My article is now available from the Journal of Interdisciplinary History: Revisiting Seasonal Mortality in Jamestown direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-…

Contrary to popular belief, you couldn't just up and leave your country when you felt like it and immigrate to the US. In the late 1800s, my 5x great-grandfather migrated to the US and he had to get permission from Sweden to do so. The government investigated him thoroughly, including his military records, to see if he was of good character to leave. Amongst his papers, there are his personal good conduct paperwork from the government and he also had a personal reference he brought over.

I've discovered over the last 2 years that I like to write. More importantly, I'm rather good at it. I decided to halt the academic articles for a bit, I've got a lot out there under peer review atm and in the pipeline for publication, so I'm gonna let that clear out before I write more. I also have a book chapter out for peer review at an international book seller. Lots of things are at the wait-and-see phase of my existing writing, so I'm writing something new, something that has nothing to do with academia or my history expertise. I'm writing a fictional vampire novel.

Came across an interesting bit of history this week. Grenville Dodge, who was the chief engineer of Union Pacific back in the day, used the trails the Natives had blazed to develop the railroad lines. They choose the most practical routes, the best fords, and the paths were well defined, almost 1,000 miles in length. So, Dodge built the railroad where the trails were. Immigrants who moved West did the same thing, following Native trails across the Plains to the Pacific. Their trails became the highway to the West.

I was told it'll take about 15-20 years before anyone sees my research and it starts to make the rounds in the field. Dude, I'm gonna be dead by then, can we please speed up the timeline a bit?

My next article, releasing in January 2027, looks at food trust in seventeenth-century England and how those ideas followed the Jamestown colonists into Virginia. It explores how colonists relied on what they already knew about food, trusting plants and other food sources that looked familiar to them, but that could be deadly in the New World. This is the second in a series of articles that re-examines the first few years of the Jamestown colony. My first article, "Revisiting Seasonal Mortality in Jamestown", argues that Vibrio vulnificus may have been in the oysters the colonists consumed in the summers and is potentially responsible for the summer seasoning. You can pick up a copy here: direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-…

My 4 kids listen the first time and noone asked me how I did it. Also, I have 2 teenage sons and they don't have teen angst or attitudes. None of my children hit each other or have knock-down, drag-out fights, either. Being a parent is fantastic over here.

Prior to the introduction of birth certificates and social security cards during and following WW2, you could change your first name at a whim. For example, my great-grandmother was named Darling. She had a period of time to finalize her name before she was stuck with it and decided to go with Darlene. My great-grandpa Charles was named Karl by his parents. Uncle Eric became Tony, who then became Spaghett. This is why genealogy can be sometimes be difficult and confusing: because people changed their first names as well as their last names.

People slept so hard on Schwans food delivery, it closed up shop. Bring it back. Their breaded spicy chicken was a dupe for Wendy's spicy chicken sandwiches. $15 bag was roughly the equivalent of 12-15 Wendy's sandwiches. The stuffed pastas were elite, the ice cream? Top tier. In the age of brand ambassadors, their marketing team lost the plot. Partner with some content creators, push the delicious, and bring it back to life.

Everything early 2000s is back...except ballet sneaker flats. Don't forget to bring these back, too!

The Aztec banquet was people. The Spanish captain found out mid-meal and shut the doors. Archaeologist Ed Barnhart tells Lex Fridman that sacrifice and the feast after it were not a rumor. Elites took the best cuts. Rank decided who got the rest. He traces the explosion to Pedro de Alvarado, left in charge by Cortés in May 1520. Told the honored dinner is human, Alvarado panics and kills the unarmed gathering at the Toxcatl festival. The city rises. Montezuma dies in the chaos. On the night of June 30 into July 1, the Spanish flee Tenochtitlan. Hundreds of them never make the causeway. That flight is La Noche Triste. A year later they come back with allies and the capital falls. A civilization can look festive until someone names what is on the plate.

I wish people understood how illegal harvesting off the coast can kill you. It's Connecticut now, but do you think anyone understands how dangerous seafood from brackish waters is the more you move South?

Thank you to everyone who has already purchased their copy, I hope you're enjoying the read! In this video, I am diving into my latest article 'Revisiting Seasonal Mortality in Jamestown', out now in the Summer 2026 issue at the Journal of Interdisciplinary History.

Wtf is going on at Amazon? Since July, Amazon hasn't delivered anything on time. Even the 5-day, 7-day, 10-day delivery dates still don't arrive when they say they will.

My last semester of classes is on the horizon and then I can finally shift into writing my dissertation. I am so mentally exhausted with the overloaded schedule I've been maintaining that focusing only on the dissertation for the next year will seem like a vacation.

I'm a V. vulnificus expert, so here's some free information for the public. -You become infected with the bacteria 2 ways: open wounds and through eating it (it's in oysters). -WARM, DILUTED, SALTY WATER is where it lives, specifically salinity levels between 5-15ppt. Those are the optimal ranges. -You have a better chance of surviving if you get infected through a cut, not eating it. -You have hours, not days, to get help if you have been infected. The earlier the intervention, the greater the chance you live. That's how you (potentially) survive V. vulnificus. -It's called 'flesh-eating' because if you become infected via open wound, that limb ends up with necrotizing fasciitis (most people are infected through cuts).

Little girls started the Salem witch accusations. Not women, but children. Those 4 minors, one of whom was 9 years old, provided testimony for roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of all accusations.

I'll admit, I was wondering how there was a total communication blackhole on gathering together 60k men to storm another town.