Introducing WL Ancestors

Update – August 2026

I tore the WL Ancestors website down. ALL information on that website can now be found under Exploring > Genealogy. Also look to tags for specifics: ancestors, grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, Leslie, Wallace, and so on.

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Last year I told you about my famous relatives. Now let me introduce you to more of my relatives – the ones who are only famous in the family. But first, let’s wind our way through an impressionistic art exhibit and a book told from obituaries and news clippings.

Liminal Space

During my recent visit to Scotland there was only one day of drenching rain. On that day, my friend and I dashed into the Royal Scottish Academy building on Princes Street. There was an exhibition of the Irish impressionist painter John Lavery.

Neither of us had heard of him, and we hesitated before paying the entrance fee. Once that was paid, though, we walked up the stairs into the exhibit. We were soon transported to another world and time.

I heard light footsteps and hushed voices. On the walls, impressionistic paintings filled with light. Joie de vivre oozed from the canvases. Some pictures were so inviting that it felt like you could step into the painting and join the conversation or walk alongside the subject.

But you can’t. The paintings are two dimensional, tricking your mind.

Your eyes fill in the spaces while imagination fills in sounds and sensation. We moved from scene to scene, slipping in and out of the settings, making up the stories in our heads.

Remember You Will Die

(There are two affiliate links for Bookshop in this part of the article. If you click on a link and buy anything I receive a little compensation.)

That movement from space to space is apropos for reading Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins. There is a story, but you need to catch the threads of that story as you read.

In fact, a second or third or fourth reading might be necessary as the clues and comments are just like sprinklings of salt and pepper on a meal.

The book is a collection of fictional obituaries, news clippings, etymologies, eulogies, and fragments of thought. I sure didn’t catch the ‘thoughts’ until I was halfway through the book – and I’d already read some of the reviews.

A Good Obituary

Like Mary from the Tips From Dead People account on TikTok and other social media sites, I love a good obituary. Tips From Dead People celebrates the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. Like the obituaries featured in “Tips,” the obituaries in the book Remember You Will Die go more than the extra mile.

They’re delightful, intriguing, odd, funny, sad. They don’t shy away from struggles or unpleasantness. They are excellent reading and help the reader glimpse the complexities of the life of the deceased.

Likewise, in genealogy, a good obituary is worth its weight in gold. You learn facts and find new people and places to research. But rarely are there personal details like in “Remember.” Here is one for 26-year-old Albert Rogers, Jr..

He was a talented artist, but to those who knew him best, he was above all a kind, giving and cheerful boy. Albert would stop whatever he was doing to help elderly neighbors carry their groceries. His voice was always the loudest when cheering exuberantly for his younger twin sisters, Carla Jo and Agnes, at soccer games and dance recitals. And though he sang a bit off-key, it never stopped him from raising his voice in prayer at New Life Community Church every Sunday. He loved to walk in the woods with his Irish setter, Rex, and he especially loved to hunt for morels in May. He had something of a competition with that dog as to who could find the mushrooms first. He would then give half of them away to anyone who asked and whip up a delicious cream of mushroom soup with the rest.

And another for the chaotic Claudia Blondell – a lawyer and “passionate hobbyist.”

Claudia Blondell is survived by her daughter, son and three grandchildren. She is also survived by a chaotic back bedroom in her otherwise pristine, white, minimalist home, which is packed to the gills with: family trees and yellow newspaper clippings, two banjoes, several boxes of 1960s comedy records, a shelf of cookbooks, another shelf of accounting ledgers and textbooks, inscrutable baking implements, and a closet packed full of neatly pressed white blouses.

These personal details hint at stories yet untold. But in the book, you never learn the rest of the story. You only have the suggestion that there is more to the story.

Introducing WL Ancestors

Stories are part of what drives genealogy research. As a genealogist, my research is impressionistic. It is liminal – just like the Lavery exhibit and the novel Remember You Will Die.

It is facts and figures and historical context that eventually lead to guesstimates. The research exists in that liminal space where you both know and do not know the people you are researching. And you can never know the full story: you only know the stories that were passed down, and the records that remain.

More Than Names & Dates

I’ve long wanted to share my genealogy research in an easy-to-navigate way. There’s so much more to genealogy than names and birthdates.

Then I stumbled on a website that did a remarkable job of organizing and sharing the genealogy of one family. I used that as inspiration and created WL Ancestors. (This site was closed in August 2026. See note above.)

WL Ancestors refers to the people who came before me: The Wallace’s and the Leslie’s. You’ll find pictures, facts, figures. It has stories. It has letters, maps, photographs, and a link to a HUGE family tree.

I’ve found remarkable stories that all my relatives deserve to see. Every life is interesting – but you have to dig for the details in the past.

Also, most of my relatives lived in Tuscola and Sanilac Counties in Michigan. I didn’t. I grew up an hour away.

Most of these people I’ve never met. Some of them I met at a funeral or maybe around a holiday. And some of them I’ve known a bit better…but never as good as say you might experience if you live next door, down the street, or in the same town.

So digging into the past brings these lives to life for me. I can better see my ancestors as people, not just names and statistics. I sense both the struggles and triumphs their lives had. It’s so much more than names and dates!

And even more important, I want to be able to pass this information on to the next generations. By creating this website, I’ve taken one step in that direction.

And like our current lives, the website (and my genealogy) is an ongoing work in progress. I have so much more to add to the website. And if you’re a member of the family and want to share stuff, please let me know.

Are You Part Of The Family?

Are you part of the family? Who knows – we could be distant cousins. My family tree has nearly 4,000 people with nearly as many surnames.

In fact, I recently learned that one of my friends is, in fact, something like a 12th or 13th cousin one or two times removed through that Nichols-Venney line. That line stretches into early American history.

I can’t (and won’t) tell you everything about everyone. The things I post publicly are deliberately limited in scope.

Can You Help?

Sure you can! Even if you aren’t into genealogy or family history, you can help. Researching is time-consuming and sometimes expensive. It can cost emotional health, too as stories you find can be both inspirational and tragic. And let’s not even talk about the cost of digging for the information and then relaying that information to you in an easy-to-understand format.

• Buy me a mug of tea to help defray hosting costs.
• Reach out with stories and pictures at wlancestors at gmail dot com.