Black-Market Adoptions to Broadway Stars (with Lisa Elzey) | Episode 132

What if the secret to breaking through your own genealogy brick walls is stepping away from your family tree entirely? In this episode, my dear friend, colleague, and podcast producer Lisa Elzey joins me to explore how researching strangers' family trees—from solving the dark mysteries around the 1950s Georgia "Hicks babies" black-market adoptions to uncovering the immigrant roots of the cast of the Broadway show Anastasia—completely transformed the way we do family history and genetic genealogy. By stepping outside our own pedigree charts, we learned how to drop research bias, untangle messy DNA matches, and build skills that brought us back to our own family trees with fresh eyes. Listen in to discover how helping others solve their story might just be the breakthrough you’ve been looking for!

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Transcript

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The Surprising Shortcut In Genealogy

Crista Cowan 0:00

What do a black market adoption ring in 1950s Georgia and the Broadway cast of Anastasia have in common? More than you might think. And it points to a secret I've learned over decades doing family history. The fastest way to break through your own genealogy brick walls is to help someone else break through theirs. When you step away from your own family trees and work on a completely unfamiliar family, something magical happens. You drop your personal biases, learn to show your work, and build research muscles that help you come back to your own family tree with new skills and fresh views. Today, my dear friend, colleague, and podcast producer sits down with me to talk about how researching strangers' family trees, from secret adoptions to Broadway stars, transformed the way we find and tell family stories. Enjoy my conversation with Lisa Elsie. Hi, I'm Krista Kellen, and this is the podcast where telling your family stories can help create a deeply connected family. Welcome to Stories That Live In Us. So you and I spend almost all day, every day talking to each other. We do. It's my favorite. But uh I love sitting down with you in this environment because we get to share stories in a really intentional way. Uh and so the way I framed this up in our intro uh really has to do with the importance of researching other people's trees to gain new skills. And so I thought we could talk about some of the projects that you have worked on. Um, some we've worked on together. Um,

The Hicks Babies Adoption Ring

Crista Cowan 1:40

let's start with the Hicks babies.

Lisa Elzey 1:43

Oh my goodness, this is DNA 101 for me. Yeah, that's what that was. So you started it. It was all you first. It was. Okay. Um so I can give a little bit of background um about the story. So um, gosh, this was back in 2013, 2014. Yes, I'll say yes. Oh gosh. Okay. So Ancestry started DNA testing in uh the spring of 2012. And when we had about a million and a half, two million people in the database, uh, I had a DNA case that I had cut my teeth on, but then this case was brought to our attention. And Dr. Hicks was a doctor, rural doctor in Georgia, and he had a problem. I'm trying to be kind. Yes. He just he decided things without consultation. He decided to play God. Oh, sure, yes, that's pretty much.

Crista Cowan 2:35

Yeah. Um basically, he felt if a woman had too many children or if she was too poor to have a child, uh, when she would come into his clinic to give birth to a baby, he would tell her the baby died. And then he was handing those babies out the back door in an adoption ring that ran for years. Yeah. Um, and and so this group, they call themselves the Hicks babies, right? Because he was the doctor who delivered all of them. But uh over a course of years, they discovered their their own adoption stories, they discovered the identity of some of the other Hicks babies. There's actually been documentaries done about this story, but it was brought to us because now we could use DNA to help figure out who their biological parents really were. And there were some people who thought they might be Hicks babies who weren't sure. And there were some people who were in the Hicks family who had been adopted who weren't sure if they were also part of this adoption ring. And so there was a lot of sensitivities.

Lisa Elzey 3:31

Yeah, it was it was a tough case. And and we were so new to it. You had learned essentially how to do DNA family history, like DNA, you know, working on uh a new product, like you said, uh with a previous case. So you taught our team. There was about four of us at the time, I think that you were kind of helping out, um, how to do this. And it was so new, it's super mathematical. I am not a math person. You are, which I love. Well, you're mostly a math person.

Crista Cowan 4:00

I'd become a math person.

Lisa Elzey 4:01

Your dad is a math person. Yes. And if anybody's listening and knows Krista's dad, he loves a good spreadsheet. Uh, but because we had something that was real time to work on and something meaningful, I think that's the thing is that it was a legit thing. They were really looking to connect people. So it just meant more. It wasn't just like an exercise or, you know, an assignment. It there was a real person at the other end wanting real answers. And this happened, what was it in the 40s and the 50s?

