Projectkin Live with Lisa Maguire: Themes in Global Migrations

Thank you, Jennifer Jones, Bill Moore, David Shaw, Linda Teather, Jane Chapman, Denise Hoagland, and so many more of you for joining Lisa Maguire, and me today. It’s great to have you part of the conversation.

I can’t tell you how much it means to me here on the American Pacific coast to see all of you joining from Australia, New Zealand, and across the American states and provinces. Your thoughts, comments, and encouragement are the glue that holds this community together. The little ❤️s you drop keep us motivated and give this post a little more visibility. Feel free to create clips from this post to share with your friends.

Projectkin programming is offered free thanks to the kind support of our generous patrons around 🌏 the 🌍 world 🌎.

Migration Stories Series Coming in September

In contemplating a follow-up act to Projectkin’s Stories250 series, I realized that Migration Stories was the perfect fit. Several practical elements make the collaboration a bit of a challenge, however. I mentioned the idea in my livestream with Jennifer Jones a few weeks ago, and you can see it’s already started to take shape.

To continue to develop the idea, I invited Lisa Maguire of Ancestory to join me today. Her post on Micro History, “Family History Asks Large Questions in Small Places,” from August 2025.

As you’ll see in the recording, Lisa understood the assignment.

Lisa jumped right in to underscore how genealogy helps us understand how our story was part of a larger historical arc. In talking through some of the push/pull dynamics that motivated our ancestors to pick up stakes, we explored the complexities:

* Forced migrations (enslavement, indentured servitude, famine)

* Experimental / adventure seeking

* Family unifications

… as a few examples. My hope is to create a way to invite writers to submit posts they’ve already written and published on their own sites for presentation with posts of others that follow the same themes, migrations to/from the same places, or perhaps for similar reasons. In reviewing the stories in context, we can all learn more from each other.

An idea! 💡

During the conversation, we also hit on the idea of me creating a simple submission form where community members can post stories or themes they would LIKE to see. The submitter might optionally share their contact info for follow-up.

Projects Can Be Messy

As you might see in the video, Lisa and I had a fun time in the conversation. One important example as a theme was the story of America’s Great Migration, the decades-long migration of African-Americans from the Jim Crow laws of the South for the promise of a better life in the industrial North. In that context, Lisa referenced Isabel Wilkerson’s brilliant epic, “The Warmth of Other Suns.”

The brainstorming effort then made us a little punchy.

As David Shaw raised the example of ethnic German families in the late 19th century to South Dakota, we fell down a rabbit hole reminiscing on an American 1960s-era variety show, The Lawrence Welk Show. For those of you who may not get the reference, here’s just one of the episodes available now on YouTube.

(Wikipedia corrects us to report that Lawrence Welk (1903-1992) was a native of North Dakota who was born to German immigrants from Russia.)

Many thanks to Lisa Maguire

If you aren’t already familiar with Lisa Maguire’s own stories, you’ll find them here on Substack, Ancestory:

Do you have friends or family members who may benefit from watching this program or viewing our other posts? Everyone is welcome here.

Please share our work and invite your friends to join us.

As Projectkin, we’re here to help families tell their stories in any form. I feel strongly that our collections of photos and other artifacts are key to our memories and, in turn, our stories.