Questions

I love asking questions. Even more than that, I love finding answers. The Minions and I play a game in the morning...ask a question. Sometimes it's, "What's the biggest snake in the world?" (The reticulated python is the longest...we went with that.) Sometimes we go on long questiony journeys, one question leading to another. Sasquatch, the Wright Brothers, the Gold Rush... 

I've found two distinct branches in my family tree that makes me wonder if my love of questions is genetic.  One line is Mennonite. They came here from Switzerland and I can find their names in church lists for a couple centuries.

The other line is Quaker. I'm still tracing them back, but so far, I've found a few into the 1700's. 

I love that they all questioned the hierarchy and forged their own paths.

Then they stopped. Both lines by the mid-eighteen hundreds were no longer practicing their breakout faiths. Did each generation keep asking questions until they finally answered them? Or did they keep asking questions and never found answers and simply turned away, looking for answers in another direction? It's been fascinating research.

So many things about my family tree makes me ask questions. Trying to understand the paths that brought my people here. The Swiss/German branch seemed to come for religious liberty. I can imagine their stories. One relative was an Irish doctor who married a titled English lady and they both moved here. I can imagine their story as well. But some of them are big...well, questions. Following their paper trail will never give me all the answers to my questions, so I'm left with imagining my own.

Questions sometimes lead to concrete answers. Sometimes they lead to guesses and stories. If questioning is genetic, maybe I owe my writing career to good genes. I am a shirttail relative to Emily Dickenson. I like to think the few genetic strands we share help inspire me to find the beauty of words.

Questions. I think having a bunch of things I'm asking is a great way to start a year. I'm just a small branch on my giant family tree.  I wrote a blog not long ago about mtDNA, where I imagined the long line of women I come from. I doubt I'll find all the answers this year, but I'm hoping I find some! And I suspect anything I discover will lead to more questions.

Wishing you a new year filled with questions...and answers.

Holly

PS Looking for something to read this new year?

Looking for something to read in 2023? Check out:

Just One Thing is for sale this month on Amazon!
If you've followed my renovating, addition at the cottage, this book is set there in my mind!

Surprises in All Sizes anthology.
One of my Hometown Hearts stories is included!

Signs of the Times
Available for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited
Book #2 comes out in February! 
By Design takes a the marriage of convenience trope and...well, has a bit of fun with it.

Chances
Amazon 
Barnes and Noble
Kobo  
Apple Books 

A View to a Kiln: A Harry's Pottery Mystery
Kindle
iBooks
Kobo
Nook

mtDNA and a long line of women...

 

Yes, another post about my family tree...well, sort of. I'm combining that with a bit of geeky science stuff. (And for those who know of me deep affection for Schrodinger's Cat and Pi Day, well, this post won't surprise you. LOL)

As I plunge into my past, I can't help notice how often one of my grandmother's names is lost to history. My grandfather's name is there...in a census, on a property deed or in a will. His wife's name? It's a bit more hit or miss. She might be simply listed as Mrs. John Smith. 

It's so frustrating. I've dug through so many death certificates, looking for a maternal name.
That led me to mulling over the idea of Mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA.

I might like geeky science stuff, but I'm not a scientist, so my explanation is very layperson. You get your mitochondria from your mother. (Okay, I read a piece that some paternal mtDNA can sneak in, but let's just go with maternal.) So as I look at my family tree, at those named and unnamed women on the female branches of my tree, I realize that I share the same mitochondria as them. I'm bumping into an issue with my 3rd great-grandmother. I can't pinpoint her first name, much less her last name. She's listed in a deed transfer as John and wife.

And wife.

Now I want to be clear, I am thrilled to be Himself's wife. And I'd like to think he's thrilled to be my husband. But I've never been one to use the title Mrs. Himself. I'm mainly Ms. Holly, when I use an honorific at all. Mainly I'm just Holly or Hall. Sometimes even Hey You. 

