This post is part of a series. To read from the beginning, go here. I was thrilled to be able to construct a small family tree for Freda Rose and get so much information from her first letter to her cousin, Marie. I found more about her immediate relatives with a dig into the US Census Records and other documents on Ancestry.com I still don't know exactly how Freda and her cousin Marie are related. I am assuming that Freda's mother had a brother named Carl and Carl is the fat

If you are just joining me on my latest history detective adventure, be sure to read part 1 of this series here. I loved having something new to research and seeing vintage letters sent from the U.S. to post-war Germany was too interesting to pass up! I decided to go through one letter at a time. The first letter was dated Feb 9, 1947. The first big clue was Freda's address - 428 Crown Ave. Scranton, PA. So I knew where she was living in 1947. But who was Freda Rose? As I not

I was in a slump. I had come down from the high of having a book published and finally getting back to Springwater, NY in the western Finger Lakes' region for my book launch and other events. So, what next? I felt I had no creative energy left. Needing a break, I tabled all my creative projects and research for several months and focused on my family and my work as a content creator for a local university. One day, I was on Facebook and happened upon my county's community pag