake stuff. What about ancelery?

Crista Cowan 58:17

I don't want to end with tears. That looks funny.

Lisa Elzey 58:18

Happy birthday. Studio sponsored by Ancestry.