Born in Canada to parents from Haiti, all Rachel Décoste knew of her family history was the names of her grandparents.  Thanks to the gift of time, Rachel had the opportunity to spend six months in Africa visiting countries listed in the ethnicity results of a DNA test.

In this episode Rachel shares:

• The stories of strength she learned about her grandparents’ lives in Haiti
• Little things in her life that, unknown to her, had their roots in Africa
• Her experience walking in the steps of her ancestors

About Rachel:

Rachel Décoste is an educator and immigration policy expert. Ms. Décoste was a member of both presidential election campaign for Barack Obama. Upon graduating with a Masters from The George Washington University, Ms. Décoste was appointed National Director of the Congressional App Challenge, a tech education initiative created recently by the United States Congress. Ms. Décoste was named to the Top 100 Accomplished Black Canadian women in 2018.

In "Year of Return: a Black Woman’s African Homecoming”, Ms. Décoste shares her impromptu encounters, her sense of wonder and keen observations with the audience. She offers insights that go beyond the tired tropes of the animal safari to focus on Africa’s most valuable yet underappreciated asset: its people.

The trip to Africa was also an opportunity to exorcize the demons of the peculiar institution that was the transatlantic slave trade. She ultimately comes out from the somber subject matter with a keen sense of pride and purpose. This book is a journey worth taking!

Connect with Rachel:

Website           www.yearofreturnbook.com
Facebook        Rachel Décoste
Twitter             RachelDecoste

Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

As Jennifer learned more about her family she recognized the threads in her life that connect her to her ancestors.

In this episode Jennifer shares:

• What it was like to connect with her grandfather as she retraced some of his steps during WWII
• What happened when she dropped by the home of extended family she didn’t know in Germany
• How understanding her past helps her consider her influence on future generations

 About Jennifer:

Jennifer Keniston's genealogy hobby turned serious in 2018 when she enrolled in the Genealogical Principles course offered through Boston University. She completed BU's Genealogical Research certificate in 2019 and started Origin Story Genealogy. She recently launched an Etsy shop by the same name that offers printable PDF research tools for genealogists and family historians. Prior to her dive into her family history, Jennifer studied fine art and photography in London, where many of her projects centered on identity and place. Jennifer believes that genealogy is not only an exploration into our past, it's an exploration into ourselves.

Connect with Jennifer:

Website:           originstorygenealogy.home.blog
Instagram:       @originstorygenealogy
Etsy:                    originstorygenealogy

Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Stories in Our Roots is 6 Months Old!

Fill out this feedback survey and receive my gift, “27 Lessons Learned Through Stories in Our Roots,” a PDF highlighting the many ways my guests have been impacted by researching and learning about their ancestors.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

At its core family history is about better understanding who we are.  We learn about the past to give clarity to the present which gives us hope for the future.  In this episode Heather covers:

• Why ethnicity results are problematic when it comes to identity
• The #1 thing you should add to your research to better understand yourself
• Why you should rethink your reasons for researching family history

Stories in Our Roots is 6 Months Old!

Fill out this feedback survey and receive my gift, “27 Lessons Learned Through Stories in Our Roots,” a PDF highlighting the many ways my guests have been impacted by researching and learning about their ancestors.

About Heather:

Heather Murphy is a resilience coach, genealogist and host of the Stories in Our Roots podcast.  Heather teaches people how to strengthen their resilience as they research and connect with the stories of their ancestors.  As a teenager one of Heather’s role models was a 3rd-great-grandmother who exemplified service and perseverance.  Heather’s love of family and history led to a bachelor’s degree in Family History - Genealogy.  

After twenty years teaching people how to research their family history or completing research on their behalf, Heather saw in the lives of her clients the strength and understanding that comes from researching their own family history, and the missed opportunities when they paid her to research instead.  Her signature program, Resilience in Your Roots teaches people how to use the process of researching their family trees to strengthen their resilience and improve how they adapt to the challenges of life.

Heather lives in Washington State (the dry side) with her husband, son, three ducks and a rabbit.

Connect with Heather:

Website: heathermurphygenealogy.com
Facebook: @MsHeatherMurphy
Instagram: @msheathermurphy
LinkedIn: Heather Murphy
 
 

Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.
 