Crista Cowan 4:30

Is it wait or did it start in the 30s? No, it was the 40s and 50s and a little bit into the 60s. Okay. Yeah. I mean, he literally did this for years.

Lisa Elzey 4:37

Yeah. And he it was a black market. And I mean, I think he got money a lot of times. Um, and I think there were some unwed mothers that would actually come to him as well and saying, I don't want my child. And he was like, Oh, well, and he would take care of the of the unwed mother, right? They would um have them in their home and he then he would take the baby and sell the baby. So this whole thing, it was really just disturbing, um, but real. Yeah. Because there were people that were wanting answers.

Crista Cowan 5:02

Yeah, absolutely. Now, the interesting thing was, so, like you said, some of those girls came from away. They were sent to him because uh they knew that he would take care of the whole situation. Um, but a lot of those women we discovered were local to that particular area of rural northern Georgia, right on the North Carolina border, not far from Tennessee. I mean, like there's this whole confluence of Appalachia there in the mountains, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And so as we started digging into the DNA matches, we had to get really good at untangling the families of that region. And so it was the first time I have ever done a large-scale deep dive into all of the families of a particular region so that we be we we became familiar with them.

Lisa Elzey 5:53

It was it was strange. It was knowing, oh, that's the such and such family. Oh, I've got one of those over here. Well, they must have married in and trying to sort out which of the which of the matches was a DNA match and which was like married in double cousin over here. And oh, it was such

Untangling Endogamy In Rural Georgia

Lisa Elzey 6:10

a messy, small, endogamous area because I think you had visited, you went later and you got to go. And I remember you saying how like isolated it was.

Crista Cowan 6:22

I had been in Atlanta for business, and it's about three hours north of Atlanta. Yes. And so I had driven up there, driven into like you go up this up this mountain road into this little town, and literally I pulled into town, and it was one of those moments like in an old-timey movie where somebody walks into the saloon and everybody stops talking and turn the piano player stops playing. I just think of what is it, darling? We're gonna have to shut you down. What is that? Pace, pace picante. So I had walked into like the it was like a gas station with like a subway shop or something. I had walked in to get some directions and to maybe ask some questions and to get a couple snacks, maybe refill my car, and literally the whole place stopped and looked at me. Yeah. And I was like, what have I walked into? And then I went to the cemetery and visited some of the graves of some of the families that we had been researching. And then I went up into the main street where the main street is literally the dividing line between the two states where he would bounce back and forth across the state line. And we we had read that in the research we had done. And I like to see it literally is just the main street of the town is the state line.

Lisa Elzey 7:34

Yeah, where there's one law in one state and one law in another.

Crista Cowan 7:37

Isn't that why he his clinic was on one side of the street and his house was on the other side of Main Street.

Lisa Elzey 7:42

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I just remember you talking about how I can see how you said you could see how these regions were so endogamous with people marrying into the same kind of families over time because they were so isolated by the mountains. Yes. And uh so we just saw a lot of the same names, we saw a lot of overlap, but we had to sort it all out. And we had a little bit of a hint because we knew some of the people had proven things already. I think there were a few people that had to be.

Crista Cowan 8:08

A couple of people had already figured out who their biological.

Lisa Elzey 8:11

So they were kind of like little like keystones or foundational stones for us to kind of look to. But this was the first time I had ever I done my own DNA with Ancestry. And again, this was brand new, brand spinkin' new. And I had started in 2012 of that year, so just a few months after it got released. And I didn't know anything about how to do that. And I just so appreciate your patience and the questions that you helped us to ask. And I think it was fun because you didn't come already knowing. You came with your brain, with your magical brain and your math brain and helped us ask the right questions so that we could come to the connections and then do the math. It's always in my head, Krista Cowan saying, do the math, do the tree, do the math. Because we needed to make sure that all the steps between shared sentiment organs was correct. And I think we solved, I don't remember how many cases, just like.

Crista Cowan 9:06

I don't know, like 12 or 13 of them. Yeah. Um, and that was one of my favorite things was being able to then reach out to these individuals who had taken these DNA tests and put this trust in us and to be able to say, hey, you know what? Not only did we find your family, we found who your biological mother is, we found who your biological father is, but this other adoptee over here is your second cousin. Because of that intermarriage in those communities, they had built a familial type relationship with each other because of what they'd gone through and because of the discoveries that they'd made. But we were able to tell some of them then that they were actually family as well.

