✦ A COLLECTOR OF STORIES ✦
A Little About Me
I’ve taken the scenic route through life. I was born in New Mexico, but my dad was in the military, so “where are you from?” has always been a more complicated question for me than it is for most people. Plenty of kids dread moving. I secretly loved it. Every move meant new people, new places, and a new library card, and somewhere along the way I picked up a lifelong habit of books, music, and learning things nobody asked me to learn.
I once planned to be a music teacher. Instead, my résumé reads a bit like a riddle: tech support at the Grand Canyon, a bookstore, and a New Age shop in Michigan. There is a through-line, I promise. It just took me a while to see it.
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A Love of Stories, Puzzles, and People
As a teenager I tagged along with my mom to a Family History Center, and while most teenagers would consider an afternoon of microfiche a punishment, I considered it a treat. Then came my grandfather’s research and the Babb family, a line tangled enough to keep any genealogist humble. I was hooked.
Before long I was helping friends with their family trees, which led me to WikiTree, which eventually led to a job, which led to thirteen years and counting. This is what happens when you can’t leave a good mystery alone.
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Making the World a Little Smaller
For an introvert, I have a strange habit of volunteering for projects that involve the entire world. When I read about A.J. Jacobs and his plan for a Global Family Reunion, I suggested WikiTree as a research partner, and then I helped with the reunion and with the appendix to his book It’s All Relative.
What stayed with me was the idea underneath it all: if we can see how we’re connected, maybe we’ll treat each other a little differently. Connect the world. Maybe make it a little kinder. I still haven’t found a better job description.
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Finding My Way Home
All those moves eventually led me back to New Mexico, and it’s home. As an adoptee, I’ve had the unusual gift of two family histories. Tracing my biological father’s maternal line, I found roots in New Mexico reaching back to the arrival of the Spanish. My two family stories are almost opposites, and I treasure them both. Apparently I came home long before I knew it.
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Still Collecting Stories
These days my work runs through WikiTree, the International Institute of Genealogical Studies, and the Global Cohesion Centre. I’m also building Mail Call WWII, an archive of wartime letters and the people who wrote them.
I’ve been told I should slow down. I’m working on it, slowly. In the meantime, I make time for friends, family, a towering stack of books, and a steady supply of Thai food.
Still curious. Still collecting stories.
— Eowyn