My apologies for the prolonged silence here. I took some time off last week and am trying to catch up on things here in the office. I had a couple items I wanted to share, so I thought I would combine them into one post. So here goes:

Passports Are Finally Here!
And they are fantastic! If you get a chance to check them out, please do. I’ve been working on an article about them for Monday’s Ancestry Weekly Journal and it’s one of those cases where I have so many cool examples, it’s hard to pick and choose which ones to include. Ancestry members with access to the U.S. or World Deluxe Collections can click here to access them.

Interview With Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak
Most of you are probably familiar with Megan through the newsletter, speaking engagements, or through news reports as Ancestry’s Chief Family Historian, and now you can see an interview with her online at RootsTelevision.com. Dick Eastman conducted the interview aboard the Wholly Genes Genealogy Cruise last month. Click here to see that interview and interviews with other notables from the cruise like Cyndi Howell (of Cyndi’s List fame), Tony Burroughs (author of Black Roots), and John Grenham (author of Tracing Your Irish Ancestors).

How Did We Get Started in Family History?
In last week’s newsletter Maureen Taylor shared how her interest in family history began, and invited everyone to share their stories as well. Many of you did and in fact, as I write this, there are fifty-five stories added to her article! I spent some time last night reading through them and really enjoyed hearing how people began in this pursuit we’ve all come to enjoy so much. If you got a little extra time, you can read them all here. And feel free to post your story. We’d all love to hear what inspired you to trace your family history!

Well, that’s it for now. I have a couple book reviews that I received and I’ll be putting them up shortly in another post.

Have a great day!

Juliana