RECENT PROJECTS

Tracing journeys and honoring legacies

The Mueller Legacy

Transnational Narrative Reconstruction

Genealogy • Holocaust Research • Archival Synthesis

The Miller project began with a collection of fragmented records and personal letters detailing Albert and Hilde’s high-stakes escape from 1930s Krefeld, Germany.

The challenge was to bridge the gap between anecdotal family memories and the rigid bureaucratic reality of pre-war emigration. I conducted a deep dive into German archival systems, transcribing Kurrent and Sütterlin scripts to trace the couple’s strategic navigation of the "domestic couple" visa loophole. By cross-referencing official registries, refugee agency records, and British internment files, I reconstructed a precise timeline of their journey from Germany through Scotland and eventually to America, just weeks before the German borders closed. The final narrative synthesized these disparate primary sources into a rigorous biographical case study, transforming a box of fragile certificates into a documented history of resilience and survival.

ABOUT

The Historian Behind Your Family's Story

Hi, I'm Kristin - a professional historian who helps families discover the stories hiding behind their family trees.

I wear two hats that might seem unusual together. By day, I'm a Senior Sales Manager at a tech company. By passion, I'm a historian with an MA in history, spending my evenings in archives and editing scholarly work for TheCarryall.org, an academic journal on US cultural and intellectual history.

These two worlds share more DNA than you'd think. Both demand the same core work—asking the right questions, finding patterns in complex information, and communicating what you've found in ways that actually resonate with people. My sales career taught me to listen and communicate clearly. My historical training taught me to dig until I find the real story. Together, they let me take your family's scattered fragments and turn them into narratives that do your ancestors justice.

Why I do this: History has never been about "important people" to me. It's about ordinary people navigating extraordinary times—people exactly like your ancestors. Your great-grandmother wasn't just a name on a certificate. She made hard choices, survived things we can barely imagine, and built the foundation for your life today. I believe every family deserves to know that story, told with both scholarly rigor and genuine heart.

What I bring to your project: My MA focused on US history from 1800 to 1950, with deep expertise in Ellis Island-era immigration, Civil War soldiers and civilians, industrial workers in coal mines and steel mills, rural farming communities, and urban ethnic neighborhoods. When you tell me your ancestor was a coal miner in Pennsylvania, I don't start from scratch—I already know that world. I just need to find the details that made their experience unique.

How I work: I approach every project with the discipline of academic research but write for families, not professors. I believe context is everything. Knowing your ancestor was a "laborer" tells you nothing, but understanding the world that shaped their labor tells you everything. I ground every narrative in primary sources, explain what those documents reveal and conceal, and write prose that reads like a chapter from a book, not an entry in a database.

This work is personal for me, too. My own family history research sparked this passion when I uncovered details about my ancestors that would have been lost without careful archival digging. Every family has moments like that waiting to be found. My job is to find yours.

The Quick Lookup

This is a single focused search on one individual—one census record, one immigration document, one marriage certificate, one military enrollment. Whatever specific record you're hunting for, I'll track it down, send you a clean copy, and include a brief note explaining what it tells us. Perfect for when you're stuck on one piece of the puzzle and just need a professional researcher to find it.

The Story Sample

Think of this as a first chapter. I research one ancestor and write a short narrative that goes beyond the records to explore what their life was actually like. You'll get a feel for my approach and walk away with something meaningful—a concise portrait of one person's world that you won't find on Ancestry.com.

The Deep Dive

This is the full biography. I trace one individual's life from beginning to end, pulling every available record and weaving it all into a rich narrative that places them squarely in the history of their time. You'll understand not just what they did, but what their world looked, sounded, and felt like. This is the package most clients choose, and it's the one that tends to make people cry in the best possible way.

The Family Legacy

This is the heirloom. I research an entire family line across multiple generations and produce a professionally written, print-ready document that tells their full story—where they came from, what they endured, how they built a life, and how the thread of their choices connects all the way to you. This is the package families commission for reunions, milestone birthdays, and memorials. It's the kind of thing that gets passed down.

Custom Projects

Sometimes your project doesn't fit neatly into a package, and that's perfectly fine. Maybe you've inherited three boxes of your grandmother's letters and photographs and need someone to make sense of them. Maybe you're stuck on a decades-old family mystery and need a historian's eye to break through the wall. Maybe you've got a collection of German immigration documents you can't read, or you're writing a book and need a research partner who knows the archives inside and out.

This is where I work with you to build exactly what you need. We start with a free 15-minute consultation where you tell me what you're dealing with. I'll give you an honest assessment of what's involved, a time estimate, and a quote. You'll never be surprised by a bill—I provide updates on hours as we go, and I won't exceed an agreed-upon cap without your approval.

Minimum engagement is two hours. Most custom projects run between 5 and 20 hours depending on scope.

SERVICES

Learn With Me

One on One Training to Research Your Own Family History

There's nothing quite like the moment you find your great-grandmother's name on a ship manifest from 1903, written in a clerk's hurried handwriting next to her age, her hometown, and the name of the person waiting for her in America. I want you to experience that moment for yourself.

Genealogical research isn't as intimidating as it looks—you just need someone to show you where to look, how to read what you find, and how to avoid the rabbit holes that waste your time.

Getting Started Session
(two hours, one-on-one)

We'll work with your actual ancestors, not hypotheticals. I'll map out what you already know, show you the essential databases and archives, including Ancestry.com, teach you how to read historical documents the way a historian does, and help you think like a researcher—forming hypotheses, testing them, and following unexpected threads. You'll leave with a research plan, a toolkit of resources, and your first real discoveries already in hand.

Follow-Up Sessions

Bring your stuck points, your questions, your exciting finds. Maybe you've hit a brick wall, found a document you can't decipher, or uncovered something unexpected and want to dig deeper. No commitment, no schedule—just expert help when you want it.

What you'll need: Whatever you already know—names, dates, locations, old family stories, even rumors. A laptop with internet connection so we can work through databases together. Any old documents, photos, or family bibles you have on hand. And your curiosity, because once we start pulling threads, you won't want to stop.

No prior experience necessary. Wherever you are is the right place to start.

Let's discover your Family's story together...

Whether you already know exactly which ancestor you want to research or you're just curious about what might be possible, I'd love to hear from you. There's no commitment in reaching out—just tell me a little about what you're looking for, and I'll let you know how I can help.

If you have a name, a few dates, and a general sense of where they lived, that's usually more than enough to get started. And if all you have is a family legend and a faded photograph, that's a perfectly good starting point too.

I typically respond within 24 hours, often faster. I'm happy to answer questions, help you figure out which package makes sense, or just talk through what's realistic for your particular family's records. No pressure, no sales pitch—just a historian who genuinely loves this work and wants to help you connect with your past.