Lisa Elzey 9:42

Yeah, and that that they already had these relationships, like you said, and then to know, I know I'm adopted, or maybe some of them didn't know they were adopted. Some you said found out that was what was so shocking too is some had no idea because he would doctor the birth records and put that they were born in this town to those parents. So the parents are in on it. And I'm sure that that was I know that that was hard for some of the people that were searching that their parents knew.

Crista Cowan 10:09

The parents that adopted them.

Lisa Elzey 10:10

Yeah, the parents that adopted them knew that this was not above board. Yeah, that I bought you. Yeah, I paid for you. And I mean, adoptions cost money anyway, but I paid for you out of the back of a clinic versus the parents, and and I think there's something beautifully heartbreaking because those parents wanted to be parents so badly. Yeah, and they wanted that child and loved that child so incredibly, you know, uh fiercely at the same time, maybe they just didn't ask questions about how that baby came into their arms. So there was just a lot of emotion around it. And to have someone to cling to like a second cousin, I think probably helped them through the whole thing.

Crista Cowan 10:53

Yeah. It was also really interesting because um we started this project with, I don't know, 20 or 30 people who had taken the DNA test. There were probably another 10 or 20 who took the DNA test later when they learned that we were doing this project. And one of the things that I found fascinating was we could always tell as soon as someone took a test, we could we got to a point where we could tell instantly if they were a member of that community or not.

Lisa Elzey 11:16

Yes.

Crista Cowan 11:16

Like because we became so familiar with the families in that area.

Lisa Elzey 11:21

And um I since then, I think this is the first time I had done that too, where it was a geographic area where I was researching versus a family here or a family over there or my own family tree. And and you get to know these families and you're like, oh, she's a so-and-so that I bet she's from this line. And like you get to know, oh, that's from the second wife, or it's just it's like a strange kinship that you have, a temporary kinship of sorts. Uh, and you almost feel like you're a specialist of that area. And that has since happened multiple times uh since I worked at Ancestry, where if someone brings up a specific county, I'm like, oh, are you one of these people or one of those? And they're like, How do you know the surnames? And like, have a seat, we'll discuss, you know. Uh, but it's kind of lovely.

Crista Cowan 12:06

It is, yeah. Well, Fannon County, Georgia, and I got to know each other well.

Lisa Elzey 12:10

Yes, yes. And I feel uh I feel like a little kinship to the that county as well because it taught me how to do genetic genealogy. And I'm again, that was my 101. I had to do many cases since then to get better. Every case is different. Every case has a different amount of evidence. It's like a puzzle when you get a puzzle out, you know, and it's some of it has a picture and you know what you're searching for. And some of it you're like, here's some pieces. You're missing half the puzzle, but start, you know, it's just every one of them's different. And uh I'll always remember

Bias Shows Up In Your DNA

Lisa Elzey 12:45

that project because it meant something and it helped put me on a really great path.

Crista Cowan 12:50

And this particular project was done before you made your own DNA discovery.

Lisa Elzey 12:55

It was done, yes. And because I knew the questions that you had taught us that we all kind of learned together, I was able to ask those questions in my own DNA. However, I really learned that bias is a thing. Uh and I mean we that's an obvious statement, but but when you're looking for an answer to something in your own DNA and it just isn't measuring up, sometimes you're not looking straight at the thing, you're looking past it because it doesn't, it can't be straight. It can't be a straight line, it can't be right there. It has to be way over here to be the answer. And that was again your clarity when I talked to you as my friend, going, what's happening with this DNA? Um, I was able to say, What is happening? And you said, look at the straight line. This is it's here. And so sometimes it's right in front of us. Other times we've got to really dig deep. Like Hicks was a a web of families and and data we didn't have. But because I did Hicks, because I learned and I kept learning and I kept doing other cases. In fact, it became so funny. It became a joke with my husband because when people like in my neighborhood were like, Oh, you know how to do DNA. Well, I was adopted. And my husband would go, Oh no, don't tell she's gonna be up now all night. She's gonna be up all night and she's gonna have an answer for you in about 24 hours. And they're like, What? And it was so true though, because it was like you you have something I can solve. You have a puzzle? I can help you. And so they would share their DNA with me, and then I'd sit with them and I'd show them what I'm doing. And it got me better and better because I was going outside of what I knew and learning uh from their tree.

Crista Cowan 14:32

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, it's so crazy. Um, and so sometimes you can solve it now in 24 hours. Yeah. Because you've gained the skills, you've done the work on lots of different people's DNA, lots of people, different people's family trees. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than 24 hours.