This matter of family, or names is something I've mulled a lot in the past. I was born with one man's last name. I adopted another man's last name. I married and happily took Himself's last name. And I when I started writing, I wrote under an altogether new last name. 

Through all those names, I've been Holly. It's a name my mother gave me in hopes that it would never lead to a nickname...which of course explains they I've spent most of my life as Hall. (Poor Mom.) 

Anyway, you can trace your mtDNA all the way to Africa and see how your tribe of foremothers migrated. All my children carry my mtDNA, but only my daughters will pass it on. Their children will have it, but only a granddaughter will pass it on. I love that image of a long line of women. One after another. Mother to daughter down the line. And then, someday, when I'm gone, that mtDNA I inherited from my mother will still be out there, moving down the line. I love that piece of immortality. It makes me feel a little better about the unnamed women in my family tree...a piece of them is still here.

On a total aside, in a very geeky tangent, I was talking about the nuclear fusion experiment with the Minions today. I really am so excited about this giant step. But how to talk about fusion vs fission with kids. Hmm. My layperson explanation worked well. Imagine smashing rocks apart. Pieces would fly everywhere. The little pieces? Those are radiation and they're bad for you. But if you take a couple rocks and glue them together...there are no little bits (radiation). That idea of clean, unlimited energy is so exciting, even though it's decades away!

Yeah, I know. I romance novelist talking mtDNA and nuclear fission...just another day in my life. LOL

Holly

That idea of finding family runs through all my books, but especially in my Hometown Hearts series. You can find the whole series here, and one of them, Something Perfect, is part of a new anthology, Surprises Come in all Sizes. The whole collection is only $.99. It's a great way to try it out along with some marvelous stories by other bestselling, award winning authors! I'm so thrilled to be in an anthology with them!

HerStory

 

I love my little house in the big woods. (Yep, that was a shout out to one of my favorite books growing up!) I married a city boy, but I grew up in the county and missed it so much he bought me some acreage years ago. It's only a bit more than a half hour from home, which makes it easy to head out whenever I need a country fix. Since I put my pottery studio in our barn out there, I've been going out even more often.

I feel connected to that land. I have since we found it. We've spent years building/renovating our cottage out there. Thirty years after we built it, it finally got indoor plumbing. I know. I'm so fancy! We added the barn and my studio a couple years ago. Small project after small project. Then these last few big projects.

 Most of my decor is house-sale-yard-sale finds. One of my recent treasures for the cottage was a map of our township. I am not good with maps, but himself pointed our our place.  A few miles to the north was part of my family's homestead...I knew about that one. But imagine my delight as I studied the map and found another branch of my tree... a third great-grandfather. His name's on the map just a couple miles from our place. I've walked by where his house was. It's so cool finding my feeling of connection might have been my very deep roots in the area.

I've been working on my family tree for a few years. For someone who didn't have any clue on more than half of her tree for most of her life, my discoveries give me such glee. My maternal family comes from pre-revolution New England. My paternal family comes from the pre-revolution south...the Appalachian Mountains.  After years of not quite knowing where I was from, I've traced my family back to the 1700s. A few of the more famous branches, even further.

Where I come from...how I ended up here. It's a never-ending source of fascination for me. That looking for family—for where we belong—is a theme that occurs often in my books.

My whole Hometown Heart series asked that question over and over again in each book.  The first book in my Harry's Pottery series, A View to a Kiln, asks the question. Should Harry (the heroine) follow a well plotted path, or follow her passion?

I'll confess, I love Erie. I write about Erie a lot. Erie has big city amenities and a small town feel.  If you haven't checked out the first book in my Around the Square series, Signs of the Times, you'll find yourself in the heart of Erie...and hopefully the Christmasy story will touch your heart. 

I love both our town house and little house in the big woods, but truly where I belong is with my family. I was so excited that everyone was home for Thanksgiving. There are a lot of us now, so the house was packed, but the chaos was part of the fun!  Chaos and family...that does describe most of my books. LOL

And yes, all of them ask Where do I belong? in one way or another...and every person should ask that question as well. I've asked and answered it over and over...I belong wherever my family is. In the woods, in the city...where they are is my true home. My history (HerStory?!) brought me to right where I am...and where I am is pretty darn perfect.

