Embellishing the family history to include royalty, an Indian princess, or a famous historical figure was more common than most people would imagine. We run into it frequently in our business. My great-grandmother, Alva Belle Calahan, grew up with a vagabond father who never stayed in one place for more than a couple of years.  The

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?Parents came up with some very peculiar names for their children, as the historical records attest. Some names seemed to be designed for grandiosity or high achievement. Others may have doomed their offspring to negative stigma, at least from our modern perspective. These are a few real names we have run across

We find such interesting stories in our family history research! Madison Stephenson lived in southern Indiana in 1850, with his wife Mary (Polly) Minnix, daughter of Jesse Minnix and Polly Henry from Franklin County, Virginia, and their four children: Susannah, Lucy, Owen and Caroline. But when Madison arrived in the area in the late 1830’s,