Lisa Elzey 14:51

It does for some. And I mean, think about Hicks though. How many million? We only had how many in the database.

Crista Cowan 14:57

Probably less than two million.

Lisa Elzey 14:58

Less than two million. And now we're well over 34.

Crista Cowan 15:02

Over 30 for sure.

Lisa Elzey 15:03

Yeah. And I I I I don't even know. I would be curious to see if we just put one of those matches in now. What it I actually am grateful that it wasn't as many because we had to work harder. Yeah. And I think about that with my own like family history story too. I was there doing the microfilm with the no index, you know, real to real and the sound X, and I did all that. So I appreciate Ancestry serving something up to me so quickly, or I appreciate the match list that's going to surface.

Show Your Work And Trust Tools

Lisa Elzey 15:35

Um, but I learned how to do the thing. It's always again back to math. I don't know this math thing, but it's showing your work. Yeah. I I hated that in school. It's like you have to show your work.

Crista Cowan 15:47

I'm like, uh, but if you figure out how to do it, how it works, then when you use the automated tools to do it, yeah, you know if it's right or wrong. Yeah, it's like AI now.

Lisa Elzey 15:57

That's exactly right. With AI, like I my husband and I were having this conversation about how do you know if you know enough about a thing? How do you know if you have knowledge about something? And I said, a good test would be ask AI about it. Can you see when it's hallucinating?

Crista Cowan 16:11

Yeah.

Lisa Elzey 16:11

Can you see when something's not quite right? Like I could say, oh, I know all about the Titanic and ask AI to tell me something. And I'm like, uh, that's I don't think that that's real. I don't think that's true. And then of course, right now, when we're recording this, you'll tell AI, uh, I think that's not true. And I'll be like, oh, you're right. Funny me. I was making things up. So I think knowledge, you have to get that knowledge to be able to suss it out and find the thing. Uh, I'm sure there'll be a day long after we air this podcast where things will get served up to us much more quickly. Probably. But I still think our critical thinking and knowledge is gonna be invaluable.

Crista Cowan 16:50

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes that hard slog, right? Like the hard slog through those Georgia records, the hard slog through those early limited number of DNA matches and no tools. Back then we had no custom groups, we had no shared matches. We had like we were doing it the hard way. We had colored pens uh-huh and whiteboards.

Lisa Elzey 17:08

Okay, can we just talk? We're just gonna nerd out a minute. We love colored pens, and this is why, because we use those colored pens to be like, okay, this is the green group, and we'd do a colored pen on a piece of paper and we draw an arrow over here, and this is the purple group. And then we'd had all these colored pens. I remember when we got those because we just needed something to differentiate because we didn't have tools, and we'd make colored stars in all the things. In fact, just so that listeners know, those groups are largely part of our team saying we need colored groups because we were just putting colored stars

Target Testing And Community Cooperation

Lisa Elzey 17:40

in things and needed a way to group it. And but gosh, it was fun. It was fun, yeah.

Crista Cowan 17:45

And you and I have spent uh the last several years working on another DNA project that we're not gonna tell the story of right now. But at the time of this recording, we think we may have solved it.

Lisa Elzey 17:55

I know, and you know what we need to solve it for sure is DNA. Yeah. So just everyone manifests that we'll get someone to take the test.

Crista Cowan 18:03

So that was another thing that I learned though with the Hicks family was sometimes you get really close to the answer and you don't quite know. You're like, your dad could be this guy or it could be this guy, or it could be this cousin or this cousin, and you have to target test people. And we were able to get that community to rally around and say, hey, we know people in the community who are willing to help us. They will go out and kind of deal with some of those, you know, stop talking in the saloon people. And right because we're going into this isolated community who's in some cases trying to protect itself for sure, especially from the media frenzy that kind of erupted when these stories started breaking. And there were people in the community who are willing to help and go into those homes and into those families and say, hey, we need you to DNA test because your DNA is going to help us solve this lifelong need of this person to know who they are and where they come from. And so many of the people so graciously agreed to do that.

Lisa Elzey 18:59

Yes. And I think that's really a great call out because it really takes a village to be able to solve the things. That's why when you have so many people in the Ancestry DNA database, so many customers there, it's so much easier and so much better. And again, knowing that your thing can help someone else solve their thing, I don't know. There's just some like humanitarian thing. And I didn't do anything. All I did was spit in a tube, and somehow maybe my DNA can help someone. I love that.

