Why Did You Include Stalin in Your Family History?
Question: I noticed that you added a historical fact about Stalin banishing Trotsky to the marriage story of your ancestor who married in Utah. If she wasn't Russian and not connected to Stalin or Trotsky, why on earth would you add this fact to your family's history? ~ Maralee, Cypress, Texas Answer: Social and Political History makes genealogies more interesting by a factor of 1,000. Yep, I have scientific analysis to back it up. Okay, not really. But our ancestors didn't live in a world boiled down to birth, marriage, and death on a chart. They lived in a world with social dynamics, economic issues, and political leaders that either helped or hindered the sense of global or regional security. Think of the Carter years in the US and ask, were these years of positive or negative social, economic, or political stability? If you were born after 1980, your parents probably forgot to mention those years because Ronald Regan was having an impact on the world and Carter was soon