Stories That Live In Us

Latest Episodes:

South Carolina: Ancestors Leading the Charge in Battle and in Life (w/ Anne Mitchell) | Episode 111 May 14, 2026

Show notes

A wounded soldier refuses to dismount. His boot overflowing with blood, his hat riddled with three bullet holes, he rallies his troops up a South Carolina hill in Pennsylvania Dutch. History turns on a single moment. Anne Mitchell, a South Carolina native whose roots run deep in the Palmetto state, joins me to share the story of her sixth great-grandfather, Frederick Hambright, a German immigrant who helped win one of the most decisive (and least talked about) battles of the Revolutionary War. As we count down to America's 250th birthday, Anne shares how a family tree hint on Ancestry led her to the Battle of King's Mountain. There, Hambright's courage helped force Cornwallis to change his entire strategy. This is a story about what it means to stand up when history calls your name and why the most powerful family stories are often the ones nobody told you growing up.

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♥ 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!

New Hampshire: Chosen Family, Jewish Roots (with Nancy Kotz and Lynne Snierson) | Episode 110 May 07, 2026

Show notes

Chosen family and Jewish roots run so deep in New Hampshire's Lakes Region that two families spent generations wondering where one ended and the other began. In this episode, Jewish genealogy researcher Nancy Kotz and award-winning journalist Lynne Snierson share the stories of their families, woven together across generations. From a Lithuanian rabbi who may have missed his train stop in 1902 to lakeside lobster bakes and a synagogue that still carries the nameplates of the original founding families, their story is a testament to what community can build when people choose to show up for one another. If you've ever wondered whether the family you were born into is the only family that shapes you, this episode will give you a beautiful, definitive answer.

Virginia: One DNA Match and a Woman Who Didn’t Want to Be Found (with Nicole Palsa) | Episode 109 Apr 30, 2026

Show notes

What must it feel like to grow up knowing your mother walked out the door when you were just three years old and never came back? After Nicole Palsa heard her great-grandmother’s heartbreaking story, she spent the next twenty years searching for answers. Nicole’s great-great-grandmother, Dessie Dulaney, disappeared from Virginia around 1914, leaving behind a little girl, a grieving family, and a silence that lasted generations. When a single DNA match arrived the Friday before Mother's Day 2018, everything changed. And what Nicole uncovered was far more complicated, tragic, and surprisingly triumphant than anyone expected. From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Floyd County, Virginia to a small Illinois village where people still remembered Dessie's name, this is a story about the secrets women kept to survive, the daughters left behind, and what it means to finally find someone your family spent a century trying — and failing — to forget.

New York: A Melting Pot of Resilience (with Scott Pratt) | Episode 108 Apr 23, 2026

Show notes

What would you do if a single letter revealed that everything you thought you knew about your family was only half the story? Scott Pratt walked into a historic Brooklyn church as part of Ancestry's powerful documentary Railroad Ties expecting to find some connection to his Scottish colonial roots. Instead he discovered that he's a descendant of enslaved people who escaped to freedom on the Underground Railroad. In this deeply moving conversation, Scott and I trace the extraordinary arc of his family tree: from Sophia, the light-skinned Black woman who fled slavery through Brooklyn, to her grandson Frank, a silent film star who kept a journal about passing for white that now sits in the Harvard Library. Scott's story is about so much more than genealogical discovery. It’s about the grief of lost stories, the complexity of inherited identity, and the fierce resilience that echoes across generations when we finally let ourselves claim the whole truth of who we are.

North Carolina: Buried Treasure, Buried Stories | Episode 107 Apr 16, 2026

Show notes

He buried a fortune in gold under a bent white oak. Then he died before anyone could find it.

My 6x great-grandfather Abraham Kuykendall lived 93 extraordinary years. He survived colonial America, fought in the Revolution, crossed the frontier with 13 children, and built an empire of 2,000 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. But when I found him on a Sunday night FaceTime research session with my dad, I discovered that history remembers him as a ghost story. There's still an iron wash pot full of coins buried somewhere near Pheasant Branch in Flat Rock, worth an estimated $8 million today, and treasure hunters are still looking for it. But in this episode, I want to tell you who Abraham actually was and why the gold isn't the real treasure that got lost. Your family has buried stories too. You still have time to unearth them.

