Living After the Manner of Happiness

I looked out the window of our bedroom early one morning to see the full moon over Veitongo Beach . Mike and I spent the last ten days with my parents, my five siblings and their spouses in the land of my childhood, and I keep thinking about how much this place changed while somehow staying exactly the same. Most of my work as a family historian focuses on tracing names through records that go back generations. This trip flipped that. Instead of searching for the story, I walked back into where it began. Fifty-seven years ago this month, my parents, younger sister, and I left the United States for a small island in the South Pacific. My dad had just finished his bachelor’s degree in English, and his first job was teaching at a private school on the island of Tongatapu, Tonga. My parents packed up our belongings, gathered my younger sister and me, and flew away from family and everything familiar, stopping in Hawaii and Fiji along the way. This is the place where I first learned about G...

Opera House and Harbour Bridge at sunset Mike and I spent the last few days in Sydney, and I keep thinking about how we got here. As a genealogist and family historian, my goal is never just names and dates. It is discovering the stories that connect families across generations and build relationships. Two years ago, I reached out to a DNA match while trying to solve a mystery: Why did my great-aunt die in a country I could not connect her to? Ancestry confirmed that Mandy and I shared my paternal grandmother’s line. Mandy turned out to be the granddaughter of my great-aunt, and she filled in the missing pieces. Two sisters left England and built lives on opposite sides of the world.  Lisle Sisters (left to right): Jean, Pippen, Mary, Olga, and Betty Mary immigrated to North America and Olga immigrated to Australia My grandmother immigrated to Canada in 1949 and later to the United States. Her sister sailed for Australia in 1961 as one of the Ten Pound Poms, British immigrants who ...

Many states in the United States have established their own state holidays. These holidays usually commemorate an important event or person that is significant to the state. Examples of such holidays are Mardi Gras in Louisiana, Cesar Chavez Day in California, Kamehameha Day in Hawaii, and Alaska Day in Alaska.  Utah’s state holiday, Pioneer Day, is celebrated every year on 24 July. It commemorates the arrival of the first group of Latter-day Saint settlers to the Salt Lake Valley on 24 July 1847. It is a time to celebrate all people who contributed to building the state, regardless of religion or background.  Oxford English Dictionary defines a pioneer as “one who goes before to prepare or open up the way for others to follow.” 1   For me, Pioneer Day is a time to remember the courage, sacrifice, devotion, and perseverance of those in my family who entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847 and beyond. On this Pioneer Day, I honor my own Utah pioneers - the firsts in each line...