Crista Cowan 19:27

Yeah, I do too. Well, we learn that through DNA, through that particular project, that when we work on problems outside of our own family trees, it kind of broadens our horizons, it teaches us new skills.

Broadway Meets Family History

Crista Cowan 19:40

Uh, that is not just true of DNA, that is also true of the work that you get to do every day. You work on dozens of different kinds of trees at any one moment in time. I do. Um, but there was a particular project you worked on back in about 2017, 2016. 2017, yeah. Um, that that gave you a whole lot of experience with a lot of different things.

Lisa Elzey 20:02

It did. It was really a favorite project of mine. So for those that don't know, that haven't watched or listened to the podcast, my background is in theater. That's what my degree was in in college. I have a Bachelor of Arts in acting emphasis, theater, and then an English minor in creative writing. So everything's very artsy, very humanities, very all of that. Um, but I have been a professional production stage manager outside of college until my time here at um Ancestry, the last 14 plus years. So uh my kids are all in theater, all four of them, professionally. They're getting their degrees in it, teaching it, all of those things. And so I always kid around, like, oh, we're all gonna be poor when we're in our 80s, but that's fine. Um, but they're fantastic, they're very, very good at it. I know I'm their mom, but I'm also an I am not their mom.

Crista Cowan 20:52

They are very talented.

Lisa Elzey 20:53

They are very talented, and that's why I don't feel like we're one of those people that's like choose your thing, go all in, we support you, right? So uh so anyway, this project that came to Ancestry's doorstep had to do with the Broadway production of Anastasia, uh the musical. And so a little just a little note on the Anastasia musical. My oldest, Trevor, is uh in theater. He works at Disney, he's an actor, uh, you know, he's a singer or performer. And he loved the cartoon Anastasia. Loved it. I don't know. I mean, I loved it too, but I just remember as a child, he knew all the songs. He uh he's like, Ma, this needs to be a show. This should be a show. And I'm like, I know, right? It really should. And the music was lovely, and it was just this most beautiful thing. I will never forget when we found out Anastasia was going to be a musical. He's like, I called it, I called it when I was a kid. I was like, I'm sure you and thousands of other people, obviously, but he was so excited. And so this particular show had a little bit more meaning to me because it was so close to my family and what they loved. So Anastasia, for those of you that don't know the story, it's a cartoon film that came out first, but it's the story of Anastasia Romanoff, who they, you know, they never found her because the Romanovs were all killed and, you know, the whole, the whole Bolshevik, all that thing, the takeover, and but they never found Anastasia. So there's always this idea of like maybe she survived. And so the cartoon is about this young girl who can't remember her past and she's an adult. So she gets kicked out of the orphanage and like okay, go out on your own. And then these two kind of roof rough guys see this opportunity to like use her to get out of Russia and all this idea to say, oh no, no, she's she's Anya, Anya is Anastasia. It's this whole thing. So uh it's about journeying to the past and what is your identity and who is your family and remembering your family and finding your family. And so they came to us Anastasia their production company came to Ancestry to see if we wanted to do something with them and and kind of combine the Ancestry element with the Anastasia element. They had the entire ensemble take DNA tests. So everyone they all they could opt in if they wanted to which I think all of them did because they're like yeah yes please so yeah so all of them took DNA tests and then we could tell you know we served that back to them so they could see all of that. But then we had all of the main characters in the show as well as the two writers of the book and the lyrics as well as the writer of the music and then we had the producer all that filled out Family Tree forms. So I don't think I don't think y'all know who's in the cast but in case you don't and you ever seen Savannah Bananas? Yep. You know my Anastasia friend Derek Clenna he's kind of the star of Savannah Bananas right now.

Crista Cowan 23:52

He also just sung their new theme song that was just written they just had a theme song written for them and he sings the theme song.

