ROOTS & BRANCHES

There are times when the good news is finding a family artifact is still around—but the bad news is its fragility. That’s the situation Keith Crownover of Hollidaysburg finds himself in. “I read your column in the Altoona Mirror and I was wondering if you could help me with what is probably a common problem,” …

When you’ve written 1,100 columns over a span of more than 20 years—and, OK, kept an imperfect archive!—there’s going to be some times when you return to the same subjects. One topic that has fascinated me a bit is a concept that I call “origination” and “destination” records (I’m certain that I’m not the first …