Entries by Jeff Westover

The Beauty of the Little Details

Recently I have had the chance to connect with more of my Begich cousins. It has been wonderful. In conversing with one via email this week I asked some questions about my great Grandpa Mike Begich, who immigrated to the United States around 1905. He lived from 1886 to 1965. In my lifetime I’ve heard […]

The Babies We Send Home

Hidden behind many of these pages is a contemporary record of my family. It dates back to when my wife and I married in 1991 and there are many reasons I have not yet made it available to anyone. Someday it will be a part of the public archives here. I don’t share these things […]

Moms of Our Ancestral Past

In the work of family history it is the story of the women that are always tough to find. It has been a man’s world for a long time and records for women are scarce. Yet when you get past the raw data of names, places and dates what frequently survives are stories and those […]

A Trip to Minnesota

It hasn’t even been a week since we received word that Aunt Alice passed away. Last Sunday Bunni posted on Facebook in a message broadcast to family and loved ones far and wide that at the age of 91 Alice had gone home to be with Pete. Very quickly my Dad and my brother and […]

Influencers in My Family History

Two very separate events have kind of taken over my thoughts this past week. A while back I was downstairs in the treasure room and I came across a letter written by my grandparents to the Church asking a question about how to pursue a family line in England. Attached to the letter was the […]