Family

The Lincolns had four sons. Mary buried three of them. A new exhibit at President Lincoln's Cottage sheds light on bereaved parents, then and now.

Instead of caring for Black children, child welfare systems subject them to abuse and harsh conditions.

Having more than one wife was an established part of life for some Native peoples before Europeans tried to end the practice.

Trying to learn more about a woman named Ann led her descendants to confront a painful past; ‘I just wanted to know the truth.’

My ancestors were enslaved—but their freedom came at a price for others.

The decline of South Carolina's apple industry, interwoven with personal memories of family orchards.

Joe Biden is just the latest in a long line of US presidents to trace their ancestry back to the Emerald Isle.

In the 1970s, social workers in several states placed queer teenagers with queer foster parents, in discrete acts of quiet radicalism.

Since the 19th century, men have served as gatekeepers in the entertainment industry, controlling women’s careers.

Early in the Cuban Revolution, my mother made a consequential decision.

Meditations on when you think you found the people who owned your people via DNA test.

Since we have new presidential pets, Champ and Major, we take a quick look back at one of the nation’s most famous four-legged White House inhabitants.

A genealogist takes a closer look at Joe Biden's family history.

David O. Stewart discusses the relationship between William Costin and the Washington bloodline.

The daughter and granddaughter of a former internee return to the notorious WWI-era detention site for Japanese-Americans.

Many of us are unaware of the special circumstances that eased our entry into American life—and of the bonds we share with other nonwhite groups.

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on how her mother overcame voter suppression and became an activist in her community.

At 91, Harrison Ruffin Tyler demonstrates that "long ago" wasn't so long ago.

Gustavus Stadler on Nora Belle Guthrie's battle with Huntington's Disease.

The intersecting lives of robber barons and floundering French aristocrats.

White women were as married to the war as their Confederate menfolk.

A review of "Descent" – a family story that blends the real world and the imagination.

Born 14 years after the nation's founding, the tenth commander-in-chief still has one living grandson.

Who should be allowed to profit from depictions of traumatic events in Black history?

The heart-tug tactics of 1950s ads steered white American women away from activism into domesticity. They’re still there.

He prized self-control above all, but did not always achieve it.

Because the 19th-century college president appeared white, he was able to climb the ladder of the Jesuit community.

Reflections on the famous economist through the prism of the author's own mixed-race family.

More than a century later, they’re still paying the price.

Jill Filipovic on the generation that changed everything.