Going Home to a Place I’d Never Been

Howie Barber and his son stand beside the grave of Tuffield Barber and Mercy Jane Lee Barber at Rosewood Cemetery in White Creek, New York, with close-up images of both historic grave markers.

Tracing my family tree stirred up something I didn’t expect. It wasn’t curiosity or nostalgia. It felt more like a steady nudge toward a place I had never lived, never visited, and yet somehow already knew. It was a pull toward “home,” even though I had never been there. For most of my life, the […]