tips for using ancestry.com

New to Ancestry.com? Or don't have much info on your tree there and want more, but you're confused and overwhelmed on how to proceed?

Below are things I wish I had known when I first started using it. Knowing this would have made my search go much more smoothly, without haven't to go back and correct things that completely and utterly messed up my trees a few times. I would have gotten information more quickly about my ancestors and I would have been less confused by some of the things from the DNA tests.

And here's something I knew well before I began, and it's why no revelations have been earth-shattering to me: I believe that your family is that which raised ya and claims ya. I believe that the people you claim as your family is YOUR choice. The love you feel for the people you call family in your life is REAL, and no DNA test will ever change that. Whomever you love and call your parents, your grandparents, your siblings, your aunts and uncles, your cousins - that love is real. and DNA doesn't change it. DNA is not your full identity.

Interviews:

Interview your parents, every aunt and uncle - your parent's siblings - and your grandparents, and your great-aunts and great uncles - your grandparent's siblings. And your great-grandparents if they are still around.

• Ask each person for their full name. Don't rely on one person giving you that name - many of your family members don't know the actual, full name of even their closest relatives, even though they think they do. 
• Ask each person for their birth date.
• Ask each person for the birth date and place and, if known, the death date and place, of every ancestor and the siblings of those ancestors. 

Take the information you have, as much as you could gather, and THEN start your tree or trees on the platform. Some people do one tree for their maternal line and one for the paternal line. I wish I had. Having one big tree gets really confusing.

Do not just input direct ancestors; put in siblings of ancestors - aunts and uncles, great-aunts and uncles, etc. That's going to be important later, trust me.

I also put in cousins' names - again, it helps tremendously later with getting accurate information about ancestors. You will often discover, as months pass, that distant cousins you've never met have traced your family back several generations. But you also have to be careful - many have inaccurate info in their trees.

Census Data.

Once you have put in all the information about relatives that you have gathered from family, start confirming the information with Census data. The most recent Census data available is from the 1950s (the 1960s will be released in 2032). Find each family member that was alive in 1949 in the 1950s Census and link that information to family members.

Then look through 1940s and do the same. Then the 1930s. Read the information carefully and make CERTAIN it really is your relative that is listed in Census data you find (you do this by looking at who they are married to, according to the Census, their parents, their children, etc.).

Remember that Census data from this period was recorded orally; unfamiliar accents and pronunciations caused misspellings. Also, people did not always cooperate with Census takers. Residents were not always at home at the time a Census taker came and were therefore not counted, or neighbors sometimes gave erroneous information to the Census taker about an absent family. Black families in particular got left out of the Census. 

The 1870 Census is the first after the Civil War and was the first to list all African Americans by name. It is often the first official record of a surname for former slaves. The date and place of birth listed for former slaves and their families in this Census may be a gateway for searching (by state, county, and enumeration district) the slave or free schedules in 1850 and 1860, which do NOT name slaves but lists their numbers.

Hints:

Do not accept every green leaf - every hint - without carefully reading it over. No matter how unique you think a name is, don't assume, "Hey, that's part of my tree!" For instance, you are going to find out that there are families from the same county in 1860 that have almost all the same names, yet, they are NOT the same family!

Don't count on any name, birth date (even just the year) or marriage date being accurate just because a family member gave you the information. You want every date verified with a census report, a marriage certificate, a draft card, a birth certificate or other official document. That's not always possible, of course, but it will help you when you need to defend this info (and you will need to defend it if you let other family read it over).

Search:

Once you have filled out your tree back just three generations - through your great-grandparents, and you have accepted a few hints for them (after CAREFULLY reviewing them), do searches on each of those family members. For instance, go to one of your grandparent's page and click on "Search on Ancestry" (under the "Sources" column). You will need to adjust some search fields to get accurate results. Look through those results carefully. If you find census reports, draft cards and other people's family trees that you think might be a match to your ancestor, click on them, read them CAREFULLY, and if the names, places and dates line up, absolutely link it to your ancestor.

