Written in the shadow of war, preserved across generations. In the quiet days just before Christmas 1941—only weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor—my second great-granduncle, Thomas Jefferson “Jeff” McDonald Sr.,[1] sat down in Liberty, South Carolina, to write a long and thoughtful letter to his niece, my grandaunt, Mrs. Agnes (McDonald) Blackerby,[2] in Wilsonville,Continue reading “A Letter from Liberty: A 1941 Family Reflection and a Father’s Tribute”
Tag Archives: genealogy
Gunfire at the Shanghai Club: The Untold Story of Fanny Bruce and Sidney Shirvington
Several years ago, I connected on Facebook with a family of Shervingtons living throughout California’s Central Valley—from Inyo County to Sacramento and Modesto. I had grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area never knowing they existed. The surname “Shervington,” along with one of its variants “Shirvington,” is rare—thankfully making genealogical research a bit moreContinue reading “Gunfire at the Shanghai Club: The Untold Story of Fanny Bruce and Sidney Shirvington”
How a Close DNA Match Unraveled Both Our Family Mysteries
For years, I had a couple of close cousin DNA matches on Ancestry that stood out as intriguing mysteries. This is the story of one of those matches—how it led me to uncover the identity of my grandmother’s biological mother, and in turn, helped my DNA match discover her own parentage. It all started inContinue reading “How a Close DNA Match Unraveled Both Our Family Mysteries”
Shervington.net 