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season!

Holly

If you have a moment, pick out a Holly Jacobs book for your Christmas reading!

Ties that Bind

 I tend to join Ancestry every few years to update my family tree. They're always adding new resources, so there's generally something new to find. One great-grandmother was a complete mystery when I started my family tree. My grandmother was adopted. A family friend told me her adopted father was in actuality her biological father. I found her original birth certificate and the father listed was a variation of his name so I thought that clicked. And there was a mother's name listed.

Before DNA testing was available, I was pretty sure I tracked down my grandmother's mother. And I listed her adopted father as her bio father on my tree, though I didn't have proof. Since then, DNA has shown that her dad was her biological father, and my guess at her mom was correct as well.

Here's the thing, I like knowing who I came from, but I also know who my family truly is. I look at those names on my family tree and can trace my roots to Ireland, England and Germany.  I can follow my northern family lines from a Brown University founder to Erie, PA. I can trace my southern family line from the Appalachian Mountains, to Erie. I know I've had politicians, doctors, sea captains, train engineers, homesteaders and share croppers in that tree. 

All that is great and truly fascinating but my family? My real family? Well, there's John. Papa John to me. He wasn't related through DNA, but he was my Papa through and through. He gardened. Every Christmas he brought me a poinsettia and every Easter a hyacinth. (Himself occasionally tries to buy me an Easter flower to remind me of Papa...and he invariably buys a lily. But that always makes me smile and think of Papa anyway! LOL) Then there's Elmer. He wasn't a blood relation either, but he was my grandpa. He lived on a farm in western Erie county. He mowed a golf course in the summers and had permanently sun burned arms. His mom was named Maggie Mae and I have the vaguest memory of her in a rocker.  Both of these "grandfathers" were my real family.

Family isn't DNA. I mean, I love knowing these people and their paths that all converged and led me here, but Papa and Elmer...they were family. 

I think my fragmented family tree is why writing stories about how families come together is such a theme for me. That's what the entire Hometown Hearts series is. In Crib Notes there's an unexpected pregnancy and a baby who finds a true father. In A Special Kind of Different there's a special needs character who brings together a special relationship and creates a family. In Homecoming a loss leads to the discovery that hearts have infinite room...loving someone new doesn't take away from others you've loved. And in this month's Suddenly a Father, Tucker was a teen mom who spent her adult years taking care of her son and her career. She's never needed anything—anyone—else. But she meets a man who truly knows what family is and is willing to put his entire life on the line for them. How can she resist him? (She can't. LOL)

Next year's stories continue that exploration of family in Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Something Perfect and Something for Christmas. 

Family. It's a fascinating subject that I will never get tired of exploring in my life and my writing. 

Thank you everyone who's come along for the ride! I hope you'll pick up this month's release, Suddenly a Father and the first three books as well!

Holly

Crib Notes: Hometown Hearts #1

Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBook

A Special Kind of Different: Hometown Hearts #2

Kindle, iBook, Kobo, Nook

Homecoming: Hometown Hearts #3
Kindle, Kobo, IBooks, Nook

 

Suddenly a Father: Hometown Hearts #4

Kindle, Kobo, Nook, iBooks

Something Borrowed: Hometown Hearts #5
PREORDER. Available 1/21
Kindle, Kobo, Nook, iBooks

Finding My Family

My great-grandfather

I've been playing with my family tree for years. I work on it, take some time off, then go back and work some more. When I started, there were huge branches that were missing—phantom branches—but over the years I've found most of them.  One eluded me.  Her name was Sarah.

She gave her daughter—my grandmother—up for adoption at birth. The family story was my grandmother's adoptive father was in actuality her birth father. The story I heard was that he had an affair, then he and his wife adopted the child, my grandmother.