Lisa Elzey 23:58

Yes he did a whole fanta thing I think he's just the songbird now of Savannah Bananas and it was so funny because he was a big athlete in school I think people that know that people that watch that know. But he played Dimitri and Dimitri's like the love interest the main guy and uh so I got to do his family treat. Christy Altamar played Anastasia she was fantastic. She played it for so long on Broadway. She's such a good performer. Mary Beth Peel. Mary Beth Peel can we just talk okay Dawson's Creek can just Dawson Creek Glam. Graham and anybody that's watched Dawson's Creek she was Graham. So and I can't can I just I don't want to get there yet we'll go there in a second. So then we've got John Bolton total fantastic personality an amazing person so kind has been on Broadway forever. He played Vlad and then we have Carolyn O'Connor come on Carolyn O'Connor you ever seen Mulan Rouge? You know Roxanne the tango the rock the the incredible film Boslerman's film she's the one doing the tango and then Ramin Karamlu as uh you know the bad guy the baddie just as powerhouse cast so those were the people that I got to speak to on camera and also we got to speak with Tom Curtihy who is the producer. So Tom I adore him if you've seen I don't know Hades Town or if you've seen you know all these big musicals that win Broadway win Tony Awards he just produced Hades Town uh the the pro shot of that he's an incredible producer multi-tony winning producer and he was married to the person that wrote the book the legendary Terrence McNally Terrence McNally wrote the book for Ragtime he's written People the surprise winning plays he's he's a force in theater and he has since passed but I got to sit next to him and speak to him about his family tree. And then Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens who wrote the music and the lyrics you ever heard of a thing called schoolhouse rock? Yeah Lynn Aarons that was she did that so I I can't explain obviously I you're probably seeing it in my body and my voice I'm just like all of my worlds converged all of them so I here I am researching family trees at these Broadway performers who also have moments in my life that they've touched it somehow uh whether it be in theater or television or or you know schoolhouse rock and then I get to go to New York and tell them about it and make these little snippets that are on YouTube. So think about that we have Ramin Kreml he's from Iran his family fled Iran when the Shah was removed because his dad Ramin's dad was in the military and so they left they fled and went to Italy first and then they landed for they went from there they finally landed in Canada is kind of where the family landed. Charming charming charming person he had DNA that I got to learn and talk about his DNA uh you know from Iran and then with John Bolton I got to talk to him about his family tree the kind of a love story little mystery and he was the most interested of all the people he was like will you call me later or can I give you my email I just wanted this my I love this this is so great. In fact this is the thing I will forever be grateful to John so I kept I kept up uh touch with John and then when my son Trevor went to New York he got to go see Anastasia

When Research Turns Into Real Moments

Lisa Elzey 27:40

I don't want to get teary but he got to go see Anastasia and I told John I'm like John I'm so excited my son finally gets to see your show he's like what your son's coming tell him to come stage door tell him to come and ask for me okay so Trevor was with a friend and Trevor went to the stage door and asked to see you know John Bolton put your name on a list and is like oh they're like yeah come on in John got him gave him a tour around stage had him meet all the people took photos with all the people so my kid is like young in his early 20s like mom I just met all these people and I maybe someday I'll be on that stage. Like it was just the most magical thing that somehow my job my weird job and awesome job got to bleed into that a little bit and that was all because of my family history connection with John telling him about his story. So I got to tell Christy Altamar about her ancestor from Italy. Her great grandfather was the original Carlo on Carlos of Cake Boss. Like he's that's his name on the the marquee that and then he sold it and she's like yes I know about that but then she got to see how they came to New York. Most of these families what's so great about all these family trees that I got to do from all over the world a lot of them that were immigrants came through New York. And so to have this kind of magical moment of connecting their story here I am on Broadway, you know, on this show Anastasia because my ancestor came through New York to this country and I have an opportunity to do this. They they all made those little connections and uh it was just magical and top it off Anastasia was in the Broadhurst theater I believe and right across the street from that theater is Sardis Sardis is an icon. It's a restaurant in New York it's an icon and just a little again this is me telling all my little stories but my mom when I was growing up had this magical cookbook it was by Vincent Price. What he was a food connoisseur and would go all over the world with his wife and they would eat at the most fabulous restaurants and he would get copies of the menus and find the key recipes and the chefs would give them to him and it's this very old cookbook that is like out of print. But my mom had it and it had all these places it would say France and it had all these really old 1950s and 60s menus with you know snails escargot or whatever these weird things but I just remember being like oh my gosh this is so cool and I remember my mom made a dinner once out of that cookbook and she made the Sardes recipe that was in it. And I remember saying I want to go to Sardis someday. I want to go there and I finally got to go and here I am sitting next to these icons in theater these beautiful professionals telling them about their family tree. So it was combining the two things I love most in this world aside from my family and friends of course is family history and theater. And it just smooshed them together so incredibly beautifully and I just could not have asked for anything more. And then the last thing they invited us all to come to opening night so we got to come back to New York that those of us you know that were involved with the project and I went to Anastasia's opening night had the worst seat in the house that was great. Actually second worst seat I was on the second row the very very last seat on the the the house right side sitting next to the choreographer who I had also told her family history too with her DNA and she was so upset. She was like oh I can't believe they put you in this seat. This is the worst seat in the house she's like I'm gonna tell you what's going on because it was such a sharp angle I couldn't see the stage left side ever. But so she'd lean over and she'd go Ramin's getting off the desk he's crossing over so I had this fantastic little whispered commentary and she has since passed beautiful lady and um I heard like whispering and telling me the things I was missing because of my bad seat. But it didn't matter if I couldn't see anything at all. I just was in the space with all these magical creative artistic people and they all love telling stories and they love family history too. And it just ah it just reaffirmed that storytelling happens everywhere and my job the weird it may be I am here because of those stories that theater background because I love storytelling. I love sharing and uh gosh it was just the most kismet magical

