Genealogy in a Dust Bowl

Lots of people are interested in genealogy for very personal reasons, to track the origins of their own families, to track the very origins of their own being on this Earth. Me too. But, I have a problem that is like reaching into a dust bowl of time. My origins were obliterated by World War II, and even before that, by family trees broken by czars and the first World War. So, we can wonder how to deal with that kind of thing, maybe in some less immediately personal way? There is one perhaps almost as satisfying way, and that is reading great books of historical genre, of course. That brings me to Timothy Snyder, of whom I have written a little before in this space (December 14, 2022). He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University; author/editor of more than a do…