When Michelle Ercanbrack volunteered for a Mormon pioneer trek, she thought she'd be helping teenagers learn history. What she discovered instead was a missing piece of her own family story that had been hiding in plain sight for decades.

Michelle, a BYU family history program graduate and former Ancestry researcher who worked on television shows like "Who Do You Think You Are," joins me to share how sometimes the most meaningful genealogical discoveries happen not behind a computer screen, but when you physically stand where your ancestors once stood. Her emotional experience retracing her ancestor’s journey through the Wyoming wilderness to Utah reveals why knowing the facts of a story and truly understanding its impact are two completely different things.

Her ancestor, Mary Ann Malley, was a widowed single mother facing impossible choices and learning more about her life led Michelle to understand that even professional genealogists can overlook the most meaningful connections in their own family trees. Her story challenges every family historian to ask a simple but powerful question: What happens when you stop researching your ancestors’ lives and start walking where they walked?

This episode will leave you questioning whether you truly know your family's stories or if you're ready to discover what you've been missing.

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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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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 Lisa Louise Cooke walked into her estranged grandmother's house in Arizona, she had no idea she was about to discover the key to healing a decades-old family rift. Lisa Louise, host of the long-running Genealogy Gems podcast, shares how following an unexpected inner voice led to finding a hidden quilt that would transform her relationship with her father forever. After years of separation following her parents' messy divorces, a mysterious feeling in her grandmother's bedroom guided Lisa Louise to uncover not just a family heirloom, but a handwritten note that became the bridge to reconciliation. This powerful story reveals how our ancestors sometimes speak to us through the most unexpected discoveries, and how listening to those quiet promptings can heal wounds we thought were permanent. Whether you're dealing with family divisions or simply wondering how the past can inform the present, Lisa Louise's journey from disconnection to deep relationship will remind you that it's never too late for healing when we're willing to trust our instincts and follow the voice that guides us home.

Learn more about Lisa Louise and Genealogy Gems here:
https://lisalouisecooke.com/ 

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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 happens when cultures collide and choose connection instead of conflict?

To launch our America 250 series and Season 2 of the podcast, I sit down with Mike Daniels — former mayor of Pleasant Grove, Utah and a dear colleague from our early days at Ancestry — to explore his family’s extraordinary journey to and through Hawaii. From war and immigration to love, loss, and discovery, Mike shares how his family’s story became a living example of what it means to build unity through difference.

“It is a melting pot, and it's really possible for people to live together in peace.”

Along the way, we talk about picture brides, holiday feasts with 50+ cousins, and a name change that reshaped an identity. This heartfelt conversation about belonging, resilience, and multicultural legacy reminds us how place becomes a character in our family stories—shaping not just where we come from, but who we become.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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 the story of America isn't just in history books, but living right now in your family tree? As we approach America's 250th birthday in 2026, I'm taking you on an extraordinary journey across all 50 states through the intimate family stories that shaped our nation. Starting in July 2025, Season 2 of Stories That Live In Us will reveal how your ancestors' choices and experiences are still echoing through your family today.

Over 50 weeks, we'll travel from Hawaii to Alaska, Arizona to Oklahoma, following each state's admission to the union in reverse order. You'll discover tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community. These moments of resilience that defined entire families and continue to influence generations. These aren't stories about famous names and places; they're about real families whose experiences show us that American history lives in our DNA, our traditions, and our family trees.

Whether you're a longtime listener or just discovering the transformational power of family storytelling, this season will inspire you to see your own family history with fresh eyes. Because every family tree holds stories connected to places and times that can fuel your imagination, inspire your resilience, and deepen your family connections.

Join me as we discover, from sea to shining sea, the stories that live in us—and learn how your family's journey is beautifully woven into the larger American story.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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 you found out that the bedtime stories you were told as a kid were really true?

When Hopwood DePree finally traced his unusual first name to its origins, he discovered something extraordinary: a 600-year-old ancestral estate in England that had been waiting centuries for him to find it. When Hopwood, author of "Downton Shabby," began exploring the childhood stories he dismissed as fairy tales, it led to the adventure of a lifetime. From growing up in Michigan, embarrassed by his name to dedicating his life to restoring Hopwood Hall Estate in Middleton, England, his journey reveals how our ancestors' stories can literally reshape our entire lives. You'll hear about secret priest holes, hidden tabernacles, and the moment he realized his grandfather's "bedtime stories" about a castle were actually family history waiting to be reclaimed.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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!

🌍 After decades of dead ends and false leads, one $27 payment to a county archive changed everything for Diana O'Connor. She didn’t just get a record. She got a photograph that made her weep with recognition.

Diana grew up knowing almost nothing about her family history. Her father was placed in foster care at two years old when his mother died. He then died tragically young and Diana’s own mother’s death followed a short eight years later. With virtually no family stories, no extended relatives, and no sense of her roots but armed with a single legal document and unshakeable curiosity, she embarked on a journey that would transform her from a woman with no family connections into someone discovering an abundance of Irish cousins and ancestral homes.

Diana shares the emotional highs and lows of researching her Irish heritage, discovering orphanage records, connecting with cousins across continents, and finally standing in the cemeteries of County Tyrone and County Mayo where her ancestors are buried.

This episode is a heartfelt reminder that even the smallest clues can lead to life-changing discoveries. And that it’s never too late to find your people.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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 do cake and cemeteries have to do with one another? Maybe not much but both have quite a bit to do with family history.

Betheny Tomseth, known on Instagram as @BethenyCakes, takes us on a journey through her family’s complex history. From the mysterious circumstances surrounding her great-grandfather Omer's hunting accident in 1921 to the Scottish immigrant family she discovered buried together in an Ogden cemetery. We explore how a 140-year-old cake recipe connects generations of women who understood that food brings families together.

As the middle child in a family of 14, Betheny shares how her great-aunt Edith's stories about a grandmother who died in childbirth became family treasures, and how her genealogist sister Rebecca's Christmas gift may be the most meaningful one she’s ever received. Our conversation celebrates the beautiful ways our ancestors continue to gather us together.

〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️

🎧 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 turn your family discoveries into a beautiful conversation piece? 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!