Rhode Island: A Spirit of Independence (with Maureen Taylor) | Episode 106 Apr 09, 2026

Show notes

What can a single vintage photograph tell you about your ancestors? Maureen Taylor, know as The Photo Detective®, has spent decades proving that old family photos can solve family history mysteries in pretty fascinating ways. Born and bred in Rhode Island and currently serving as president of the Rhode Island Genealogical Society, Maureen takes us on a tour of the 13th state’s unique history. She recounts stories of her great-grandfather’s paper hanging business in Pawtucket and her grandmother who crossed the border from Quebec to work in the textile mills. Along the way, she shares how a tiny state with fierce independence and a rich industrial heritage shaped generations of families, including her own. If you’ve ever wondered what the place your ancestors called home might reveal about who you are today, this conversation will inspire you to start looking.

Vermont: Conversations of Green Mountain Kingdoms (with Mike Brousseau) | Episode 105 Apr 02, 2026

Show notes

Ever wonder how a "Hallmark movie" setting shapes a family for generations? In this episode, Mike Brousseau shares stories from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. It’s a place so deeply tied to his family that there's literally a mountain bearing their name. From a French-Canadian lumberjack who couldn't read but could build perfect spiral staircases, to a spicy French-Canadian grandmother who fixed refrigerators before YouTube existed, to a charming Dairy Queen meet-cute that almost didn't happen, Mike reveals how the rugged, community-focused spirit of Vermont stays in your blood. No matter how far away you travel.

Kentucky: Postmasters & Snapping Turtles (with Caitlyn Bruns & Paul Abell) | Episode 104 Mar 26, 2026

Show notes

Paul Abell has never wanted to leave Kentucky, not even when he moved 90 miles away for college. When his daughter Caitlyn was born, he finally had the reason he needed to dive into the family tree in a way his uncles had been nudging him toward for years. In this episode, I sit down with Ancestry colleague Caitlyn Bruns, a genetic scientist turned strategist. She invited her dad Paul to join us. He’s a man with roots so deep in Adair County that the post office practically runs in his blood. Together, they recount their family's journey from post-Revolutionary Maryland to a Kentucky creek hollow. Here three log cabins, once the general store and post office for the community, have become a gathering place for a hundred cousins, a legendary turtle cook, and quilts hand-stitched by women who held the family together. Their story is a beautiful reminder that family history isn't just about the names on the branches of the family tree. It's about the land, the heirlooms, and the connections to the people who choose to keep showing up.

Tennessee: A Patriot From the Holler | Episode 103 Mar 19, 2026

Show notes

What would it take for you to enlist in a war, march hundreds of miles in winter, survive one of the worst defeats in American history — and then turn right around and do it again? My own Revolutionary War ancestor, Daniel Jones, went from the backcountry of North Carolina to a tiny holler in Northeast Tennessee, where a single pension file, a stray boar, and a rundown farmhouse porch brought his story roaring back to life. I've stood on that porch. I've walked that field. And I promise you, once you start seeing your ancestors as real people who were terrified and brave and stubborn all at the same time, you'll never look at your family tree the same way again. Some stories don't just tell us where we came from. They show us who we're made of.

Ohio: Family Roots, Foundational Soil | Episode 102 Mar 12, 2026

Show notes

What if the names your ancestors gave their children were actually breadcrumbs leading straight to the neighbors who helped shape their lives? In this solo episode, I trace my own Cowan family line from a young Irish weaver who had to register as an alien citizen during the War of 1812 to a doctor who built a house that became a historical society, a saddle maker who outfitted the Union Army, and a U.S. Representative who somehow kept his personal life completely out of the newspapers. But the discovery that surprised me most was buried in an 1830 census. And it's the reason two of George and Jane Cowan's thirteen children carry the names they do. Ohio wasn't just where this family landed. It was the foundational soil that grew a posterity now living in 47 states and seven countries.

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