The Florence Crittenton Homes
Adoptions and adoptees pose special problems for genealogists.  And of course adoptees themselves have may have a difficult time tracing their genealogy.  Last Saturday was National Adoption Day in fact it was the 10th anniversary of national adoption day.  Coincidentally that day I was working on a blog entry called the “Black Catholics in My Family.” One of them was Amos R. Johnson Jr., of Kansas City, Missouri.  As I was researching Amos Johnson, I discovered that he had been a board member of something called the Florence Crittenton Home in Kansas City.  That led to several further discoveries. First, I found out that that Kansas City once was the “baby

Black Catholic History Month: Preserving St Augustine’s Documents
Okay, the headline takes some liberty: we’re talking about saving Catholic records in  St Augustine, Florida, America’s oldest city. But before we get to that, let’s understand why we’re covering this during Black Catholic History Month (not that it wouldn’t always be of interest to those interested in Catholic history generally). In a number of communities around America you will find parishes named for  St. Monica, frequently in African-American neighborhoods.  She was an Algerian Christian of Berber descent.  Although not of the same racial group as most African-Americans, was embraced by early African-American Catholics as someone of

Black Catholic History Month:First Black Priest in the USA? A Third Contender
Last week I wrote about the question of the first black Catholic priest in America.  I said the answer to that question depended upon who you asked.  I now know that the answer to the question depends upon how the you ask the question!  This is because there has emerged yet a third contender for “first black priest”. First a little personal background: I don’t think I ever saw a black Catholic priest until I was well into my adulthood.  I guess I assumed that there were some somewhere; I just never tho

And Another Thank You . . .
. . . to the California Genealogical Society & Library’s 2009 Nominating Committee, which has nominated me to be a new board member. Read about the upcoming board elections and other doings in the CGS Blog.

Thank You to . . .
. . . Randy Seaver of Gena-Musings and Katie O’Hara of You Are Where You Came From, both of whom presented me with the Kreativ Blogger award in the past week! The rules are that a recipient must reveal seven thing about oneself and then pass the ward on to seven other deserving bloggers.   So seven things about me that you don’t know: 1. I was  a registered lob