Latest / Stories That Live In Us / Fifty Nifty United States (with Lisa Elzey) | Episode 119

Transcript

Fifty Nifty United States (with Lisa Elzey) | Episode 119 · Stories That Live In Us

0:00
Crista Cowan: And so when she came on to tell her Indiana deeply rooted story, uh it was brand new information to me.
0:07
Crista Cowan: And I think that's what I loved the most was that this was a piece of history that I had literally never heard about before.
0:16
Crista Cowan: And then it always makes me wonder what other things exist in people's family trees that are kind of a big deal in history that I have never heard about before.
0:26
Crista Cowan: Stories That Live in Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future.
0:34
Crista Cowan: I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist.
0:38
Crista Cowan: Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America.
0:49
Crista Cowan: Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us.
0:58
Crista Cowan: So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us.
1:05
Crista Cowan: Well, we did it.
1:07
Crista Cowan: We made it to the end of season two.
1:09
Crista Cowan: But before we dive straight into season three, which we're ready for, we wanted to take a little time to do a retrospective about our season two and the trip we took across this country from Sea to Shining Sea, and maybe revisit some of our favorite moments and give you a little bit of behind the scenes from our favorite episodes.
1:33
Crista Cowan: I've invited my producer Lisa to join me.
1:37
Crista Cowan: Most of you probably know her.
1:40
Crista Cowan: She has been a guest on several episodes.
1:42
Crista Cowan: But week after week, she sits here in the corner of the studio and she listens to me have these conversations with my guests.
1:50
Crista Cowan: She listens to me tell my own stories, and then she goes home and she listens to them all over again because she's not just the producer of this podcast, she is also the editor.
2:00
Crista Cowan: And it wouldn't happen without her.
2:02
Crista Cowan: And I'm so grateful for her and for all the work she puts into this podcast.
2:06
Crista Cowan: And so I'm thrilled that you get to meet her, that she's willing to come in front of the camera and have this conversation with me because believe me, she has her favorite episodes too.
2:16
Crista Cowan: So, Lisa, thank you for joining me.
2:18
Crista Cowan: Hi, I'm so glad you're here.
2:20
Crista Cowan: Hi, I'm too.
2:21
Crista Cowan: We've had so much fun this season.
2:23
Crista Cowan: It has been a ride and a blast.
2:25
Crista Cowan: It's been great.
2:26
Crista Cowan: So before we dive in and talk about our favorite episodes from the season, just looking back at like the season as a whole, what are some of like the themes or the lessons you learned from producing all 50 of these episodes?
2:41
Lisa Elzey: Okay.
2:41
Lisa Elzey: Well, before I give it into that bit, I honestly want to say this was your baby and your idea because season two was coming.
2:50
Lisa Elzey: We knew 250 was the thing, like it's a thing.
2:54
Lisa Elzey: And we didn't want to not do something about it.
2:57
Lisa Elzey: And when you said, I really want to do this, which is what we did, I was not skeptical.
3:04
Lisa Elzey: I knew we could, but I knew it would be a sandbox that we'd have to play in that was pretty tight.
3:11
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
3:12
Lisa Elzey: So that's the first lesson I learned is that stories could be found anywhere.
3:18
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
3:18
Lisa Elzey: But sometimes they're going to be a little harder to find, depending on the boundaries that you set for yourself, but not with the United States, because there's so many people, there's so many angles to take.
3:31
Lisa Elzey: And that's the other thing that I loved is that it didn't have to be the history of the state and how does your ancestor fit into the history of the state.
3:39
Lisa Elzey: It could have been as light as we had an episode where someone's grandparent passed away in a state, and they have a memory of that state so synonymous with that funeral and her passing and what they discovered there in our Arizona episode, or we have something as like meaty as a revolutionary war patriot from this state, you know, all the way to a 250 kind of episode.
4:03
Lisa Elzey: So as long as I knew that we could go as much as broadly as we needed to, I felt way more confident that we could fulfill your request.
4:13
Crista Cowan: Because I didn't just tell you we were going to tell a story from each one of the 50 states.
4:17
Crista Cowan: I also decided we should do it in a specific order.
4:21
Lisa Elzey: Yes, you did.
4:22
Lisa Elzey: And it was the backwards order, which I thought was kind of fun, but that meant we had to do Hawaii first.
4:28
Lisa Elzey: And luckily, you knew someone who was from Hawaii because I was like, Hawaii, okay, we got to find a Hawaiian story.
4:36
Lisa Elzey: And um, so it kind of started out with a who you knew to get us going, and then we kind of branched out from there.
4:43
Lisa Elzey: But what I really loved the most, I think just the overall with finding stories for this season was just the variety of people and the the kinds of stories they were excited to share.
4:56
Crista Cowan: You know, when we started the season, we did have to source stories based on the state from people we knew.
5:03
Crista Cowan: But as we got rolling and people understood, oh, they knew what was coming next because we were doing it in the reverse order of when they were granted statehood, and people started anticipating, like, oh, like I can't wait till you get to my state and what story you're gonna tell.
5:17
Crista Cowan: But we also had people approaching us to say, when when you get to that state, could could I be your guest?
5:22
Crista Cowan: Could you tell my story?
5:23
Lisa Elzey: Yes, we had people pitching us saying, I have a great story to tell, or I know someone that does.
5:29
Lisa Elzey: You should call or contact so-and-so.
5:31
Lisa Elzey: Um, we had people saying, uh, we had people with books that had my, you know, uh people that were agents for books saying my author wrote a book about this and that.
5:40
Lisa Elzey: So that was exciting.
5:41
Lisa Elzey: I think we had more than that, more this season than the first season, which is always awesome.
5:46
Crista Cowan: It is super fun.
5:46
Crista Cowan: Okay, well, so you and I have each picked our five favorite episodes from this season.
5:52
Lisa Elzey: Yes, and I would say five favorite interviews, not favorite guests because I just want everyone to know the disclaimer because I loved all of our guests for different reasons.
6:02
Lisa Elzey: And I don't like picking because as we were going through this list, I'm like, oh, but I love the and it was like, and I hate the phrase picking your favorite child because that's not what it is.
6:11
Lisa Elzey: It was just I have such fond memories of editing or or getting the pictures or hearing you talk about what your thoughts were.
6:19
Lisa Elzey: There's just or getting feedback from people who were listening to the episodes.
6:23
Lisa Elzey: Yes, and that honestly comments when we read people's comments, or um, or I there was one I remember that wrote you a really long letter almost where it like changed her life when she listened to it.
6:35
Lisa Elzey: And but that's really what this is all about is the ability to go into someone's story and then share it with someone else, and hopefully it touches their heart.
6:44
Lisa Elzey: And so that's what I want to just disclaimer.
6:46
Lisa Elzey: These are five of our favorite interviews, and for whatever reasons, yeah, but gosh, 50 of these stories, 50, all 50 were just so great.
6:54
Crista Cowan: They were, yeah, they were absolutely okay.
6:55
Crista Cowan: So we're going to run through our favorites in the order that they aired, um, which means I get to go first.
7:02
Crista Cowan: So uh one of my favorite episodes this season was Alaska, which was the second episode of the season.
7:09
Crista Cowan: Um, my neighbor who lives just around the corner from me, his name is Jay, and he is from Alaska.
7:14
Crista Cowan: He grew up in Alaska, and he not only told just this like vivid story about Alaska that helped me picture it in a way that, I mean, I've been there twice, but I still was able to just see it through his eyes, which I loved.
7:29
Crista Cowan: He talked about sourdough and brought sourdough starter with him and gifted you and I each a thing of sourdough starter that is a 150-year-old sourdough starter.
7:42
Crista Cowan: And it sat in my fridge for about a month because I was terrified because I've never done sourdough before.
7:49
Crista Cowan: And so for that month, here's what I did: I watched videos and I read blog posts and I bookmarked recipes that I found on Facebook.
8:01
Crista Cowan: And then I finally got brave and I took the sourdough starter out and I fed it, and it rose, and then I baked my first loaf of bread and it worked, and I was so amazed.
8:15
Crista Cowan: And I can't even describe the feeling of like being successful at something that I had perceived as being so hard, and it kind of is a little hard.
8:26
Lisa Elzey: No, there's no perception.
8:27
Lisa Elzey: Flat out is hard.
8:29
Lisa Elzey: Okay, pause.
8:30
Lisa Elzey: We gotta pause.
8:31
Lisa Elzey: The listener, viewer, we're pausing because I I have I have feelings, I have thoughts.
8:36
Lisa Elzey: So we were watching this whole at work, this whole journey of you discovering things.
