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Jodi Summit

REGIONAL- Writer Bill Durbin has become adept at bringing history to life for young adult readers. His earliest books were set in northeastern Minnesota, chronicling the fur trade, iron mining, and timber trade, along with the lives of the many immigrants who settled in our area.
But his newest book, co-written with his wife Barbara, is set in Ukraine during World War II, and is based on the true-life stories of Jewish families who lived in an underground cave for almost two years, as Nazi soldiers and Ukrainian sympathizers were systematically killing off the country’s Jewish population.
Historians estimate that more than a million Jews living in the Soviet Union, mostly in Ukraine, were killed as part of Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution,” often with the help of local Ukrainian collaborators. The most notorious episode was at Babi Yar, a ravine situated outside of Kyiv, where 33,771 Jews were killed over the course of two days in September of 1941.
A retired teacher, Bill taught at the Cook High School for almost 30 years, and then at Mesabi Community College, and he also spends a lot of time doing writer’s workshops with schools across the country. Barbara is also a retired teacher, and while she has always been her husband’s first reader, she has taken a more active, collaborative role in Bill’s writing since her retirement. The couple lives on Lake Vermilion in the summer and in Duluth in the winter where they are closer to their grandchildren who live in Duluth and the Twin Cities.
How their newest title ended up to mesh with current events is a story to itself.
“The connection to Ukraine is just a coincidence,” he said. “Kids were always asking me if I was going to write a book about World War II.”
The idea was just in the back of his mind when he found an article in an old National Geographic magazine written by a cave explorer, Christos Nicola, who was living in New York.
“He had traveled to Ukraine to research his genealogy,” said Bill, “and he went to explore some caves outside of the village he was visiting.”
In 1993, Nicola went exploring in the gypsum caverns and found evidence that people had been living deep underground.
“He found all kinds of artifacts and some writing,” Bill said.
But Nicola couldn’t get any people he talked to in the nearby village to speak to him about what might have happened.
“Many had turned in Jewish families and were…

By Jordan Rushing | Guest Columnist

Our city of Vicksburg has one of the most unique and diverse histories in the South.

Being on the river between New Orleans and Memphis, Vicksburg served as a midway hub for merchants, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, missionaries, political philosophers and just about any other type of traveler that saw America’s expansion into the West as an opportunity for advancement for themselves and their future generations.

This mix of characters is what makes Vicksburg’s past such a fascinating subject of study when compared to the usual agricultural lifestyle that made up the majority of the South throughout history. People and cultures from all across the world landed in this city, many of them stayed, and all of them have contributed to the melting pot of concepts and ideas that have made Vicksburg what it is today.  

The Old Court House Museum is a shrine dedicated to preserving this knowledge. Our doors opened in 1948 thanks to the efforts of our founder, Mrs. Eva Whitaker Davis, whose vision of the building’s potential was lost on so many at that time. Against all odds, she fought to have the building saved and preserved to host artifacts, research and genealogy for the Vicksburg and Warren County area.

This was not an effort by her alone, though; the community of Warren County is who truly made her vision come true. The museum’s collection is made up entirely of donations from the folks right here in Vicksburg. You see it as you walk through the building and notice the names written on the display tags showing which family presented the items to the museum. Some artifacts are valuable and one-of-a-kind, others are more personable, but they all tell another part of the story of Vicksburg and our community. The Old Court House Museum is not just a museum in Vicksburg; it is Vicksburg’s museum.  

For 74 years, the Old Court House Museum has been operated and cared for by the Vicksburg and Warren County Historical Society. We are a group of people in the community that has an immense interest in the preservation of the history of this area.

Our organization would like to extend an invitation to the community to please consider becoming a member of the Society. Membership is an annual tax-deductible donation to the Museum, and the funds raised go directly to the preservation and continuation of the Museum and its contents.

An Individual Membership is $25 and grants admission to the museum for the…

Paul elected Fellow of AGI

ongratulations to Paul Gorry of Baltinglass who was recently elected a new Fellow of the Association of Genealogists in Ireland (AGI). The announcement was made at a recent Extraordinary General Meeting of AGI, and President Nicola Morris presented a framed recognition to Paul last week.