When you are done with your grandparents, then try your great-grandparents. After that, you are going to get a wave of new hints. Be oh-so-careful before you accept any of them as you fill in your tree more, especially ancestor names before 1850 - you might want to hold off on those for a full year, to make sure your other information is solid. 

When you have checked every hint for your ancestors through your great grandparents, you are ready to start carefully filling in the info for their parents, and so on. But go SLOWLY and carefully - don't just start clicking "possible father" and "possible mother" for everyone!

Correct info:

As you progress over weeks and months, you are going to look under, say, a great-great grandparent's page and see their list of kids and realize there are a LOT of duplicate records - three girls all named Daisy Brown are obviously all the same person. Merge records that are obvious duplicates - how to do that is in the upper right-hand corner of a record's screen, under "tools."

Fill out the stories:

Add a narrative to the LifeStory feature. Ancestry automatically generates one, but you can edit it, adding in information that family has given you, like where someone worked, where they served in the military, why they named a child whatever they did, or what job is listed on the census.

DNA Test:

Don't do the DNA test until you have filled out your family tree back at least through your grandparents - more is better. I think getting information for ancestors born back to 1900 is a great goal before you do the DNA test. The DNA test isn't going to tell you much unless you can see common ancestors with DNA matches, so you need your tree to go back at least three generations, in my opinion.

When you get your DNA test, go to the Ancestry web site and click on "DNA matches." Then click on "common ancestors." The resulting list are all the people that also took the DNA test and are both genetically linked to you and who have traced their family tree back far enough to show common ancestors.

I suggest at this point you create some color-coded groups and put your DNA matches with common ancestors in those groups. Ideally, the groups would be these (you can use family names rather than these titles):

• Maternal Grandmother's Father
• Maternal Grandmother's Mother
• Maternal Grandfather's Father
• Maternal Grandfather's Mother
• Paternal Grandfather's Father
• Paternal Grandfather's Mother
• Paternal Grandmother's Father
• Paternal Grandmother's Mother

Then put every DNA match that has a common ancestor into the right group. And don't be surprised if some folks go in more than one group! This will take many hours, at least, but it is SO worth it - it's going to make your searches so, so much easier and it's going to make confirming hints so much easier. It took me more than a month to get every DNA match with a common ancestor into the right group.

You will need to generate this common ancestry list every other month and update your groups, because it changes as more people take the DNA test and more people fill out their family trees. I do it a few times a year.

Then, when you have all your DNA matches that have a common ancestry in groups, go back to the DNA matches pages so you can see everyone that's a DNA match. Scroll down to the first person that shows up in the list that you don't have a common ancestor with - and, therefore, you don't have them in a group yet. Click on that person. Then click on "shared DNA matches." You will see all the people that share DNA with both you and the person you have clicked on. Because you have put so many people in groups, and the groups are color-coded, you should be able to tell very quickly how the person is kin to you - Maternal Grandmother's Father's family, for instance - even though you haven't yet identified a common ancestor. This is absolutely my FAVORITE part of the Ancestry.com experience. Once I do this, if the person has an unlinked public tree, I look at it and, often, I can figure out how we are related (they've usually got the common ancestor misspelled).

But it's also going to be the case that you are going to click on someone and none of your shared matches are color-coded. And if that person is a close match - 80 cM or more - you are going to be particularly confused and intrigued, because they aren't a distant relative. In those cases, first, click on their unlinked family tree, if they have such available, and look to see if one of your relatives is there but under a differently-spelled name. If there is nothing that looks familiar, put them in a category of their own - I call it "intrigue." If that group starts to get larger and larger over time and a common ancestor does not emerge then, indeed, you have some family intrigue - and I'll deal with that in the next section. 

Intrigue and Differences in Family Lore:

Your family doesn't always have the right information about your family recorded. When you discover that the family has gotten a name wrong, or a marriage date wrong, or the number of children wrong, don't be shocked that you get pushback from family members about the correction - no one likes to be wrong, even about something as simple as the spelling of a name.

You may find out something a bit more serious, that your family might not want to know about. You might find that someone listed as the sister of an ancestor was, in fact, the mother of that ancestor, and the people that you have listed as that ancestor's parents are, in fact, that person's grandparents. I found that in looking at Census records for a great, great grandparent.