8:41
Lisa Elzey: And then you would say something like, I got such and such thing on Amazon for my blah blah blah blah that I need to do with the sourdough.
8:47
Lisa Elzey: I I don't even know the words, the fucking thing.
8:49
Crista Cowan: You gotta scale the proof.
8:51
Crista Cowan: I got yes, I got proofing baskets.
8:53
Lisa Elzey: I don't know what that says, but sounds great.
8:55
Lisa Elzey: Yes, and you got all the the like knickk-knacks, uh-huh.
8:58
Lisa Elzey: And then, and then you made your first loaf.
9:00
Crista Cowan: And then I made my first loaf of bread.
9:02
Crista Cowan: And that was magical.
9:03
Crista Cowan: It was magical.
9:04
Crista Cowan: And it not only was magical, it started me on this journey because it's now been almost a year, and I am now a sourdough baker.
9:12
Crista Cowan: Like I literally have a routine where every Saturday I pull the sourdough out and I feed it, and then I feed it again on Sunday after church and put put it back in the fridge and then take my little part out and let it do its thing.
9:28
Crista Cowan: And then I make dough on Saturday nights.
9:30
Crista Cowan: And when I'm on the phone with my dad for our Sunday night call, I do our little, I do my little stretch and folds every half hour, and then I let it bulk proof overnight.
9:41
Crista Cowan: And then Monday mornings I get up and we get on our team call and I take our team call from um home almost every Monday morning because I have to like shape my sourdough loaves and get them ready for cold proofing.
9:55
Crista Cowan: And then I stick them in their little baskets and I put them in the fridge.
9:57
Crista Cowan: And then on either Tuesday mornings or Wednesday mornings before work, I bake.
10:01
Crista Cowan: And I usually now I'm in the habit of baking between two and four loaves at a time.
10:06
Crista Cowan: I just love that I have some for myself and some to give away.
10:10
Crista Cowan: And it's just become this like rhythm of my life, this 150-year-old sourdough starter that we benefit from.
10:18
Crista Cowan: Because apparently I am in my sourdough era.
10:21
Lisa Elzey: Sourdough era.
10:21
Lisa Elzey: But it's so fun.
10:22
Lisa Elzey: And what I do love about that, aside from the sourdough part, is traditions become a part of us when we choose to take them on, like the mantle of that, and then the consistency of that, it was just a great way to kick off the, you know, our second episode, kicking off that whole like feeling of the season.
10:39
Crista Cowan: Yeah, yeah.
10:40
Crista Cowan: And there was also this interesting thing that happened.
10:42
Crista Cowan: So, because of the order in which we did these episodes, um, the episodes in the West like had a very different feeling than the episodes in the Midwest, and had a very different feeling than the episodes on the East Coast.
10:56
Crista Cowan: And so every state kind of has its own unique flavor, but there were some themes around that.
11:01
Crista Cowan: So we get to your first favorite on your list.
11:06
Lisa Elzey: Yes, which is Utah.
11:07
Lisa Elzey: I loved the Utah episode, and that was with our friend Michelle Urkenbreck.
11:11
Lisa Elzey: Michelle is near and dear to my heart, she's a very dear friend of mine.
11:14
Lisa Elzey: I am here at Ancestry because of Michelle.
11:17
Lisa Elzey: And um, I will forever, forever be grateful for my journey here because of her, and uh on all the things that she's taught me and continues to teach me.
11:27
Lisa Elzey: She's a magnificent storyteller.
11:29
Lisa Elzey: She is.
11:30
Lisa Elzey: She knows the parts of a story and what makes a good story, and she uh reminded me of those things in family history.
11:38
Lisa Elzey: And uh I just love her for that.
11:39
Lisa Elzey: And so when we talked about who should be Utah, it's not like we didn't have 900 people to choose from.
11:46
Lisa Elzey: Right.
11:46
Lisa Elzey: We could have chosen so many people to come and talk about their family history.
11:50
Lisa Elzey: You could have spoken about your own.
11:52
Lisa Elzey: It would have been easy to get someone in the office.
11:55
Lisa Elzey: But we knew that Michelle would have been the right choice because she's a great storyteller.
11:59
Lisa Elzey: The thing that I wanted her to talk about, and I think you did too, was the story that she had a connection to was the Willie Martin Handcart Company.
12:09
Lisa Elzey: And if you haven't listened to the episode, it's a a group of people that came west to Utah and they came a little too late and they got trapped in Wyoming in the weather.
12:19
Lisa Elzey: Some really horrible things happened, many died, they had to be saved.
12:24
Lisa Elzey: It was just a horrible situation.
12:25
Lisa Elzey: And there are many diaries that are written about that experience.
12:28
Lisa Elzey: So that's the one thing those pioneers especially were really good at was writing about their experiences.
12:34
Lisa Elzey: They wrote their stories down so we didn't have to guess how they felt.
12:38
Lisa Elzey: They told us.
12:38
Lisa Elzey: And so I do not have any Mormon pioneer heritage at all.
12:44
Lisa Elzey: And but I have heard this Willie Martin Hankart story all the time.
12:49
Lisa Elzey: So anytime Pioneer Day would come around, Pioneer Day is the founding of Utah as estate, July 24th.
12:55
Lisa Elzey: But it would always come around because it's about the pioneers coming and we talk about the hard things, and that story always was brought up.
13:01
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
13:02
Lisa Elzey: And people almost would wear it as a badge of honor, kind of like, I have an ancestor from this, they survived and they they were resilient and as they should.
13:12
Lisa Elzey: But it was just a story that I was very familiar with growing up, um, you know, hearing it.
13:17
Lisa Elzey: And but what I loved about this episode, in my head, I was like, it's gonna be Willie Martin, I already know it, but I love Michelle and she tells a great story, it's gonna be great.
13:26
Lisa Elzey: So I'd already kind of decided in my head what kind of of you know story it was gonna be.
13:31
Lisa Elzey: It totally was not that.
13:33
Lisa Elzey: It was a completely different way of telling it because my friend who has a degree in family history from Brigham Young University, sorry, Michelle, did not know she had an ancestor who was in the Willie Martin Hanker Company.
13:50
Lisa Elzey: Right.
13:50
Crista Cowan: Because when you have a million pioneers on every branch of your family tree, you have to focus on some of them.
13:56
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
13:56
Lisa Elzey: And so I I just was so like shocked by that.
14:00
Lisa Elzey: So she's telling her discovery story, and I was totally drawn in.
14:04
Lisa Elzey: And I hope our listeners and our viewers were too, because it was it was surprising, but it was also beautiful the way she was telling the story.
14:12
Lisa Elzey: Another thing I love about Michelle is her feelings are so right at the surface at any given moment.
14:19
Lisa Elzey: She's a tender so and um she felt those feelings of those moms that were burying their babies, or she felt those feelings of of woe and and sadness and desperation.
14:34
Lisa Elzey: And yeah, she felt that and she felt it in their words on the page.
14:40
Lisa Elzey: She felt it just in the in the place, and she would have the opportunity to go there and she has children of her own.
14:45
Lisa Elzey: Just I don't know, I was just swept up in it, and her crying, and then you crying because she's crying, and I'm crying.
14:53
Lisa Elzey: I'm like, and I don't cry easy.
14:56
Lisa Elzey: You don't I'm not an easier cry, and I'm not trying to be like, I don't cry easy, but I don't.
15:00
Lisa Elzey: And so when I'm teary, it's because I'm watching two of my dear friends, and I'm probably gonna get teary now, but watching two of my dear friends like connect and have this beautiful moment of like story, and then having you surprise her and tell her, Oh, by the way, no spoiler over.
15:21
Lisa Elzey: If you haven't listened to the story, push pause, go listen to the episode.
15:25
Lisa Elzey: Um, but have you tell her, oh, my my person, I found out, went and saved your person from the snow.
15:33
Lisa Elzey: And then we guys, we had to push pause.
15:36
Lisa Elzey: We had too many tears.
15:37
Lisa Elzey: It was like we had to blow noses, it was gross.
15:41
Lisa Elzey: We had to, it was just too much because it was like, oh my gosh, and she didn't know that.
15:46
Lisa Elzey: And then you like were able to share that with her in real time.
15:50
Lisa Elzey: And it wasn't like a gotcha, but it was a real thing that you had just barely discovered.
15:54
Crista Cowan: I had gone looking for because I knew a little bit about what story she was gonna share.
15:59
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
15:59
Crista Cowan: And and I I it had never occurred to me to look to see if my ancestors had been involved.