Stories Connect Us Only If Shared

Lisa Elzey 32:15

serendipitous whatever word you want to use moment and I'll never forget it.

Crista Cowan 32:19

Oh I love it. I love it so much. And I love that like you get to not just research all the family trees and get all of those skills but then to actually be able to be in those spaces and tell those stories. And I think that's one of the things that I just wish for everybody like every every ancestry customer every listener of this podcast is to just find ways to tell the stories because I love the connection you made with New York. They're all working there on stage in New York together they had family members ancestors who had come through New York like this the way that that city connected them places can be connections historical events can be connections occupations military service like there's a million things about our stories that connect us but they don't connect us unless we share them.

Lisa Elzey 33:06

Yes we have and we have to discover them too right like discover them and then share them and some people are really great at discovery and some people are really great at sharing but maybe some are good at both but sometimes all you have to do is share that thing and then that person turns into then now they're the advocate for the story, right? I know I know you for your family how many times have they been like oh yeah like that one story with so and so and such and such and tell that story again Krista like they remember and they bank it. They may not be the one finding it but they definitely bank it and they're gonna tell it to their kids and their families. And I hope that maybe that day when I was able to share what I've discovered and I had help by the way it wasn't only just me just doing the the research but I'm hoping that maybe they shared that with some of their loved ones. I this is long before Derek Klenna was married. I think maybe he was dating at the time his wife but now he has two kids and I was like okay I wonder because he wanted to know about the Klena name where'd that come from and it's from Slovakia and so it was exciting to be able to say this is where it came from and here are these records and this is how it was pronounced and here's the town like this big I couldn't pronounce the town well and but he has that now and he can now give that to his children. And I wonder I sometimes wonder you know does he know that does he think about that maybe not now because he's in the thick of it you know he has he has Savannah bananas to sing about but maybe someday he'll share that with his kids. But then there's Mary Beth who was you know in the later years of her life and she was so present and so like I think you could probably just see that from the kind of actress she is but she got it she just felt it she just understood why this is so important. She we talked about people she never knew and we talked about finding her family in Wurttemberg Germany. She immediately was like well let's learn about Wurttemberg like she wanted to know she understood why it meant something and then Tom Curthy we his didn't air we uh we filmed them for them but uh they didn't air on YouTube. But what I loved about Tom is it was about his grandpa coming from Syria and coming to the to New York and then he was just tear filled and he just started saying I remember my my grandfather and he just started telling these beautiful stories about his grandfather and I didn't tell him much that day. He told you he told me but I sparked that and I said here's the ship he came on and here's when he landed and here's when he became a citizen of the United States and that's what just he lost it. He saw that naturalization record and he's like this is where it started this where all we can like and now he's this so successful producer of theater in New York and part of that story is because of that grandfather and I don't have a reason to look in Syria for my family tree. I don't have a reason to look in Italy or or Slovakia or or Virginberg Germany and because I'm helping these people and because it mattered I think that's the other thing we can always do an exercise right we can always do something to learn something anytime you can go to an institute in fact I encourage it go. You're going to learn skills. Join pajamas and pedigree yes but that part um but you can always get education yeah but it means a little bit more when you know on the other side someone's waiting to hear what you have to say. And it made me work just a little harder. It made me want to find those story bits a little more interesting. It wasn't just names dates and places it became their storytellers I need to tell them a story. Yeah and honestly that was one of the projects early in my career at Ancestry that helped me learn how to take my storytelling prowess that I gained from my education and my experience in production and turning that into family history and how we do that. And I I have many people to thank for helping me learn more and more to do that and I'm always learning still and uh my gosh what an incredible journey journey of the past little pun. Uh incredible journey and I will never forget that moment and I was forever grateful that they were willing to be vulnerable to learn those stories and I learned so

Crayons Memory And Listener Challenge

Lisa Elzey 37:30

much learned so much.