My grandmother sent for her original birth certificate in the 70's.  The name listed as the father wasn't my great-grandfather's name, but it was a variation. And the mother's name was listed—Sarah.  I did a search and found two Sarah's listed with the same last name.  Both were from small towns not far from where my grandmother was born.  Both were of an age.  But one ended up being a dead end. She married and had a son a few months before my grandmother was born.  That left one.

I listed that Sarah on my tree, but she was a question mark. I thought there was a good chance it was her, but I couldn't be sure.

So I kept digging.  Sarah was a maid in a big city. My g. grandfather was a railroad engineer who traveled to that city.  So that made sense.  The census after my grandmother was born, Sarah had moved back to her hometown. I found records that she went back to school and became a nurse.  She lived with her family.  Her brother and one sister got married.  Sarah then moved in with another unmarried sister. They lived together until her sister died. Then Sarah lived alone.  If this was my Sarah, I wondered if she thought about my grandmother. I wondered if she had a happy life. I wondered...

When my grandmother sent for that original birth certificate, Sarah was still alive and lived within driving distance.  My grandmother never said a word about this to any of us, so I don't know if she ever went to meet Sarah, but it didn't seem likely to me.  I talked to one of my grandmother's good friends, and she didn't think she had either.  Still, I'd like to think she did, even if I suspect she didn't.

I did some more research and I traced Sarah's family back to Germany.  I found a few newspaper articles that mentioned her.

But I still didn't know if she was MY Sarah.

That's where I left off.  I was pretty sure Sarah was my great-grandmother, but I couldn't be sure.  And while I still am not positive, I came closer to it lately. I did one of those DNA tests. A bunch of new names popped up on my relative list recently and I started searching for Sarah's fairly unique last name.  And I've found a few matches that only have that one common surname. No one I can precisely match to Sarah's family, but the last name and in some cases the cities at a specific time match.

It's not quite proof, but I'm closer to feeling confident that Sarah is My Sarah.  Other surnames from her family tree are matching in my DNA for distant cousins. That makes sense.

And to add to my genealogy glee, I started getting a lot of DNA matches to that dog of a g. grandfather. So I feel confident that much of the story is true.

I write about family in so many of my books.  My broken family tree definitely plays a part in my fiction.  I try to imagine how Sarah felt, giving up her child and that became part of Carry Her Heart.  And I imagined that my grandmother did go meet Sarah (even though I don't think she did) and that became the sequel, Hold Her Heart.

I've talked before about how my real life influences my fiction. I like to think Sarah would like knowing that she's been found. That her child had a good life. That she had a great-granddaughter who found her and won't let her be lost again. And I like to think she appreciates she directly influenced my books.

One of my favorite finds,
a southern family pic.

I tell Himself that his family tree is boring. His ancestors got married, had a family and stayed together until they died.  My family tree is not that. Almost every branch has breaks. There were some phantom branches. I knew there was someone there but it took me a while to find out who.  Sarah was a phantom branch, but now, she's home.

Having so little of my family history has made me treasure each piece I find.  When I started playing the my ancestry, I had a small family, but over the years, it's expanded.  At first, I was a very northern girl.  But as I've found my roots, I've found a ton of them down south in the Appalachian mountains.  And stories. Oh, the stories.  Relatives in politics.  Sharecroppers.  One Irish doctor who married a titled English girl then took her to America. They lived outside DC and the house he built her is still there. I treasure each new branch I find. And I'm thrilled I found Sarah...well, probably found Sarah.

I'll keep working on her. But for now, she's mine.

Holly


PS.

Check out 2018's releases!!
(And keep an eye out for 2019's! There are a bunch!):

Polished Off

PTA Moms: the Collection

Between the Words

Briar Hill Road

Find my books at:

Amazon

Kobo

Radish Fiction

iBooks

B&N

Google Play

BAM

PPS.
Have you missed our most recent Trippin' with Holly and Susan? You can catch up with them all on YouTube.