Family

Over decades, and through harrowing experiences, my family held on to this bit of cloth as a reminder of everything they believed in—and were running toward.

One of the most influential and ardent Patriots couldn’t persuade his son to join the Revolution.

The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.

On Ralph Waldo Emerson, his childhood in Boston, and his thoughts on mortality.

Only one cousin is in a position of power — and his family can only watch helplessly as he destroys much that they stood for.

While the events that led to the Jonestown massacre included tragedy, the life—and death—of one of its residents offers lessons on community and resilience.

Through genetic testing, millions of Americans have discovered family secrets. The news has upended relationships and created a community looking for answers.

Early American elites were fascinated with genealogy, despite the ways it attached them to the Old World.

People living in British America and later the nascent United States recorded their family histories in needlework samplers, notebooks and newspapers.

In working through the Winter case files, I often felt pinpricks of déjà vu: an exact turn of phrase, an absurdly specific expenditure.

The past really is a foreign country, as historian Jonathan Ablard finds when piecing together the turbulent history of his ancestors in the West and Midwest.

A history of wealth, enterprise, and family dysfunction.

On the other side of the hardened activist was a man who stirred his coffee with his daughter's finger and told her it made it sweet.

Repelled by American racism, thousands of free people of color bounced between New Orleans and Haiti in the 19th century.

Reformers linked tobacco use to a deterioration of social and familial values, a habit that disrupted the sanctity of the home.

Reflections on the literary legacy of a timeless American novel.

Examining the tumultuous bond between the two brothers.

The Black Panthers shook America before the party was gutted by the government. Their children paid a steep price, but also emerged with unassailable pride.

During World War II, the law justified the imprisonment of thousands like Heidi Gurcke Donald.

Martha S. Jones’ new memoir draws on genealogical research and memories shared by relatives.

Rich Benjamin’s new book reveals a shared spirit between the world’s first Black republic and the United States.

Enslaved families were regularly separated​. A new history chronicles the tenacious efforts of the emancipated to be reunited​ with their loved ones.

A historian explores his own family's history to understand the African-American community’s internal pigmentocracy and the absurdity of racial binaries.

Confederates kidnapped free Black people to sell into slavery. After the war, two women sought help from high places to track down their lost loved ones.

A new book reveals the jazz musician’s mother and sister were arrested several times for prostitution in New Orleans.

Why is America’s near-mythic dynasty so nasty up close?

The true cost of the immigration policy can be measured in the generations of Chinese Americans who were never born.

The 1946 elections were a disaster for Democrats—and the reason I was born.

A new book celebrates an American political dynasty dedicated to public service. Why have they been forgotten?

In North Carolina, a Black farmer purchased the plantation where his ancestors were enslaved—and is reclaiming his family’s story and the soil beneath his feet.