16:07
Crista Cowan: Like I knew they hadn't come across in the Martin and Willie handcart company, but I also knew the story, because we've heard it our whole lives, about the men who were sent to rescue them.
16:17
Crista Cowan: Yes.
16:17
Crista Cowan: And it had never occurred to me to look to see did anybody in my family tree participate in that?
16:22
Crista Cowan: So I went looking for it intentionally before that episode.
16:26
Crista Cowan: And the fact that I found it and the fact that I could share it with her.
16:29
Crista Cowan: Um, I love her dearly.
16:31
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
16:32
Crista Cowan: But that just was a whole different level of connection.
16:35
Lisa Elzey: It was, and it was something unexpected.
16:37
Lisa Elzey: And I love that I was able to see a story that I had heard so many times before, but I saw it in a new light with new new eyes and new people, but they're my friends that I've known forever.
16:51
Lisa Elzey: So I just that will always I will always treasure that.
16:55
Lisa Elzey: And it makes me love Utah even more.
16:57
Crista Cowan: Okay.
16:58
Crista Cowan: So as we did this state-by-state thing in the order of when they became states, one of the things that surprised me was that sometimes, like, we weren't just marching east.
17:09
Crista Cowan: We go from Utah and now we're gonna go back west to Oregon.
17:13
Crista Cowan: Right.
17:14
Lisa Elzey: I love this episode because it has Phyllis Zegers, who is a dear sweet friend.
17:19
Lisa Elzey: Phyllis.
17:20
Lisa Elzey: I love Phyllis so much.
17:22
Crista Cowan: Now, the thing about the organ story is there was actually a part one to the organ story that you and I told in season one.
17:29
Crista Cowan: We did.
17:30
Crista Cowan: And so what I loved about this organ episode was that it was kind of like the rest of the story.
17:36
Lisa Elzey: Yes, it was a very behind the scenes, even more.
17:38
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
17:39
Lisa Elzey: Uh it was it was her side, right?
17:41
Lisa Elzey: So I told my side, my discovery, and and how I was able to share that with the person that had the question.
17:47
Lisa Elzey: And then he got to share how he took it and went and did his thing.
17:50
Lisa Elzey: But we didn't share how I was able to find what I found because of Phyllis.
17:55
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
17:56
Lisa Elzey: So Phyllis is a she's just she's just amazing.
18:00
Lisa Elzey: Her whole project that she worked on was completely selfless.
18:05
Lisa Elzey: It was not her person, it was just people that were forgotten.
18:11
Lisa Elzey: And it has to do with the Oregon State Hospital.
18:14
Lisa Elzey: It has to do with, again, the like if you listen to the episode in season one, it has to do with the cremains in the uh Oregon State Hospital that were kind of not abandoned, they were just forgotten because no one had claimed them.
18:27
Lisa Elzey: When I discovered Phyllis taking all of these death certificates and putting them on Find a Grave, because that's how she was giving back to the community, was putting the information on the public site, find a grave.
18:38
Lisa Elzey: And that's how I found the death certificate in connection with the story that I was doing.
18:44
Lisa Elzey: Then I realized she'd been posting all these things.
18:46
Lisa Elzey: I really think if I'm looking back, it's the first time that it really came to me to as an idea that I could do something like this.
18:55
Lisa Elzey: That I could do a community project that is not my own family.
19:00
Lisa Elzey: I mean, aside from my job, of course.
19:02
Lisa Elzey: I'm just saying that that I could give back in a way that isn't something that I'm doing for my work or doing for my own family, but I could choose to help people just like her.
19:11
Lisa Elzey: And it's beautiful and it's it's accessible.
19:14
Lisa Elzey: I don't know.
19:15
Lisa Elzey: It just was so wonderful.
19:16
Lisa Elzey: And then that she did this long before we had the Oregon State death certificates on Ancestry.
19:21
Lisa Elzey: She was driving and like they knew her by name, they would have things prepped her.
19:25
Lisa Elzey: She they they trusted her.
19:27
Lisa Elzey: Like they were like, Oh, if Phyllis is doing this, then we're fine.
19:30
Lisa Elzey: Like just the beautiful relationship she created from that.
19:34
Lisa Elzey: I don't know.
19:34
Lisa Elzey: She's just a lovely person.
19:36
Lisa Elzey: I loved getting to know her.
19:38
Lisa Elzey: And the best part, too, we asked if she would come here and interview, not just with us, but with Ancestry.
19:46
Lisa Elzey: But then we asked, Well, could we also get you for the podcast with Krista?
19:51
Lisa Elzey: It's not an Ancestry thing, it's studio sponsored by Ancestry, but not.
19:55
Lisa Elzey: And she's like, Oh, yes, of course.
19:57
Lisa Elzey: And we said, We'll give you a tour.
19:58
Lisa Elzey: She goes, Oh, that'd be great.
19:59
Lisa Elzey: So we had lunch and I don't know, it was just the loveliest day.
20:03
Crista Cowan: And I love this whole idea of like when we start telling stories, they don't always have to be our own stories.
20:11
Crista Cowan: So, like Phyllis was talking about her contribution and her journey, but really her whole experience is making sure other people's stories aren't forgotten, making sure other people's people aren't forgotten.
20:25
Crista Cowan: And I think that that like just that becomes part of who we are as family historians when we get into this work.
20:32
Crista Cowan: And she has just really embraced it in a lovely way.
20:36
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
20:36
Lisa Elzey: And I love that you say that because we just had an experience the other night where I was getting blubbery about an entire family that kind of disappeared when I was researching them for, you know, different reasons.
20:47
Lisa Elzey: People got diseases or accidents or whatever.
20:50
Lisa Elzey: And the whole family, pretty much they had no descendants that survived.
20:54
Lisa Elzey: And I was so upset about that.
20:56
Lisa Elzey: And so, like, well, who will remember them?
20:59
Lisa Elzey: Because no one is left to tell their story.
21:02
Lisa Elzey: No one's here.
21:03
Lisa Elzey: No one's looking for them.
21:04
Lisa Elzey: No one's, no one's remembering them.
21:07
Lisa Elzey: And Phyllis found a beautiful way to put their story out there because it's still a story.
21:13
Lisa Elzey: They still contributed in some way.
21:15
Lisa Elzey: They still have lives, they still had experiences.
21:18
Lisa Elzey: There's still value in their life here on this earth.
21:20
Lisa Elzey: And just because they didn't leave a descendant doesn't mean they don't have value.
21:24
Lisa Elzey: And so anyway, I just I'm grateful to hear that.
21:27
Lisa Elzey: Okay.
21:28
Lisa Elzey: Oh my goodness.
21:30
Lisa Elzey: You have value.
21:31
Lisa Elzey: If not anything for your sourdough.
21:33
Lisa Elzey: That is your that is your path to legacy.
21:36
Lisa Elzey: Oh, yummy, good for me.
21:39
Lisa Elzey: But no, but you know how some people are like, well, they kind of leave the the ones like, oh, but they didn't have any descendants.
21:44
Lisa Elzey: And they kind of just leave them in the tree, right?
21:46
Lisa Elzey: I think that happens a lot.
21:47
Lisa Elzey: It does.
21:48
Lisa Elzey: Where we just kind of don't explore who that person was because we don't have any descendants for us to go find or whatever.
21:54
Lisa Elzey: And I don't know.
21:55
Lisa Elzey: I just have like a rekindled fire, uh, kind of like with our episode.
21:59
Lisa Elzey: About the nuns.
22:01
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
22:01
Lisa Elzey: Right?
22:01
Lisa Elzey: That was that kind of feeling like we gotta get them off the page and put them out there so people can see.
22:07
Lisa Elzey: And so Phyllis just really exemplified that.
22:09
Crista Cowan: Well, I love that.
22:10
Crista Cowan: Yes.
22:10
Crista Cowan: Okay, now we're gonna go from Oregon all the way, we're gonna skip ahead to the Midwest.
22:15
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
22:15
Lisa Elzey: West is done.
22:17
Crista Cowan: You found this story in Iowa that is so cool.
22:22
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
22:22
Lisa Elzey: So okay, Iowa.
22:23
Lisa Elzey: Iowa is a beautiful state.
22:26
Lisa Elzey: I could have told so many different stories.
22:28
Lisa Elzey: Uh, here is what happened.
22:30
Lisa Elzey: We so we populate, just to give a little behind-the-scenes, little production behind the scenes.
22:35
Lisa Elzey: When we find stories, we put them in our spreadsheet and we populate where they're gonna go and we see little holes of where we don't have a story and where we might need to uh, you know, tap into our brain or tap into friends or look online and see if we want to go and pitch a story to some people.