You may find bigamy - an ancestor wasn't actually widowed but, in fact, her husband ran off, left her, and started a new family elsewhere.  

Remember that, just like now, there were disagreements in families and sometimes a son or daughter moved away and never spoke to their parents or siblings again. 

I have a grandparent that, biologically, is not my grandparent - I knew this before I started tracing my history. And, yet, SURPRISE, the DNA test revealed we have a common ancestor on both that grandparent's maternal and paternal line! I am, in fact, biologically related to that grandparent!

I also have two other groups that I use to categorize my DNA matches. One of them is for DNA matches that I know relate to an ancestral line I don't choose to claim as my heritage - I'm related biologically, but they aren't my family. Even though, on paper, we don't have a common ancestor, because I haven't claimed that person as my ancestor, I do know who that ancestor is and, therefore, it's been easy to put all those DNA matches into a category that I can ignore.

The other group is my "intrigue" group. We are all related by DNA but I can't figure out how yet. Nothing really close - no half-siblings, no first cousins. So it's some sort of intrigue three or four generations back.

I haven't had an earth-shattering shock from the DNA test - some surprises from a few generations back, but nothing huge. But lots of people take the DNA test and find half brothers and sisters, or that they aren't biologically related to a parent, or they find out they do not share DNA with a first cousin or second cousin that also took the test - and that means someone they know and love was either adopted in the family tree or someone, maybe you, weren't told the truth about your parentage. If you make such a discovery of yourself or another family member, you have a lot of reflecting to do about whether or not to ask your parents or grandparents what's up, whether to reach out to those new, close biological relatives, etc. Know that it could be horribly painful, something they never wanted to talk about. Tread carefully. Read about other people that have done this so you know what you are in for.

Contacting other DNA matches. 

I don't do this with total strangers unless I know which family line we're matched through (maternal grandfather's mom, paternal grandmother's dad, etc.), either because they have claimed a common ancestor or we share enough DNA matches that I can tell. In that case, I write only if they don't share their family tree and I'd like for them to consider sharing it with me, or to encourage them to look at my tree to see if they see anything in common.

I have written some people because we have a common ancestor and are closely related - I consider that anything above 80 cM to be a close match. Just to say hi.

Otherwise, I don't contact anyone.

Final thoughts: 

First cousins share a grandparent (two generations). Second cousins share a great-grandparent (three generations). Third cousins share a great-great-grandparent (four generations). Keep that in mind when you see a DNA match but aren't sure how. 

Each person has 

• 4 grandparents.
• 8 great grandparents.
• 16 2nd great grandparents.
• 32 3rd great grandparents.
• 64 4th great grandparents.
• 128 5th great grandparents.
• 256 6th great grandparents.

Keep your expectations realistic about how much you can really find out!

Other blogs about my ancestry search:

Ancestry drama

Uncle Minnie

Rethinking "indigenous" & DNA results

war zones & quarantines

Dr. Aisha Ahmad is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto, and the director of the Islam and Global Affairs Initiative at the Munk School. She’s also chair of the board of Women in International Security Canada. During her time in conflict zones, she has been stuck in a home for days and days, sometimes months at a time, in order to reduce her chances of being killed by gunfire or a bomb. She sees parallels in that experience and people who are currently adhering to quarantine: they are scared, but mostly, they are bored and anxious to DO something, just as people are in war zones stuck in a home. In those experiences, she learned that one of the most therapeutic things she could do was go outdoors.

She's featured in this profile, Lessons from a war zone: How to emotionally survive and flourish in the pandemic. 

"In places where there has been gunfire outside my window, the ubiquitous threat of terrorism and kidnapping, even still, I needed to go walk in green space, because the internal distress of being confined — the green space was a magical remedy."

I so get it. As I've mentioned, I've been fine in the pandemic world, because it's not that different from my pre-pandemic world, and I get to walk around a beautiful, empty neighborhood with my dog every day. But her column made me remember Afghanistan in 2007, when my life was confined to my guesthouse room, my office, and an SUV seat getting me there and back. I spent eight weeks and then went on my "mental health leave" that's required of all UN workers in conflict zones, a leave I thought was frivolous before deployment. That first eight weeks of confinement almost broke me. I almost quit. But some harsh, stark advice from a friend in Spain snapped me out of it, made me realize what my priorities should be, and I went back after that break with a completely different attitude, and that attitude got me through the next four months.