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

Shenley has gained strength and perspective by learning her family’s story and helps her children in the same way by passing on those stories.  

In this episode Shenley shares:

• The post-high school trip she took when her plans to travel Europe fell through
• How she learned to handle hard things through a cake mishap and a bombed train
• Why we should be careful making assumptions about our ancestors
• Three things to consider when choosing family history activities

 About Shenley:

Shenley is the founder of InspireFamilyHistory.com. Her passion lies in helping people have the tools, ideas and resources they need to inspire children of ALL ages to love family history. Shenley will be a speaker at RootsTech Connect 2021 and will talk about the Studies that Prove the Benefits of Family History. She has also taught webinars and classes to people all over the world. While homeschooling their 3 children Shenley and her husband, Brett, incorporate family history as much as possible.

Inspire Family History provides webinars for groups and organizations. Topics include: How to Get Younger Generations Interested in Family History, Family History Activities for Kids, Virtual Family History Activities to Connect with Extended Family, and Studies that Prove the Benefits of Family History.

Connect with Shenley:

 Website           www.InspireFamilyHistory.com

Instagram        @inspirefamilyhistory

Facebook        @inspirefamilyhistory

Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

As a first-generation American Lisa struggled for decades to learn the story of her family history because accessing records in Mexico was difficult. 

In this episode Lisa shares:

• The immigration stories of her grandparents and parents
• How losing everything in a hurricane as a child motivated her to keep memories close through journaling
• How to make family history part of your life even if you can’t access records

 About Lisa:

Lisa Coffey has pursued her family history for most of her life. After nearly forty years of searching, she began to find online records of her ancestors, which has been a great blessing to her entire family. Lisa is passionate about recording and sharing family stories and is studying how storytelling affects mental health with a narrative psychologist. Her own habit of journaling, which began at the age of 8, has reinforced to Lisa the need of keeping records, as well as using journaling as a tool for emotional and mental well-being. Lisa has been happily married for nearly 39 years and is the mother of four children and grandmother to one.

 Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

Family history is a team sport, with each family member making their contribution to collective family memories.  Stories have always held Taralyn’s attention, leading her to a career in journalism and a path that now focuses on sharing stories and making connections through social media.

In this episode Taralyn shares:

• How sunshine and swimming pools evoke memories of storytelling
• How a specific family history assignment introduced her to family history research
• The connections she has made with distant cousins through social media

 About Taralyn:

Taralyn Parker is a journalist turned family historian who runs the blog Keep Moving Forward With Me. During the covid-19 crisis, she helped create the 21-day Family Connections Experiment: a Family History Project. Whether she is teaching classes or traveling to ancestors’ hometowns, Taralyn is passionate about sharing family history and stories.

Working in the industry for 10+ years, Taralyn manages social media for various companies and organizations. She loves using her talents to help share goodness. Taralyn, her husband John, and their four children enjoy living the small town life.

Connect with Taralyn:

Website           www.keepmovingforwardwithme.com
Instagram        @keepmovingforwardwithme
Facebook        @KeepMovingForwardWithMe
Twitter             @KeepMovingTara
LinkedIn          Taralyn Parker

 Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

#24  What questions have you not asked family members about their lives or the lives of other family members?  Sometimes we learn about our family history through time spent with them, but most often we need to take initiative and make the time to ask the questions that at some point we will wish we asked.  In this episode Heather talks about:

• One story from her grandmother that shows the power of small, but monumental, moments
• Why we don’t ask family members questions
• How to overcome the blocks that get in our way from learning what we really want to know
• What to do when our opportunity to ask a certain person questions is gone

 Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.

About Heather:

Heather Murphy is a resilience coach, genealogist and host of the Stories in Our Roots podcast.  Heather teaches people how to strengthen their resilience as they research and connect with the stories of their ancestors.  As a teenager one of Heather’s role models was a 3rd-great-grandmother who exemplified service and perseverance.  Heather’s love of family and history led to a bachelor’s degree in Family History - Genealogy.  

After twenty years teaching people how to research their family history or completing research on their behalf, Heather saw in the lives of her clients the strength and understanding that comes from researching their own family history, and the missed opportunities when they paid her to research instead.  Her signature program, Resilience in Your Roots, teaches people how to use the process of researching their family trees to strengthen their resilience and improve how they adapt to the challenges of life.