22:49
Lisa Elzey: And Iowa was one of those places where we didn't necessarily have someone we knew offhand or or had something.
22:54
Lisa Elzey: And so I was thinking, okay, where do where do I want to tell the story?
22:57
Lisa Elzey: What do I want to tell?
22:58
Lisa Elzey: And I'd been following this Instagram.
23:02
Lisa Elzey: She's amazing.
23:02
Lisa Elzey: Her name's Rosie Grant.
23:04
Lisa Elzey: She's awesome.
23:05
Lisa Elzey: And she was posting all of these different recipe headstones that she had been capturing.
23:11
Lisa Elzey: It's the most random thing.
23:13
Lisa Elzey: Right?
23:13
Lisa Elzey: She'd found all of these headstones that people had been so obsessed, or at least been personified or identified with their recipe that they put it on their headstone when they died to be remembered by.
23:26
Lisa Elzey: She'd written a cookbook where she had put all of these recipes together.
23:31
Lisa Elzey: She had gone and visited the families of the people that had passed away.
23:35
Lisa Elzey: It wasn't just here's the recipes, make the thing.
23:39
Lisa Elzey: It was the story.
23:40
Lisa Elzey: It was why this recipe.
23:42
Lisa Elzey: It was, I'm gonna go make this with the family.
23:45
Lisa Elzey: I loved that.
23:46
Lisa Elzey: It was to me, this is like a genealogist dream gift.
23:49
Lisa Elzey: In fact, I gave it to you for your birthday.
23:51
Lisa Elzey: You did.
23:52
Crista Cowan: So much, and it's so funny because one of my dearest friends, um, she listened to the episode and then immediately she texted me and she said, Well, I guess I will return the birthday gift I got you.
24:06
Lisa Elzey: I'm so sorry, Mel.
24:07
Lisa Elzey: I love you.
24:08
Lisa Elzey: I'm so sorry.
24:09
Lisa Elzey: But yes, I did give it to you for your birthday.
24:11
Lisa Elzey: It just happened to coincide with holiday coming up.
24:14
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
24:15
Lisa Elzey: And so I immediately was like, Oh, we should do this for Iowa episode.
24:19
Lisa Elzey: Oh my gosh, does she have any recipes in Iowa?
24:22
Lisa Elzey: I she did.
24:24
Lisa Elzey: She had two.
24:25
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
24:25
Lisa Elzey: And so I reached out.
24:27
Lisa Elzey: This is one of the things.
24:27
Crista Cowan: Which actually, okay, let's just let's just talk about the fact that in a recipe cookbook, there's like what, like 50-ish, yeah, 45 recipes.
24:35
Crista Cowan: Um, so the fact that she had two from the state of Iowa is really kind of odd because it's a smaller state.
24:41
Crista Cowan: Yes.
24:42
Crista Cowan: There's a million other opportunities or places.
24:44
Crista Cowan: I've I've followed her Instagram, like there are other places she could have put, but these two recipes like had stories attached.
24:51
Crista Cowan: They did all of her recipes.
24:53
Lisa Elzey: And I think it really speaks to Iowa that they are family driven.
24:57
Lisa Elzey: They are story driven as a state, I think, and they're tradition driven too.
25:03
Lisa Elzey: And I think that traditions run deep there, you know?
25:06
Lisa Elzey: So uh this is one of my first big pitches, right?
25:09
Lisa Elzey: So I don't know this person.
25:11
Lisa Elzey: I follow them on Instagram.
25:12
Lisa Elzey: I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna cold, cold pitch this person and be like, hi, which is what we do, you know.
25:18
Lisa Elzey: Hi, my name is Lisa, and I'm the to produce this podcast.
25:21
Lisa Elzey: And here's Krista.
25:22
Lisa Elzey: Isn't she awesome?
25:23
Lisa Elzey: And you know, would you like we'd love to have you come and chat with us?
25:26
Lisa Elzey: Immediately she responded, she's so awesome.
25:29
Lisa Elzey: And uh got me in touch with her agent, her book agent.
25:32
Lisa Elzey: They got everything set up and we had her on the podcast.
25:36
Lisa Elzey: Literally two weeks later, Rosie is on the Kelly Clarkson show.
25:41
Lisa Elzey: And I'm like, we got her before Kelly Clarkson got her.
25:45
Lisa Elzey: This is amazing.
25:46
Lisa Elzey: Because her book was coming out right before holiday, and then her book became a New York Times bestseller.
25:50
Lisa Elzey: So I was like, I felt pretty proud about that.
25:53
Lisa Elzey: You should feel pretty proud about that.
25:54
Lisa Elzey: Got her first, but I mean, not first.
25:57
Lisa Elzey: But anyway, I just love her.
25:59
Lisa Elzey: She's just very down-to-earth, and she had great stories to tell.
26:02
Lisa Elzey: It was right before Christmas, so I thought it'd be fun to make the Christmas cookies, which I did, which are delicious.
26:07
Lisa Elzey: They are delicious, and she told the story behind that one because it was our Christmas kind of episode, December episode.
26:13
Lisa Elzey: But there were two recipes, and the other was for a cheese dip, which I also made.
26:20
Lisa Elzey: Here's the cheese dip.
26:22
Lisa Elzey: And this is the Red Lantern cheese dip.
26:25
Lisa Elzey: And the story behind this one, it's a woman named Deb, and she was a waitress at this Red Lantern restaurant.
26:32
Lisa Elzey: It was like a roadside restaurant in Iowa.
26:34
Lisa Elzey: And this uh police officer would come often and dine there, and it ended up being her husband later.
26:40
Lisa Elzey: They got married.
26:41
Lisa Elzey: So I think she has an affinity for that place, probably because that's where she met her husband.
26:46
Lisa Elzey: And apparently, the cheese dip is very much like everyone has their own recipe, their own version of it.
26:54
Lisa Elzey: Their own version, but they all said that dub's was best.
26:57
Lisa Elzey: So I thought it'd be fun since we made the cookies from Iowa.
27:00
Lisa Elzey: We should probably have the cheese dip and you know, cheese dip.
27:03
Crista Cowan: Well, okay.
27:04
Crista Cowan: I mean, I feel like we show and eat some eat some cheese.
27:09
Lisa Elzey: We should try some cheese dip.
27:10
Lisa Elzey: I think we should try.
27:11
Lisa Elzey: This is where this is the part, this is the awkward part where you eat on camera where everyone loves watching it.
27:15
Lisa Elzey: So we're gonna, it's a chilled cheese dip.
27:17
Crista Cowan: Oh, yeah, it is.
27:18
Crista Cowan: But it didn't break the cracker.
27:20
Lisa Elzey: Cheers.
27:20
Lisa Elzey: Cheers.
27:22
Crista Cowan: Um, that's really good.
27:24
Crista Cowan: Oh wow.
27:25
Crista Cowan: Yeah, there's a lot of levels on that.
27:27
Lisa Elzey: I think I could put some of that on your sourdough.
27:30
Crista Cowan: Oh.
27:30
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
27:33
Crista Cowan: I think that's it.
27:34
Crista Cowan: That's really yummy.
27:35
Crista Cowan: That is yummy.
27:36
Lisa Elzey: I could see how that could be like a total make the cheese diet, bring it, bring it to the party.
27:41
Crista Cowan: Yeah, like you're always asked to bring that.
27:43
Lisa Elzey: Yeah, bring it.
27:44
Lisa Elzey: That's so yummy.
27:45
Lisa Elzey: If you need a gift for a fellow genealogist, family historian, it's amazing.
27:50
Lisa Elzey: It's called To Die For, a cookbook of gravestone recipes.
27:55
Lisa Elzey: So you can get it online.
27:56
Lisa Elzey: It's awesome.
27:57
Lisa Elzey: Okay.
27:57
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
27:58
Lisa Elzey: Where are we going next?
27:58
Lisa Elzey: I don't know.
27:59
Lisa Elzey: Baba.
28:01
Lisa Elzey: My dear friend.
28:03
Lisa Elzey: So I need to set this up.
28:05
Lisa Elzey: Uh, we reached out to people uh at Ancestry, friends of ours, when we're again looking for some different states, and we have a few friends who are like, oh, we'd love to talk to that person, this person, they're dynamic, interesting.
28:18
Lisa Elzey: Like Julie Merrill, which is one of our most recent uh Ancestry Progen stories.
28:23
Lisa Elzey: We didn't have anyone for Alabama, and then I remembered, oh my goodness, Noah.
28:28
Lisa Elzey: Noah is from Alabama.