Crista Cowan 37:31

Whoa so fun I love that you had that opportunity. Well thank you for sharing um before you go you know the you know the rules I do I'm so nervous with one word one story okay a little improv exercise for you oh back to my theater today's one word one story is crayons crayons what uncatalogued memory does that bring to mind goodness okay now I know the pressure I'm so sorry everyone that is on this podcast this is a little bit of pressure okay crayons first I remember the smell of crayon box right the brand new crayon box like and how magical it was when I got the 64 crayola box did you have the one with the little sharpener on the back and then taking them out and learning all the names of the different colors of them see foam.

Lisa Elzey 38:30

And whose job is that I know I think it's the same people that do the nail polish now or at least their descendants. So that first of all just the memory like the the smell memory because smells bring memories right so I think just the smell memory of getting new crayons and how sad I was when they'd break and how I'm like it's ruined the whole box is you know dramatically so the whole box is ruined and how much I love that. But I think the one that I really remember about crayons is when you go to a restaurant as a kid and they had crayons for you to color on the placemat. On the placemat and I remember I think Ferrell's had that Ferrell's ice cream shop uh in California maybe I'm remembering wrong but that was I think as a child that was one of my favorite things is to go to a place where they had something for me. Yeah it made I remember it made me feel like I had an identity and I wasn't just the kid it wasn't just a kid menu. It was like here's your experience right and so that's I think one of my favorites and so as a mom I always had crayons in the kids bag. This is pre-iPad pink sure very my kids were pre-iPad. We always had crayons and I always had paper or coloring books because I remember being in a restaurant that it gave me something to do and I felt like I could participate because I was you know with my crayons and that smell and that fun memory of art and coloring and carried over into what it meant to me and then as a mother it with my kids having that.

Crista Cowan 40:01

So that's my crayons memory. Okay so I also remember the smell and the 64 color box with the pencil sharpener or the crayon sharpener. But I am the oldest of five children and uh I always like to keep my crayons in the box. I like to keep them in in an or color order. Okay. Um I'm an I'm an oldest daughter at their place. Uh-huh yeah but my younger siblings did not have that same sensibility so they're wanting to like eat the crayons rip the paper off the crayons oh my gosh the paper break the crayons like and it just was so frustrating to me. And so my mom started buying like those big pencil boxes to just put the broken pieces of torn papered crayons in and that it was just chaos and it really bothered me. But so I always asked for a new box of crayons and I almost always got one every year for like Christmas or my birthday and a new coloring book or two. And I was not a great color I'm still not particularly like aesthetically creative but um but there are days when I still love to color. Like it's just the adult coloring books? I actually don't use adult coloring books. I know but like I like the kid coloring books.

Lisa Elzey 41:14

Just the kid the kid those are way better like the adult Kirby or oh yes the Muppets yeah did you ever outline like you know like you would take a like a darker color press harder press harder and then you do like and shade it.

Crista Cowan 41:26

Yeah no I'd I think I still I think I did that on a few dates once in my 20s too. That's really creative. So there you go. Okay well that is today's one word one story I would love to hear what your crayon story is leave it here in the comments if you're watching on YouTube. If you're listening on a podcast app post it to your Instagram your Facebook tag me but the most important thing of course is to share your stories with your family well Lisa thank you for being here I love being here I'm always here you are I love being here too you're usually off camera I know I know well before we go I just also want to share like so my Anastasia memory uh because Ancestry sponsored that show uh we had some on-call tickets available to us at different times throughout that first season and I take the nibblings on a 13th birthday trip and my oldest nephew is also a theater kid and he decided he wanted to go to New York City for his trip and Anastasia had just opened we had those tickets available and so I got to take him to see that as one of his first Broadway shows.

Lisa Elzey 42:33

I love that and you weren't sitting in the second row on the end. We were not which I think is fantastic. I love that and you know if anything if anyone learns anything from this go and ask if people need help on their family tree or their DNA. If you're like I want to do that too I promise if you ask someone there are people they're gonna take you up on it. And then you're gonna probably regret it or your spouse or partner will regret it. But um you'll just learn so much. Nothing like being up all night studio sponsored by Ancestry