Roots of Identity

 For the life of me, I couldn't figure out where this guy was from. Samuel Gregory McCarthy (1862 - 1918), detail. My wife's great-grandfather, Samuel Gregory McCarthy (1862 - 1918), shows up in Hand County, South Dakota where he married Adaline "Addie" Elmira Carl (abt. 1880 - 1953) on 28 June 1896. He was 33 years old. She was 16. Oof. Addie (Carl) McCarthy , detail. Hand County, South Dakota They ended up staying together and having 9 children together, until he passed away in 1918. From family records, we had the hint that he was born in  Monticello, Jones County, Iowa . We didn't have a birth record to prove the exact location, but both the 1900 and 1910 U.S. Census records confirmed that his birth place was Iowa. But we had no records of Sam before he showed up in 1896 in South Dakota. There didn't seem to be any McCarthy family in Jones County, Iowa. Jones County, Iowa Matches from my wife's DNA test finally solved the mystery man. I put together...

Family psychology straddles both individual psychology and sociology. The Journal of Family Psychology states that family psychology "includes systems perspectives on the multiple influences on relationships, developmental perspectives on how relationships are formed and sustained over time, cultural perspectives on how society and traditions affect relationships, the intersection of individual differences and social relationships, and practice components in how to affect real and meaningful changes in couple, parent, and family relationships." Some individual psychological problems can be traced to what I call "family structure issues". This is where the structure of the family itself is the root of the issue. Omissions of the truth, partial truths, and outright lies about the structure of the family  —  who is related to whom and how  —  can cause varying levels of individual trauma and negative relationships. Surprisingly, this is where the role of genealogy can...