28:30
Lisa Elzey: So Noah Lapitas, who is a pro genealogist here at Ancestry, is from Alabama, but he moved to Utah to work for Ancestry Pro Genealogists.
28:39
Lisa Elzey: But then when we went remote, he was able to move back to Alabama.
28:43
Lisa Elzey: Noah's Jewish.
28:45
Lisa Elzey: Right.
28:46
Lisa Elzey: And I'm like, okay, you're from Alabama.
28:48
Lisa Elzey: I'm like, so did you like move there?
28:50
Lisa Elzey: He's like, no, no, my family's from here.
28:52
Lisa Elzey: I've always been there.
28:53
Lisa Elzey: You don't think Jewish in Alabama when you think Jewish like migration.
28:58
Lisa Elzey: Right.
28:58
Lisa Elzey: There's certain pockets of Jewish migration that you just kind of think about.
29:02
Lisa Elzey: So we thought, okay, that's really interesting.
29:04
Lisa Elzey: We'd love to hear that.
29:05
Lisa Elzey: So the I need to give a little backstory about Noah.
29:07
Lisa Elzey: Noah is one of the genealogists on the team of amazing genealogists that helped crack the case for A Dream Delivered, the Lost Letters of Hawkins Wilson.
29:18
Lisa Elzey: But what's really great, he had only been at Ancestry for like three or four months.
29:22
Crista Cowan: At the time of the Hawkins Wilson project.
29:24
Lisa Elzey: Yes, he was brand new.
29:26
Lisa Elzey: And I'm like, hi, I heard I get to use you on our team.
29:29
Lisa Elzey: My name's Lisa.
29:31
Lisa Elzey: Are you ready to go?
29:32
Lisa Elzey: And he's like, yeah.
29:33
Lisa Elzey: So we kind of forged this awesome fun friendship over this treasure hunt of trying to find this information.
29:39
Lisa Elzey: And it could not have been more fun and frustrating and maddening and exciting and exhilarating and emotional.
29:46
Lisa Elzey: So I love that we got to have that friendship forged that way.
29:50
Lisa Elzey: Uh, but I also just love him as a person.
29:52
Lisa Elzey: He's an extremely magnanimous, amazing person.
29:56
Crista Cowan: Well, and this was the surprising thing about this episode because I had heard about Noah from you.
30:01
Crista Cowan: I had watched you kind of lead this team of researchers in this project for a year and a half.
30:06
Crista Cowan: And genealogists by nature, people who go into genealogy as a profession in particular, um, like they're so whip smart and they're so tenacious, and they have to be to do the work that they do.
30:21
Crista Cowan: And I admire that so much about them.
30:23
Crista Cowan: But we have this joke around the office where we say if you ask a genealogist what time it is, they'll tell you how to build a clock.
30:30
Crista Cowan: And so I'm always a little hesitant when you're like, we should get this genealogist on the podcast.
30:36
Crista Cowan: And I'm like, oh, but can they tell a story without telling us how to build the clock?
30:40
Crista Cowan: And I was so delighted by Noah because he can tell a story.
30:48
Crista Cowan: And he's clever and funny and little Noah.
30:51
Crista Cowan: And his stories about, yes, being little Noah with the little backpack at the library, wanting to go to archives for his birthday.
30:59
Lisa Elzey: And but I just I just love he had such a drive for the work that he was doing, uh, the work of righting wrongs with injustices with as of uh being a lawyer before he was a professional genealogist.
31:13
Lisa Elzey: And so for him to share his Jewish heritage and learn something new, I did not know about.
31:18
Lisa Elzey: I did not know how to have the history of Jews in Birmingham and Matt Holstettl that came over together.
31:24
Lisa Elzey: Like it was almost like a lifting of history that just kind of planted itself.
31:28
Lisa Elzey: Uh and that he helped discover that.
31:30
Lisa Elzey: It just was lovely.
31:31
Lisa Elzey: And Alabama.
31:32
Lisa Elzey: Alabama.
31:33
Lisa Elzey: And the next one I think is still is kind of in the Midwest.
31:37
Lisa Elzey: So Alabama, the deep south.
31:38
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
31:38
Lisa Elzey: Now we're kind of, I don't know, it's Indiana.
31:41
Lisa Elzey: Is that South?
31:42
Lisa Elzey: Is it West?
31:42
Lisa Elzey: Kentucky.
31:43
Lisa Elzey: It's kind of on the border, isn't it?
31:46
Crista Cowan: Yeah, it's not south.
31:47
Crista Cowan: No, it's always so interesting to me because there's some states that are just small enough or have a predominant enough culture that you think of it and you think of one thing.
31:58
Crista Cowan: Indiana is one of those long states, right?
32:00
Crista Cowan: Um, and there are different pockets of culture in the state of Indiana.
32:06
Crista Cowan: And so here's why I picked Indiana as one of my favorite episodes from the season.
32:11
Crista Cowan: Two reasons.
32:12
Crista Cowan: One, it was our hundredth episode.
32:15
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
32:15
Crista Cowan: And that was kind of a big deal for you and me.
32:17
Crista Cowan: I know.
32:18
Crista Cowan: Like when we started this, like I think we were just like, let's just try a season or let's just try 20 episodes and see what happens.
32:27
Crista Cowan: And then we have just kept going and going.
32:30
Crista Cowan: And it's been a lot of work, but it has been, I think, fun and we have learned things.
32:35
Crista Cowan: And so the opportunity we had to just celebrate that we made it a hundred episodes was a big deal for us.
32:42
Lisa Elzey: I think so too.
32:43
Lisa Elzey: I when I think hundred episodes, I think of like friends on NBC having an NBC cake, hundredth episode.
32:51
Lisa Elzey: Like it was a big deal.
32:53
Lisa Elzey: It was a big deal.
32:54
Lisa Elzey: And I remember at the very beginning of the podcast almost saying, Okay, well, if we need to take a break, we can, right?
33:00
Lisa Elzey: And you're like, yeah.
33:01
Lisa Elzey: And I'm like, okay, like we had no idea.
33:03
Lisa Elzey: I didn't know what my workload would be.
33:05
Lisa Elzey: You didn't know, like, we just didn't know.
33:06
Lisa Elzey: And the fact that we've had just roll a week, yeah, every week.
33:10
Lisa Elzey: We've not missed a week.
33:11
Lisa Elzey: And I'm really proud of that for us.
33:13
Crista Cowan: You should be proud of that for sure.
33:14
Crista Cowan: Because you do a lot of work.
33:16
Lisa Elzey: Well, and you post it.
33:17
Crista Cowan: So high five us.
33:18
Crista Cowan: Okay.
33:19
Crista Cowan: Okay, so here's the other reason I loved Indiana.
33:21
Crista Cowan: So our guest was Lisa Fanning.
33:23
Crista Cowan: And Lisa is a genealogy colleague.
33:27
Crista Cowan: Um, she is somebody that I know in the industry.
33:30
Crista Cowan: I didn't know a lot about her or her background or her history.
33:33
Crista Cowan: And so when she came on to tell her Indiana deeply rooted story, uh it was brand new information to me.
33:41
Crista Cowan: And I think that's what I loved the most was that this was a piece of history that I had literally never heard about before.
33:50
Crista Cowan: And then it always makes me wonder what other things exist in people's family trees that are kind of a big deal in history that I have never heard about before.
34:00
Crista Cowan: So just a brief recap of her episode.
34:03
Crista Cowan: She descends from communities of free blacks in Indiana, people who um who purchased or were granted their freedom in places like Virginia and North Carolina and left to make a community of people where they could live freely.
34:21
Crista Cowan: And I mean, I knew free blacks existed.
34:24
Crista Cowan: I just didn't understand the depth of these communities and how interconnected those families were and how deep those family trees go.
34:33
Crista Cowan: I mean, we're talking people who were freed sometimes in the late 1600 or early 1700s and have lived free all along.
34:41
Crista Cowan: Um, we hear so much in this country about slavery, and it is a an awful and dark part of our history.
34:49
Crista Cowan: But the fact that there were people who were still eking out livings in places and um and were granted that freedom and living with that freedom for so long was literally something I did not know before.
35:02
Lisa Elzey: I also loved that she was telling the why they ended up there because someone has, you know, said it or whatever.
35:10
Lisa Elzey: It's really, really awesome.
35:11
Crista Cowan: Yeah, it is.
35:11
Crista Cowan: And here's the fun thing, like kind of as an after the episode, right?
35:16
Crista Cowan: Lisa, like, she I was just in Indiana at the National Genealogy Conference a few weeks ago, and she is on the board of directors for the National Genealogical Society, and she was there and she came up and talked to me.