But also... what got me through was some carefully planned outdoor trips... one was a trip to a lake. One was a walk around a high school running track. One was a walk to a wood-working shop. And one was another trip to that lake. Those few outdoor experiences in those six months got me through and, thankfully, were worth the risks.

She wrote this article, How to Salvage a Disastrous Day and it's also excellent: realistic, not "chirpy."

I've got this. You do too.

Class of 2020 high school graduation

My high school graduation wasn't much of a celebration. I went to it, I liked wearing a cap and gown, and I was happy to be with my friends, but we had no featured speaker, I was SO ready to move on and be at university (I thought I was going to Purdue and couldn't WAIT to get there), my Dad was drunk (of course) and my Mom was in a hurry to leave and "beat the traffic." It wasn't a milestone event, there are just a few photos of me (in other people's photos - my parents didn't bring a camera) and my friends were all in a hurry to get somewhere else that night. No big deal for me, my family, and it felt like, for anyone else.

By stark contrast is the class of 2020. I am so impressed with how many high school seniors, teachers and parents this year have made such a big deal out of these graduations. I bet some of them wouldn't had it not been for the pandemic. Seeing the video of the senior in the passenger side of his mom's car as she drove him by his school, by his waving teachers, for a drive-by graduation, him waving his diploma and crying - it got me. He was proud. He was reflective. Everyone rose to the importance of the moment. That's what graduation from high school SHOULD be. And his was a far more weighty event, in a long line of cars, people at a distance, than mine was.

Congrats, seniors. Now go fix this mess we've made.

Things to do during home quarantine

I've been on home quarantine for almost 15 years - it's called chronic unemployment.

Here's some of the things I have done with so much time on my hands that you can do now while staying home and saving lives. What's great about doing these is the payoff later and for years to come:

• Scan photos. You probably have albums full of photos of family and friends over the years. The photos of family, in particular, are important to scan, so that you can share them with other family members and preserve them for the future. Preserve the digitized copies of your photos on your hard drive and a site like Flickr as well. 
• Add descriptions to those digitized photos. Otherwise, you won't remember who is in them.  
• Scan some precious letters as well. Have a file full of notes and letters from your grandmother? This is a great time to scan them so that they are preserved for other family members. You could also create transcriptions of them, just in case other family members cannot read someone's handwriting like you can. 
• Set up a remote backup system for your computer if you don't have such already. You've been putting it off for so long - now is a great time to do it. 
• Get all the photos on your phone onto your hard drive and a site like Flickr. I regularly hear people lament losing all of their photos when their phone gets stolen or gets broken. Don't be one of those people. 
• Trace your family tree. Get an account on ancestry.com and get busy with tracing your family tree. A great time to call family members and get accurate information about names and birthdays. 
• Transcribe some historical documents for the Library of Congress. There are even more virtual volunteering activities here.
• Start and maintain a compost pile. Composting is ridiculously easy and helps fight climate change. If you don't have a garden and don't want to start one, still start that compost pile and let one of your neighbors that gardens know they can have compost from it. 
• Walk your neighborhood. Even if you have driven all around your neighborhood many times, you do not know it until you walk it. You will be amazed at what you will discover. If other people will also be out, wear a mask. 
• Pick that guitar back up. Or sit back down at your piano. 
• Write. Seriously, even if it's just a list of what you did today. Buy a cheap notebook and WRITE.
• Read books. Turn off the TV, put down your phone, close the laptop and READ something REAL. 

Of course, you can do all that other stuff other people are recommending: learn to cook, cook more, take an online language course, learn to knit, binge watch something, etc. Speaking of binge-watching, here's what I've watched over the years that has kept me sane in 15 years of downtime:

• The original Twilight Zone series.
• The Buffy the Vampire series (not the movie).
• Firefly. 
• