What if history isn't just about the past—but about creating connections that shape who we become?

In this episode, I sit down with Steve Bromage, Executive Director of the Maine Historical Society, whose childhood road trips to a family camp sparked a lifelong passion for preserving Maine's stories. Steve shares how his organization has revolutionized history-making by putting communities at the center—from small-town historical societies to middle school students scanning precious photographs. Through the innovative Maine Memory Network, they've proven that when people share their own stories, history becomes living, breathing, and deeply personal. Steve also reveals Maine Historical Society's incredible plan to take one of only 26 surviving original copies of the Declaration of Independence on a statewide tour for America's 250th anniversary, ensuring every Mainer can encounter this sacred document in their own county. Discover how one state is redefining what it means to preserve history—not by locking it away, but by making it accessible, participatory, and profoundly meaningful for everyone.

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🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

When Sylvia Hernandez discovered vintage Christmas cards in a university archive, her coworkers didn't understand their significance. But for her, they represented everything familiar about growing up Mexican-American in Waco, Texas.

Sylvia Hernandez, outreach and instruction librarian at Baylor University's Texas Collection and a seventh generation Wacoan, traces both sides of her family back to the Mexican Revolution. She has great-great-grandfathers, one on each side of her family tree, who crossed paths in remarkable ways long before their great-grandchildren ever met and fell in love.

Through her work preserving Texas history, Sylvia has discovered her own family's story woven into the archives. From the Latin American Methodist church her ancestors helped found to the kindergarten they established for migrant children, her roots run deep in Texas. Her unique perspective as both archivist and descendant reveals how cultural traditions like Las Posadas, midnight Mass, and yes, even mysterious pots of mashed potatoes, create bridges between generations and preserve identity and connection across centuries.

Discover how family stories, whether preserved in vintage Christmas cards or passed down at holiday gatherings, strengthen the connections that truly matter.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

When archivist Rosie Grant stumbled upon a gravestone with a spritz cookie recipe carved into it, she had no idea it would change her life. What began as a TikTok curiosity during her cemetery internship became a viral phenomenon and, eventually, a groundbreaking cookbook celebrating 50 recipes from gravestones across America.

Rosie shares her remarkable project "To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes." We discover how her library science background and passion for community archives led her to document not just recipes, but the rich stories of the people behind them. From Maxine's Christmas cookies in Iowa, and the German tradition of hanging cookies on the tree, to intimate oral history interviews with dozens of families, Rosie reveals how food connects us across generations.

You'll hear about Rosie's journey from cemetery intern to bestselling author, her dedication to both grandmothers who shaped her understanding of food and family, and the surprising ways these gravestone recipes are inspiring living families to preserve their own food traditions. Whether it's Iowa's community-minded spirit or the universal power of recipes to keep memories alive, this conversation reminds us that the stories we share around the table are the ones that truly live in us.

Guest Bio:
Rosie Grant is a writer, researcher, and archivist whose work explores the intersections of archives, folklore, and family storytelling. She is the creator of @GhostlyArchive, where her exploration of gravestone recipes and the histories behind them has reached hundreds of thousands of followers across social media. TO DIE FOR is her first book.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

When Dani was in eighth grade, she watched her grandmother wash and braid her own mother’s hair. In that moment, she was witness to a ritual passed on through generations of Black women.

Join me as Dani Allen, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Ancestry, shares her family's journey from the Deep South to Wisconsin during the 1930s and 40s as part of The Great Migration. Together we explore how her grandfather's search for work in the auto industry led their family north, the tumultuous marriage that nearly ended in tragedy, and the newspaper clipping that finally confirmed whispered family stories.

From her great-grandmother's striking blue eyes and the meaning behind hair care rituals, to her weekly Zoom calls with her 90-year-old grandmother filled with freshly discovered stories, Dani reveals how intergenerational connections shape identity and preserve legacy. She shares how these discoveries help her two-year-old granddaughter understand the resilient women whose strength flows through her veins. Dani’s story reminds us that family history isn't just about the past. It's about the bonds we nurture today that will live on in generations to come.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

When Candace Dixon-Horne's husband bought AncestryDNA kits in 2018, she hesitated before sending hers in. Raised by a single mom in Arkansas, Candace spent her entire life with her mom as the only blood relative she knew.

One DNA match changed everything. A simple Google search led to names she recognized, faces that looked hauntingly familiar, and a connection to California's golden age of cinema that seemed too extraordinary to be real. I talk with Candace about the moment she realized the story she'd found was actually her story, and how meeting her biological father's family for the first time revealed generations of Hollywood history, creative passion, and family connections spanning from the silent film era to today.

This episode explores how DNA can unlock not just names and dates, but entire worlds of family legacy and how discovering where you come from can transform your understanding of who you are.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

What if your family's pioneer past looked exactly like your favorite childhood TV show? When Lisa Elzey discovered her great-great-grandfather's story, she realized she'd been watching his life every Monday night on Little House on the Prairie. Complete with homesteading, hand-hewn cabins, and a white beard down to his belly.

In this episode, Lisa shares how a purple-inked memoir written by her great-grandmother's half-sister unlocked the story of Johann Heinrich Seba, a German immigrant who arrived alone at 18, hacked through Minnesota wilderness for a mile and a half in a single day, and became so beloved his community lowered flags to half-staff when he died. For decades, Lisa and her mother searched for his origins in Germany, writing letters to archives and scrolling through endless microfilm reels. Then in 2016, a single search on Ancestry revealed not just where he was from, but a family secret hidden in Lutheran christening records that changed everything they thought they knew.

Discover how one ancestor's story can bridge four generations of women, why a steeple clock matters more than any antique collection, and what happens when patience meets the right record at exactly the right time.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most.

🖼️ Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations.

♥ Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!