Stories That Live In Us

Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist
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What if the most powerful way to strengthen your family’s future is to look to the past? I’m Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist.  I created this podcast to inspire you to form deeper connections with your family - past, present, and future.  All families are messy and life is constantly changing but we don’t have to allow that to disconnect us.  I’ve spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything.Tune in weekly to receive inspiration and guidance that will help you use family stories to craft a powerful family narrative, contributing to your family’s identity and creating a legacy of resilience, healing, and connection.__________________________Want to climb your family tree and uncover your own family stories?  Visit my website - CristaCowan.com - and sign up for my free newsletter.

  1. 8h ago

    When Family Secrets Surface: Escaped Camps, Hidden Children, and DNA (with Erika Hanchar) | Episode 136

    How many times have you hesitated to dig into an old family mystery because you were terrified of what you might find? In this episode, I sit down with writer and photographer Erika Hanchar (host of the Granddaughter of Immigrants podcast), who inherited a cryptic bedside stack of untranslated Ukrainian records at nineteen and spent twenty years unraveling the silence her grandparents took to their graves. From escaping a WWII forced labor camp in a stolen supply truck to a surprising AncestryDNA match sitting in her junk folder, Erika shares the heartache, hidden children, and profound healing that came from wading through her family tree's messiest corners. Listen in as we discover why stepping into the truth of our roots is the very thing that shows us who we really are. 〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼️  Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations. ♥  Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

  2. Oct 29

    A Person Dies Twice: How Family Stories Keep Us Alive | Episode 135

    What will your family remember about you when you're gone? And how do we keep the stories of the people we love alive for generations? When I pulled over on an empty desert road near Utah Lake and handed my 18-year-old nephew the keys to my convertible, I felt my late Aunt Rhonda sitting right there with us. She was a larger-than-life woman who never had children of her own but left an unforgettable legacy of love. From a wild ride down Sunset Boulevard in the 1990s to a quiet moment beside Utah Lake decades later, I'm reflecting on grief, remembrance, and the power of family storytelling. Because family history isn't just about remembering the people who came before us. It's about how their lives continue to shape who we are, how we love, and what we pass on to the next generation. And stay tuned until the end for a HUGE announcement about something I've been working on for the past two years! 〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼️  Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations. ♥  Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

  3. Oct 22

    All the Beautiful Things: What Really Brings People Back to Faith (with Shelley Graham) | Episode 134

    How many times have you sat across the table from a child or sibling who sees faith completely differently than you do, and felt an aching gulf between you? In those moments, our first instinct is usually to defend what we believe, but my guest today is here to help us flip the script. Playwright and BYU theatre professor Shelley Graham joins me to share the incredible stories behind her verbatim stage production, All the Beautiful Things, revealing what actually brings people back to faith and how radical listening can heal our deepest family divides. Listen in to discover how to hold space for your loved ones' hardest stories and find hope in God's relentless pursuit of us all. 〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼️  Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations. ♥  Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

  4. Oct 15

    The Countess of Cons: Uncovering Scandalous Ancestors (with Deborah Holman) | Episode 133

    "When I noticed a yellowed piece of paper physically taped over a portrait in an old family book, I knew there was a secret waiting to be found." My guest today, author Deborah Holman, set out to uncover that hidden identity and ended up spending two years untangling the unbelievable life of her husband’s great-grandmother. We’re talking about a 19th-century woman living under dozens of aliases, pulling off high-stakes cons, breaking into 50 homes in a single weekend at age 60, and keeping handwritten accounting ledgers of her crime sprees. In this episode, we share this wild historical investigation and discuss how confronting the unpolished "black sheep" in our family trees gives us a richer, more honest connection to where we come from. Listen in for a story you truly couldn't make up if you tried! 〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼️  Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations. ♥  Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

  5. Oct 8

    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! 〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼️  Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations. ♥  Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

  6. Oct 1

    Why You Probably Have Cousins Everywhere (And How to Find Them) | Episode 131

    What if the person sitting next to you right now (at work, in church, or at a wedding) isn't a stranger at all? When I started doing descendancy research and checking my DNA matches, I realized we are constantly crossing paths with living cousins in the most unexpected places. From college roommates to the groomsmen out on the dance floor, our ancestral threads weave us together in ways that completely change how we see the world. Join me for the start of National Family History Month as we explore why you probably have cousins everywhere and how to start finding them. 〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼️  Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations. ♥  Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

  7. Sep 24

    Breaking a 150-Year German Brick Wall (with Jenny Ashcraft) | Episode 130

    When a 150-year-old German brick wall kept my friend Jenny Ashcraft stuck for nearly two decades, she decided to stop pushing straight backward and try a completely different research strategy. By fanning out to document all ten of her ancestor's children, the floodgates opened—leading to an unbelievable library encounter with the author of the exact emigration index she needed, a mysterious phone call revealing an unmarked grave, and a renewed connection with living cousins. If you've been staring at an empty void on your family tree, join Jenny and me for an inspiring conversation on collateral research, modern miracles, and why our ancestors are so eager to be found. 〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼️  Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations. ♥  Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

  8. Sep 17

    The Heirloom Portrait & The Danish Flood: Verifying Family Lore (with Rhonda Budge) | Episode 129

    Growing up, my guest Rhonda Budge spent hours sitting beside her grandmother, staring at a massive framed portrait of her great-great-grandfather, Johann Christian Hansen. Family lore claimed he heroically rescued neighbors from their rooftops during an 1872 Danish flood, lost his ship, and gave away his reward money. It’s a story that sounded almost too extraordinary to be completely true. But when Rhonda set a clear research goal and wrote to an archive in Denmark, a 1908 newspaper obituary proved every single detail of her grandmother’s hero story was real. Join us for a powerful conversation about verifying family legends, preserving photo heirlooms, and discovering the unbelievable truth behind the pictures on our walls. 〰️ 🌳 🧬 〰️  🎧 Ready to discover more stories that could transform your family connections? Subscribe to 'Stories That Live In Us' wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a review to help other families find their path to deeper connection through family history. Together, we're building a community of families committed to preserving and sharing the stories that matter most. 🖼️  Ready to get your family tree out of your computer and onto your wall? Visit FamilyChartmasters.com to create a family tree chart that will help your family share stories for generations. ♥  Want more family history tips and inspiration? Follow me @CristaCowan on Instagram where I share behind-the-scenes looks at my own family discoveries and practical ways to uncover yours!

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About

What if the most powerful way to strengthen your family’s future is to look to the past? I’m Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist.  I created this podcast to inspire you to form deeper connections with your family - past, present, and future.  All families are messy and life is constantly changing but we don’t have to allow that to disconnect us.  I’ve spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything.Tune in weekly to receive inspiration and guidance that will help you use family stories to craft a powerful family narrative, contributing to your family’s identity and creating a legacy of resilience, healing, and connection.__________________________Want to climb your family tree and uncover your own family stories?  Visit my website - CristaCowan.com - and sign up for my free newsletter.

Information

  • Creator
    Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    138
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Crista Cowan
  • Show Website
    Stories That Live In Us

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