35:29
Crista Cowan: And we ended up having lunch together one day at a table full of people, and she was telling people I was the hundredth episode, which she's just, you know, she was so grateful to have been able to share her story and to have been able to do it at an important milestone for us.
35:46
Lisa Elzey: So that was it, Indiana.
35:47
Lisa Elzey: Love Indiana.
35:48
Lisa Elzey: I think you have the next one as well.
35:50
Lisa Elzey: This one is a little more close to your family tree, Louisiana.
35:56
Crista Cowan: I love Louisiana.
35:58
Crista Cowan: Um, I've always kind of had this fascination with Louisiana, especially New Orleans and the culture there and the history there.
36:06
Crista Cowan: And I don't so much love the weather there.
36:09
Crista Cowan: I have been there in the summer when the sun was trying to kill me.
36:13
Crista Cowan: But um, but um yeah, when when it came time to tell a Louisiana story, I had already told a part of a Louisiana story in episode one when I talked about the discovery of my ancestor Carrie and how she ended up in Louisiana and how that connected me then with cousins that lived there.
36:34
Crista Cowan: But uh what I hadn't told as part of that story was how often I go back to Louisiana now.
36:40
Crista Cowan: Um, I just had the opportunity at Christmas time to take one of my nephews on his 13th birthday trip.
36:46
Crista Cowan: And to it was just so fun to be able to be there with him and have that time with him.
36:52
Crista Cowan: And uh the interesting thing is that uh there was another cousin that I met on that trip with this nephew, and she's part of this same family.
37:04
Crista Cowan: I had been Facebook friends with her for years, but I had never met her in person.
37:09
Crista Cowan: And I had never understood why I hadn't met her in person uh until her story came out on that visit.
37:17
Crista Cowan: And we started to understand that she had been intentionally estranged from the family by some things that had happened and was just kind of trying to find her way back in with the cousins and what her place was.
37:30
Crista Cowan: And the moment she walked into that family gathering with those photo albums, I'm gonna cry, just like still like the like the joy and the palpability in the room of everybody going, you're one of us, and you have part of our story too.
37:48
Crista Cowan: We come with parts of each other's story, and when you can put all those pieces together, it's just the coolest thing.
37:55
Crista Cowan: And so to be able to sit at that table with her and hear her tell that story, I knew that when it came time to do the Louisiana episode, I wanted her to tell her story.
38:05
Crista Cowan: And she did it, and she did it so beautifully.
38:08
Crista Cowan: Um Arlene just love her, and I love her cute southern accent.
38:13
Lisa Elzey: I know okay, wait, can we just comment on that?
38:15
Lisa Elzey: Okay, it's like a different accent, right?
38:18
Lisa Elzey: We talked about that after because it's like New Orleans has a different accent, but it's different.
38:23
Lisa Elzey: But you told me this, and I didn't know this, that different parts of New Orleans have different accents.
38:27
Lisa Elzey: Uh-huh, mixed with a little bit as like southern drawl, but then mixed with Texas, because my dad's from Texas.
38:37
Lisa Elzey: So I was like, that sounds like my dad.
38:39
Lisa Elzey: But then it then it's it was the most interesting, yeah, strange, fascinating accent.
38:45
Crista Cowan: Uh-huh.
38:45
Crista Cowan: When I was interviewing Arlene, my dad was in town.
38:50
Crista Cowan: And I told him I was interviewing her, and he like came with me, and he was sitting in the studio just off camera, kind of angled so that he could see her on the computer screen while she and I were talking.
39:03
Crista Cowan: And he got to meet her and talk to her and sit through that whole episode.
39:08
Crista Cowan: Because what I think most of our listeners don't realize is that most of these interviews take like an hour.
39:13
Crista Cowan: And then you do like the magic of editing to get them down to the story that will fit in 20 or 30 or 40 minutes.
39:21
Crista Cowan: And sometimes, sometimes we let them go a little bit longer because there's just not much we can edit out sometimes.
39:27
Crista Cowan: Like there's lots of chit-chat and stuff that happens.
39:30
Crista Cowan: So there's there is a lot of stuff that happens in that hour, and my dad got to sit there and be there for that and interact with her.
39:36
Crista Cowan: And I just every time I can share family history with my dad, it's a beautiful thing.
39:42
Lisa Elzey: That's something I really love about you and your family too, is that you aren't afraid to go meet a person you've never seen before.
39:49
Lisa Elzey: Maybe you knew them on Facebook, they're your cousin.
39:51
Lisa Elzey: And I quote cousin because like she's like my third close cousin.
39:55
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
39:55
Lisa Elzey: Right.
39:56
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
39:56
Lisa Elzey: Like when you think cousin, you're like, oh yeah, like the person I grew up with, like that's kind of my sibling.
40:00
Lisa Elzey: No, these are like people that you share a great great grandparent with that you never met, but they're your cousin.
40:07
Lisa Elzey: They really are your cousin.
40:08
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
40:08
Lisa Elzey: But it's that takes courage.
40:10
Lisa Elzey: And I really admire that that you are willing to do that, and that your family gets to benefit from that.
40:17
Lisa Elzey: And you get to benefit too.
40:18
Lisa Elzey: And by the way, your nephew, I love that he chose Louisiana and he chose it for the music.
40:24
Lisa Elzey: Uh-huh.
40:25
Lisa Elzey: And the food.
40:25
Lisa Elzey: Well, the food is Louisiana.
40:27
Lisa Elzey: And he's a boy.
40:28
Lisa Elzey: And yeah.
40:29
Lisa Elzey: 13-year-old boy.
40:30
Lisa Elzey: Yes.
40:30
Lisa Elzey: And food is very important.
40:31
Lisa Elzey: But just that it was like the soul of that place.
40:35
Lisa Elzey: He knew it.
40:36
Lisa Elzey: And that you got to share that with him with a little family history.
40:39
Lisa Elzey: Yep.
40:40
Crista Cowan: Always a little family history.
40:41
Crista Cowan: Yes.
40:42
Lisa Elzey: So since we're in the South, I think we should just stay there for a minute.
40:45
Lisa Elzey: Because I think your next episode is still in the South.
40:49
Crista Cowan: Kentucky.
40:49
Crista Cowan: Yes.
40:50
Crista Cowan: And it's not just the South, it's also an episode about fathers and daughters.
40:54
Crista Cowan: Yes.
40:55
Crista Cowan: Which has such a special place in my heart.
40:57
Crista Cowan: Um, because I do so much family history with my dad.
41:00
Crista Cowan: He's the one who got me into it.
41:02
Crista Cowan: He's the one I share everything with.
41:04
Crista Cowan: He's the one who still works with me for hours on Sunday nights.
41:07
Crista Cowan: Um, when we were looking for a Kentucky story, I was in uh Chicago on a business trip with a colleague and was talking about what we were doing with the season.
41:17
Crista Cowan: And she proceeded to tell me that every single branch of her family tree is in Kentucky on every line for generations.
41:24
Crista Cowan: And I just thought that is the most odd thing I have ever heard.
41:27
Crista Cowan: Like everybody I know has branches of trees from different places, but every single branch of her family tree in Kentucky for generations.
41:36
Crista Cowan: And I thought, I need you on the podcast because that's an unusual.
41:39
Crista Cowan: I don't even know what your story is gonna be.
41:40
Crista Cowan: But then it just so happened that around the time we were trying to schedule her to film, her dad was visiting Utah from Kentucky.
41:49
Lisa Elzey: Yeah, she said she goes, Oh, by the way, my dad's coming from Kentucky.
41:54
Lisa Elzey: He knows all the stories.
41:56
Lisa Elzey: I think he would be great to have on there.
41:59
Lisa Elzey: And then we're like, with you though, right?
42:01
Lisa Elzey: She's like, well, yeah.
42:03
Lisa Elzey: And we're like, no, with you.
42:04
Lisa Elzey: And she's like, yeah, yeah, with me.
42:06
Lisa Elzey: Like it, I love that she knew he was kind of the keeper.
42:10
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
42:10
Lisa Elzey: And she also said, and he would love it.
42:13
Crista Cowan: Yeah, it was just really lovely to have them on the couch together.
42:17
Crista Cowan: And yes, with him as the principal storyteller, but to watch her just look at him and see the love and have her just hear those stories in that forum.
42:30
Crista Cowan: Stories I am sure she has heard a million times.
42:34
Crista Cowan: Um, but to to have him share those with a broader audience and his love of Kentucky and his love of his family and the place that he is building for them with his own hands out of this heritage location in their family tree and the way he feeds them.
42:52
Crista Cowan: Because that was a thing.