Heather lives in Washington State (the dry side) with her husband, son, three ducks and a rabbit.

Connect with Heather:

Website: heathermurphygenealogy.com
Facebook: @HeatherMurphyGen
Instagram: @heathermurphygen
LinkedIn: Heather Murphy
 

Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

An avid blogger, Taneya has documented her family history journey, her evolution as a researcher is evident in the evolution of her blog articles.  Beginning with lists of data collected, Taneya gravitated toward collecting the stories around the data.

In this episode Taneya shares:

• Learning about her great-uncle’s military service and why he never talked about it
• How the WPA Slave Narrative project added both information and context to her research
• How a conversation with her grandmother led to a unique record with details of her grandfather’s death

 About Taneya:

Taneya Koonce is an enthusiastic genealogist with a long-standing passion for exploring family history and more than 20 years of professional expertise in information science, research, and information organization. Taneya volunteers extensively in the genealogy community, with current leadership roles in the Nashville Chapter of the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society, the USGenWeb Project, and the National Genealogical Society. Taneya also runs a Facebook community for family history enthusiasts, the Academy of Legacy Leaders™, through which she aids in helping others implement strategic and systematic approaches for saving, organizing, and preserving family memories.

Connect with Taneya:

Website                       www.taneyakoonce.com
Instagram                    @taneyakoonce
Facebook Group         Academy of Legacy Leaders
Twitter                         @taneya

 Also Mentioned:

Library of Congress Collection

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938

Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

Hear Olivia tell her story how she accidently became involved in learning how to research her family history.  The theme throughout her projects has been connection which led her to found the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment.  Olivia shares what she has learned through her own experience about the power of connections.

In this episode Olivia shares:

• How building a book about her grandparents helped her build relationships with living relatives
• How the pandemic provided her family an opportunity to connect with family members who experienced pandemics
• The story behind the creation of the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment

About Olivia:

Olivia is the founder of the Family Connections Experiment, a project focused on connecting families past and present and measuring the psychological benefits of increasing those connections. She’s also a professional presenter for genealogy and other educational conferences and the director of her local family history center.   Amidst her busy schedule she has learned to use her technological savvy and experience to teach busy people of all ages simple ways they can incorporate family history into daily life using modern technology to make it easy and fun.

Connect with Olivia:

Website           www.livstreehouse.blogspot.com
Facebook        @livstreehouse
Instagram        @livstreehouse
Twitter             @livestreehouse
LinkedIn          Olivia Jewell

Also Mentioned:

21-Day Family Connections Experiment 

• Webpage
• Instagram @21dayconnect
• Facebook @21dayconnect

 Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy

#21  For over 20 years Emily wondered about the identity of her biological father, the person who made her different in appearance and mannerisms from the rest of her family.  Emily experienced what it feels like to not know a part of her story and thanks to genetic genealogy was finally able to put all the pieces together.

In this episode Emily shares:

• How she felt not knowing the identity of her biological father
• Her thoughts on the nature vs nurture balance
• The difference in her life knowing her biological roots

 About Emily:

Emily Aborn is a Content Marketing Professional and the owner of She Built This, an entrepreneurship organization that helps women with resources and education to build and create whatever dream is inside of them.

She has over ten years of experience working with executives and entrepreneurs in marketing, administrative, and customer service positions. She has owned her own business since 2014 and loves helping others discover how to share their stories through compelling content, creative social media, and copy throughout their branding!

She lives in Temple, NH with her husband Jason and their dog, Clyde. When she is not working, she can be found outdoors hiking or walking. She loves cooking, reading, listening to music, and writing.

Connect with Emily:

Website           www.shebuiltthis.org
Facebook        @shebuiltthisnh
Instagram        @shebuiltthisNH
LinkedIn          EmilyAborn

Also Mentioned:

Ancestry.com

23andme.com

Episode Sponsor:

 Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots.

Get a free workbook, "Release Limiting Beliefs by Understanding Family History " to help identify your beliefs, where they come from, and how to chose your beliefs moving forward.

Are we connected on Instagram or Facebook yet? Find me @msheathermurphy