Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Tell Me a Story - TPR's In Focus - May 26, 2026

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Tell Me a Story - TPR's In Focus - May 26, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Rosa Parks Museum on Troy University's Montgomery campus,
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  located on the spot of Mrs. Parks' historic 1955 arrest and featuring
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  exhibits that chronicle the history of the Montgomery bus boycott.
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  More information at troy.edu slash Rosa Parks.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  As America celebrates its 250th, the Alabama Genealogical Society brings news
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  of a project that records family stories.
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  Jean Bradley, AGS president, joins us in the series,
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  Genealogy in Your Genes, spelled G-E-N-E-S.
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  Jean, welcome back to Troy Public Radio.
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  Thank you very much. I'm excited about some special programs we're doing and events.
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  You have designed a special project and there's a way that your listeners can get involved.
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  Well, when you do genealogy, you create a tree.
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  And whether you're a family historian or somebody that's paid to do, if you're professional,
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  you create this tree and you connect all the dots and you're so proud of it and it looks great.
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  But when you show it to non-genealogists, their eyes tend to glaze over.
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  They're just names and dates.
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  What I believe, and Alabama Genealogical Society believes,
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  is that each person on that tree has a story to tell.
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  Sometimes it's an exciting story. Sometimes it's a horror story.
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  Sometimes it's a story you never even heard.
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  So as we're all involved in America 250,
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  let's record someone telling a story about an ancestor for four minutes.
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  That's 240 seconds.
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  We'll add some graphics, which will make it 250 seconds,
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  which will tie in with America 250.
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  We're not ending with the celebration this summer because there are so many stories to tell.
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  And we're encouraging people to use their cell phone.
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  It sounds like the whole family could get involved.
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  If you've got teenagers that live on their cell phone, they know how to do it.
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  And there are apps on their phone where they can edit
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  and can take pictures of maybe some photos you have.
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  And we will put those on our website, our YouTube channel.
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  Alabama 250 said, hey, we'll take them.
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  I had a friend of mine say, I don't think I could tell an ancestor story in four minutes.
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  Well, she turned and was talking to somebody else, and she told a story.
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  And I said, you just did it.
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  A lot of these stories seem to be told around the family table.
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  And when you tell family stories, our friends in academia call that hearsay.
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  And I say, who cares?
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  A family story is a family story.
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  And it could be true.
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  It could be embellished.
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  But it's part of your family lore.
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  We had a story of my grandfather who was down.
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  Remember, there was the elite cafe.
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  Normal people would say it was the elite cafe.
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  But around here, we called it the elite.
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  Right down the street from the Troy Montgomery campus.
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  Yes, yes.
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  They had a special on oysters.
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  And every oyster he opened had a pearl in it.
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  It became such a phenomenon.
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  The newspaper came out and did a story.
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  And I have those pearls.
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  And that's where they came from.
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  And, of course, they're not pearls you're going to string up for a necklace,
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  but I have a handful of them.
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  And that's a family story.
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  It's true.
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  But that's the kind of story we're looking for.
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  We're not necessarily looking for so-and-so was born in 1842.
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  That's the boring stuff.
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  I did an interview with someone who was telling their family history.
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  And there was a couple of brothers and a cousin.
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  And the cousin said, I provided all of the livestock for close encounters
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  of the third kind.
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  When it was down in Mobile.
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  He's on a horse and Steven Spielberg's on a horse.
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  And the cousin says something like, you know, what are you doing?
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  And not realizing it was Steven Spielberg.
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  And he said, I'm the director.
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  And those are just fun stories.
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  But then somebody told a story that at the end of the Civil War,
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  their ancestor walked back to Montgomery from Illinois.
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  Walked.
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  And I always think about that in the summer.
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  Any kind of soldier in wool uniforms and it being hot.
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  And I had an American revolutionary ancestor who was shot.
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  And what saved him was he had a silk handkerchief.
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  And it stopped the bullet.
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  And then he became part of a group of men that had to go and tell some
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  horse thieves that they were going to be hung.
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  But not all of them were going to be hung.
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  Only a couple of them.
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  And so he went in a group and had to deliver the bad news.
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  These stories make these ancestors come to life.
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  I've done programs of how do you find people?
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  Because everybody believes they're descended from kings and queens.
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  But some families have murderers.
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  I did a genealogy.
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  She didn't know much about her mom.
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  And as you get up in the tree, and I saw this ancestor.
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  And in the obit he said his death was probably caused because he was so
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  heartbroken.
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  What was he heartbroken about?
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  Looked at his son's found a grave site.
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  And everybody in his son's family died the same day.
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  And I thought yellow fever, flu.
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  Oh, no, no.
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  The son had gotten, quote, full of liquor.
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  And he came home and thought his wife was having an affair and killed the
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  whole family.
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  So you have these newspaper accounts.
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  And back in the day, it was glorious writing.
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  It was very descriptive.
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  And so I'm looking at the newspaper account.
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  And next to it is a story of a little boy that the parents hear him.
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  And this is like 1800s.
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  And I'm yelling in the yard, in the field next door,
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  because a bald eagle is trying to pick him up, carry him off.
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  That gets you into wanting to learn more about your family.
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  Are any of these stories you've been talking about posted on the website?
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  Not yet.
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  I've got a couple that I've done, one with a friend of mine on a cell phone.
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  And she talked about her father, who was on the USS Alabama.
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  And what had happened with that.
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  And the picture is a picture of one of the planks from the USS Alabama that
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  the family had been awarded.
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  So we are going to work with Auburn University of Montgomery and try to
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  team up with some students in the Department of Culture and World History
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  and try to come up with some sessions.
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  And what I would encourage people to do is we have a specific e-mail for this,
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  which is tellmeastoryatalgensoc.org.
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  If they'll e-mail that, then I can come back and say,
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  here are the guidelines.
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  If you'd like, we're going to do a session on this day,
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  and you can slot a time and come down and tell your story.
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  We'll get some students to record them.
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  If your listeners want to get involved, how would they get involved?
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  They could use that same e-mail address, and I can respond to them.
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  It's a perfect project for a Girl Scout troop, a Boy Scout troop, a church group,
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  or just people that are curious that want to do it.
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  Because I believe that as long as you talk about them, they're never really gone.
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  And you've honored their place in our history.
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  What a great way to honor them by telling a bit of their story.
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  Before we run out of time, can you give us the Alabama Genealogical Society website?
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  It's algensoc.org.
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  Jean, thank you for being our guest today.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  That was Jean Bradley, president of the Alabama Genealogical Society,
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  with news of the Tell Me a Story project.
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  Thanks for joining us for our series, Genealogy in Your Genes,
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  spelled G-E-N-E-S, on In Focus,
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  which is a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported Troy Public Radio.