42:54
Crista Cowan: Cuz turtles.
42:55
Crista Cowan: Cuss turtles.
42:57
Lisa Elzey: I'm still like not over that sometimes.
43:00
Crista Cowan: Sometimes I learn things in this podcast.
43:02
Crista Cowan: And then to watch him get so emotional about his own stories and just bless, bless sweet Paul Abel.
43:10
Lisa Elzey: Just seeing when he talked about how proud he is of her.
43:13
Lisa Elzey: I just love that.
43:15
Lisa Elzey: And the other thing I love about that episode is it really helps you see why place is such a character in people's family history story.
43:25
Lisa Elzey: Their family has not moved.
43:28
Lisa Elzey: And it's their place, it's their home and why people would fight for their home, why people protect it, why people died for it, why uh they they fought for land.
43:40
Lisa Elzey: They there's just so many bad and good things that happen over a place.
43:44
Lisa Elzey: And it kind of helps you understand a little more of the why, not just in America, all over, right?
43:49
Lisa Elzey: All over the world.
43:50
Lisa Elzey: Because place helps you define family and who you are a little bit.
43:55
Lisa Elzey: And without place, I think as humans, sometimes we feel a little adrift.
43:59
Lisa Elzey: And uh I love that they had such a sense of place and who they were and and they loved that about their family.
44:07
Crista Cowan: There are a lot of places, right, that mean something.
44:11
Crista Cowan: And North Carolina is my family's place, and it was my episode and my story, but you picked it as one of your five.
44:20
Lisa Elzey: I did.
44:21
Lisa Elzey: Okay.
44:21
Lisa Elzey: I'm just gonna do a disclaimer right now.
44:24
Lisa Elzey: I get to listen to every episode multiple ways, multiple times.
44:27
Lisa Elzey: I hear Chris's voice in my sleeves.
44:30
Lisa Elzey: I I'm not saying a complaint, but um I it was hard for me to pick.
44:36
Lisa Elzey: I wanted to pick one of your solo episodes because I really love that you I need the listener and viewer to know that you intentionally craft how you're going to tell the story because it means, sorry, get emotional.
44:51
Lisa Elzey: It means so much to you to be able to communicate it honestly and well so that your listener can connect with it in some way.
45:01
Lisa Elzey: You don't manipulate the story, you just want to share it.
45:05
Lisa Elzey: And the time that you take in the care is inspiring.
45:09
Lisa Elzey: So, okay, that said, it was really hard for me to choose.
45:12
Lisa Elzey: In fact, I think one of the ones you're choosing later was also one I was going to choose, but you chose it, so we'll go with that.
45:17
Lisa Elzey: Um, but North Carolina, the episode was about treasure.
45:21
Lisa Elzey: It was.
45:22
Lisa Elzey: I was all up in my Goonies feels with this one.
45:27
Lisa Elzey: I was You're so Gen X.
45:28
Lisa Elzey: I am so Gen X, you guys.
45:30
Lisa Elzey: Goonies was like, oh, I was such a Goonie.
45:32
Lisa Elzey: Um you did not tell me in your preparation.
45:36
Lisa Elzey: You said, I don't want to tell you this story.
45:39
Lisa Elzey: Because usually we prep.
45:40
Lisa Elzey: Like you tell me what's going on, and I give some like opinions where I think you should hit the story or you know, whatever.
45:46
Lisa Elzey: We work together.
45:47
Lisa Elzey: And this one you said, I already know where I want to go.
45:49
Lisa Elzey: I want to wait.
45:50
Lisa Elzey: I want you to hear it live.
45:51
Lisa Elzey: And I was like, okay, why?
45:54
Lisa Elzey: And you're like, I just think it'd be fun.
45:56
Lisa Elzey: I want you to hear the story for the first time.
45:58
Lisa Elzey: So I'm like hearing this amazing story about treasure and and going in the dark and burying it by the river and through the trees, blindfold, like crazy story.
46:10
Lisa Elzey: And I'm going, what?
46:11
Lisa Elzey: Like, I'm trying not, because you're just trying to like focus and speak to the camera and be all poised.
46:16
Lisa Elzey: And I just want to be like, what the heck?
46:18
Lisa Elzey: And so it was an amazing story.
46:21
Lisa Elzey: And I will lie if I don't admit that after the podcast that I went on Google and I looked up to see if anyone's found the treasure.
46:30
Lisa Elzey: I like looked up maps and I wanted like, has anyone found this?
46:33
Lisa Elzey: And anyway, I searched, I went down a rabbit hole for about an hour.
46:36
Lisa Elzey: But nonetheless, I love that story because it it kind of emphasized a few things.
46:41
Lisa Elzey: Number one, a good story and a good ghost, almost a ghost story.
46:46
Lisa Elzey: But number two, it really emphasized your theme of why it's important to tell stories.
46:53
Lisa Elzey: And that if we bury them, if we keep them buried for whatever reason, it could be shame.
46:59
Lisa Elzey: It could be, I don't have time, it could be I don't know the story.
47:03
Lisa Elzey: Uh, it could be an intentional burying of anger or malice of any kind.
47:08
Lisa Elzey: I mean, whatever reason, they'll get lost.
47:11
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
47:12
Lisa Elzey: And um maybe they'll be found again.
47:14
Lisa Elzey: Apparently, it's never been reported that that treasure has been found again.
47:19
Lisa Elzey: And that family went without for, you know, they they lost what they had.
47:24
Lisa Elzey: And we've had we've had lots of instances where we've heard people even we know in um at work that have lost treasures in fires, they've lost treasures in moving.
47:35
Lisa Elzey: Um people die.
47:37
Crista Cowan: People the number one regret of every genealogist is I didn't get the stories.
47:42
Lisa Elzey: Talk to them, or I mean, I didn't get their DNA.
47:45
Lisa Elzey: There's just so many different things that we regret that we miss.
47:49
Lisa Elzey: And so the things you can control are sharing your stories.
47:53
Lisa Elzey: So I love that that was a beautiful, just I don't know, just a beautiful metaphor in the story about what you're all about and treasure and treasure.
48:05
Crista Cowan: Okay, Goonie.
48:06
Lisa Elzey: All right, Goonies.
48:06
Lisa Elzey: Goonies never say die.
48:08
Lisa Elzey: Just say.
48:10
Crista Cowan: So my last of my top five is also one of my solo episodes, which might seem a little weird.
48:15
Crista Cowan: Like, I love me.
48:17
Lisa Elzey: I love you too.
48:18
Lisa Elzey: And this was the one that I would have chosen had you not chosen it.
48:21
Lisa Elzey: So I'm glad you chose it.
48:22
Lisa Elzey: Okay.
48:22
Lisa Elzey: Okay.
48:22
Lisa Elzey: So we're gonna call, we're gonna qualify that.
48:24
Crista Cowan: Okay, so it's Connecticut.
48:26
Crista Cowan: And the reason I picked Connecticut is actually twofold.
48:29
Crista Cowan: One is um I had the opportunity to go to Connecticut on family vacation with my parents and one of my brothers a year and a half before this episode was gonna air.
48:41
Crista Cowan: And I knew this was a story I wanted to tell.
48:44
Crista Cowan: I just didn't know when it would be the perfect time to tell it.
48:47
Crista Cowan: And so I have literally been sitting on this story um for a year and a half.
48:53
Crista Cowan: And the fact that I finally got to tell it is a big deal.
48:56
Crista Cowan: Um, I think the other thing about it that I love was that telling the story connects me again to my dad.
49:03
Crista Cowan: And he and I standing on that lawn where this ancestor of mine was executed for witchcraft and going to pay honor to her at her memorial brick with my toes.
49:17
Crista Cowan: Yes.
49:18
Crista Cowan: Um, and like just being in those places, there's just something about walking where they walked and seeing what they saw and understanding, like we talked earlier about how place is a character and story, but place isn't just a character and story because of the place, but also because of the topography and where the trees are and where the mountains are and where the rivers are, and like all of those things are part of the story.
49:46
Crista Cowan: And so understanding that and being and being in that place and breathing that air, even though I was 400 years removed from her, I felt so connected to her and to her story.
50:00
Crista Cowan: And so just to be able to finally get to tell it, and like I said, to share that with my dad, um, to be in that place was a really big deal to me.
50:07
Crista Cowan: And that's the experience that I want people to have.
50:10
Crista Cowan: You talked about how you loved the North Carolina episode because it personifies what I want for people as far as telling and sharing story.
50:21
Crista Cowan: The Connecticut episode to me personifies what I want for people to get out of this work that we do as it relates to feeling connected, connected to places, connected to our ancestors, and connected to our living family.