Paul is one of the founding members of AGI and was President himself from 2007 to 2009. His passion for genealogy was evident from a young age and soon after leaving school in Scoil Chonglais, he joined the Genealogical Office in Dublin. During his extensive career he founded Ireland’s first independent Irish genealogical company, Hibernian Research, along with other professional colleagues. He also helped found the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO) in 1995/1996 and served as its Chairman. He is a Fellow and vice-president of the Irish Genealogical Research Society and a Fellow of the prestigious London-based Society of Genealogists.

Closer to home, Paul was a founding member of the West Wicklow Historical Society along with, recently deceased and greatly missed, Donal O’Donnell. He is author to the book ‘Baltinglass Golf Club, 1928-2003’ published in 2003; ‘Baltinglass Chronicles, 1851-2001’, published in 2006 along other more recent publications ‘Seven Signatories: Tracing the Family Histories of the Men Who Signed the Proclamation’, published in 2016 and ‘Credentials for Genealogists: proof of the Professional’, published in 2021. He is also the author of many articles and…

What I’ve learned in the last two and half years is that two things can be true at the same time. There is an outright war against Black women that challenges America’s opinion of itself, and we’re also living in a time to redefine what American society can and should look like.

Black feminists are making tremendous offerings in the culture right now. Scholars and writers like Patricia Hill Collins, Joan Morgan, and the late bell hooks have long understood that oppression and injustice are perpetuated through cultural practices and law. At its core, Black feminism is an ideology of liberation rooted in Black women’s experiences. Black feminist theory is now a central part of how we all make sense of the world.

Among the fruitful work available on Black feminism, these five books stand out for me. They also share two common themes: a celebration of marginalized Black women and the rejection of respectability politics.

Abolition. Feminism. Now.

Angela Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie

If you’ve ever had the privilege of hearing Angela Davis speak, then you’ll want to devour this book. It’s like hearing her drop gems. It takes a deep dive into abolition and how it continually shapes how this country moves politically. Also, how abolition is our best defense against endemic forms of state and interpersonal gender and sexual violence. It’s an important genealogy of abolition feminist movements, including Rosa Parks’ anti-rape work that incorporated an analysis of state violence.

Her work pointed out similarities in reformist efforts to build new jails that showed up in the 1930s with the opening of the New York Women’s House of Detention. It uses the same language used in 2019 with the plan to build new borough-based jails. The authors remind us that our abolition feminism must be anti-capitalist. It must continue to document many campaigns, collectives, tools, and resources that have sought to do just that. It’s an incredible archive that reminds us that we are always building on the work that came before us.

The Sisters are Alright

The Sisters are Alright exposes America’s historical and ongoing contempt for “the sisters.” She directly identifies stereotype after stereotype, from whitewashed beauty standards to the angry-Black-woman clichés, and calls for the humanity of Black women. The book is tough reading because Harris has collected all the…

New Jersey, USA,  – The global Genealogy Products and Services market is thoroughly researched and analysed in reports to help market participants improve their business tactics and ensure long-term success. The authors of the report used easy-to-understand language and uncomplicated statistical images, but provided thorough information and detailed data on the global Genealogy Products and Services market. The report provides useful information to players and suggests results-oriented ideas to gain a competitive advantage in the global Genealogy Products and Services market. It shows how other players compete in the global market and discusses the strategies they use to distinguish them from other participants.

In the report, the researchers provided quantitative and qualitative analysis along with an absolute dollar opportunity assessment. In addition, the report provides Porter with five force analyses and pestle analyses for more detailed comparisons and other important studies. Each section of the report has something valuable to offer players to improve gross margins,sales and marketing strategies, and profit margins. Using reports as a tool for getting insightful market analysis,players can identify much-needed changes in their operations and improve their approach to doing business. In addition, they will be able to give tough competition to other players in the global Genealogy Products and Services market while identifying major growth pockets.

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Competitive Landscape

The report studies the Genealogy Products and Services market size by player, region, product type and final industry, historical data 2014-2018 and forecast data 2019-2025; the report also studies the global market competitive environment, market drivers and trends, opportunities and challenges, risks and barriers to entry, sales channels, distributors and porters.

Leading Genealogy Products and Services Market Players are as followed:

• Familysearch
• Geneanet
• WikiTree
• GenealogyBank
• MyHeritage
• Ancestry.com
• FindmyPast
• Family Tree DNA
• Billion Graves
• 23 and Me
• Living DNA

Market segmentation of Genealogy Products and Services market:

Genealogy Products and Services market is divided by type and application. For the period 2021-2028, cross-segment growth provides accurate calculations and forecasts of sales by Type and Application in terms of…