50:37
Crista Cowan: And that's what that story represents for me.
50:40
Lisa Elzey: I felt that when you told that story because again, you took such great care in telling that.
50:46
Lisa Elzey: And uh the fact that you descend from that and didn't know what a gift to know.
50:54
Lisa Elzey: Yeah.
50:54
Lisa Elzey: What a gift to know.
50:56
Lisa Elzey: And uh, Connecticut, Connecticut witch.
50:58
Lisa Elzey: I didn't know that.
50:59
Lisa Elzey: I was like, when you said I have a witch story, I was like, Oh, Massachusetts, you're like, no, Connecticut.
51:04
Lisa Elzey: I was like, what?
51:05
Lisa Elzey: And uh sitting on a story for a year and a half, I when we were filling in all the little pockets when we first started this, we went through all the different slots.
51:14
Lisa Elzey: Like, okay, I I said, okay, Crystal, let's talk about your solos.
51:17
Lisa Elzey: Where do you absolutely want to tell stories?
51:19
Lisa Elzey: The very first spot you said, Connecticut.
51:21
Lisa Elzey: I'm like, in my head, I was like, not Arkansas, like where you are talking about your family.
51:26
Lisa Elzey: I mean, Arkansas was me too.
51:28
Lisa Elzey: It was number two, yes.
51:28
Lisa Elzey: It was number two.
51:29
Lisa Elzey: But the first place you said was Connecticut.
51:31
Lisa Elzey: So it was it was lovely to learn that story, but I love even more that you got to discover it and then experience it.
51:38
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
51:39
Crista Cowan: Yep, I love it.
51:40
Crista Cowan: Okay, so that those are our top five apiece.
51:44
Crista Cowan: Yes.
51:44
Crista Cowan: Um, from 50 episodes, it was really hard to pick, but I love that we got to share not only our our feelings about those episodes, but also a little bit of the behind the scenes.
51:54
Crista Cowan: Um, and this episode is airing a week after 4th of July.
52:00
Crista Cowan: We've just, you know, we'll have celebrated America's semi-quincentennial.
52:05
Crista Cowan: I've practiced saying that word.
52:07
Crista Cowan: That's impressive.
52:08
Crista Cowan: Thank you.
52:08
Crista Cowan: Okay.
52:09
Crista Cowan: Um and the episode that we ended on was the state of Delaware.
52:15
Crista Cowan: And so I know I said we were each gonna pick five episodes, but I feel like we have to talk about Delaware.
52:20
Lisa Elzey: We do, because it's the first state, you know.
52:22
Crista Cowan: It is.
52:23
Crista Cowan: That is their motto.
52:24
Lisa Elzey: That is their motto because we learned that.
52:26
Lisa Elzey: It was such an emotional end to this journey for ancestry.
52:30
Lisa Elzey: I found this story of this historical person.
52:33
Lisa Elzey: And I thought, this is an amazing person.
52:36
Lisa Elzey: Well, guess where he's born?
52:38
Lisa Elzey: Delaware.
52:39
Lisa Elzey: And I thought, okay, we need someone that's connected to this story to tell this story because it's Delaware.
52:46
Lisa Elzey: And he saved the Declaration of Independence, guys.
52:49
Lisa Elzey: If you haven't listened to the episode, go listen.
52:51
Lisa Elzey: And then I found an author, Anna Crowley Redding is her name.
52:57
Lisa Elzey: And she is an author, not just of children's books, she's all these things.
53:02
Lisa Elzey: She's an Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter.
53:05
Lisa Elzey: And this was her first children's picture book.
53:07
Lisa Elzey: And um her story surprised me.
53:12
Lisa Elzey: It was emotional.
53:13
Lisa Elzey: I was emotional because I think it was the end of the season, but not just because that.
53:19
Lisa Elzey: She just hit every note for me in what this podcast was about and what this America 250 journey was about.
53:28
Lisa Elzey: Why you were inspired to go from state to state and share again, emotional.
53:35
Lisa Elzey: Why um just it was hard.
53:39
Lisa Elzey: This was hard.
53:40
Lisa Elzey: This was hard to being like, I've got to find something for this particular pocket, or this person cancel, or we're running out of time, or and and and we did it, and it was like a finish line, and it was so beautiful, and she just put this beautiful, like cherry on top with her beautiful story and experience that's so honest.
54:03
Lisa Elzey: And what I loved most about what she said, because she went through some hard things in in not just writing the story, which is a beautiful story, but she was experiencing life hard things at the same time.
54:15
Lisa Elzey: And at the end of that episode, she says, I want to continue writing about courage and what kind of courage you bring to the table.
54:27
Lisa Elzey: Just like our ancestors did when they came here, whenever your family was here, whether they were here from the beginning as an indigenous people, or whenever they came here five minutes ago, what courage are they putting on the table to be able to do what they did?
54:44
Lisa Elzey: And um that's really why I do family history because it connects me with that inner courage, it connects my family with that.
54:55
Lisa Elzey: I want my kids to know that we're here because someone else chose to keep going over thousands of years, which is boggling.
55:05
Lisa Elzey: Right.
55:06
Lisa Elzey: And um, it was just a beautiful wrap-up of a beautiful season um by a beautiful person, and so I'm very grateful to her for trusting us because we again, I pitched her cold, she embraced it, she nailed it.
55:21
Crista Cowan: She did, and you did.
55:23
Crista Cowan: Um, and you continue to do it week after week, and I am so grateful for you.
55:28
Crista Cowan: I am grateful for your friendship.
55:29
Crista Cowan: I am grateful for your talents, I am grateful for your storytelling ability and your good ideas and your bold opinions.
55:39
Crista Cowan: Um I am so grateful for all of it because I am a better person because of it.
55:45
Crista Cowan: This is a better podcast because of it.
55:48
Crista Cowan: Um, so we are celebrating with apparently cheese dip um the end of season two and the celebration of this country.
55:59
Crista Cowan: And I want to just make sure we pause and celebrate that.
56:02
Crista Cowan: So thank you for doing this episode with me because I think it's important that we do that, that we take time to celebrate those things.
56:10
Crista Cowan: But then we're just gonna roll right into season three, Lisa.
56:14
Lisa Elzey: We're not taking a pause because we don't do pauses.
56:16
Lisa Elzey: We don't take vacations.
56:19
Lisa Elzey: We really don't take vacations.
56:21
Lisa Elzey: Um first of all, thank you for the beautiful things you said.
56:24
Lisa Elzey: And on behalf of me and I think thousands and thousands of listeners and fans everywhere who adore you, thank you for sharing.
56:34
Lisa Elzey: Thank you for giving yourself to people.
56:36
Lisa Elzey: And I know we're just having a weep fest.
56:38
Lisa Elzey: Sorry, it's been a very long season of awesome.
56:40
Lisa Elzey: But um, you every week show up and you give, and you really give and you're not afraid.
56:48
Lisa Elzey: That's hard, and you're not afraid, you just give and hope.
56:54
Lisa Elzey: And I think if everyone could do what you do, the world will be a much better place.
57:01
Crista Cowan: I love you.
57:01
Crista Cowan: I love you too.
57:02
Crista Cowan: Well, so for all of you, thank you, because we couldn't keep showing up and doing what we are doing if you weren't out there listening and watching, and we're so grateful for you.
57:14
Crista Cowan: Um, whether you joined us last week or whether this is the first episode you're hearing, or whether you have been with us since episode one, thank you.
57:22
Crista Cowan: Um, keep listening, leave comments on YouTube, write reviews on your podcast apps, like help other people find this podcast because we believe very strongly that stories matter, that your stories matter, and that when we can tell our family stories, it connects us in ways that we can't even imagine.
57:45
Crista Cowan: And so we're excited to roll right into season three next week and hope you will join us.
57:52
Crista Cowan: We've got some really fun things planned for the new season.
57:57
Crista Cowan: Season three.
57:59
Crista Cowan: Okay, more cheese and crackers.
58:03
Lisa Elzey: Yes, do you like it?
58:04
Crista Cowan: This is delicious.
58:04
Crista Cowan: I think it's so good, but it's very rich.
58:07
Crista Cowan: It is super rich.
58:08
Crista Cowan: I think I can have one more.
58:10
Lisa Elzey: They said very specifically don't get the real bacon, get the fake stuff.
58:15
Lisa Elzey: What about ancelery?
58:17
Crista Cowan: I don't want to end with tears.
58:18
Crista Cowan: That looks funny.
58:18
Lisa Elzey: Happy birthday.
58:19
Lisa Elzey: Studio sponsored by Ancestry.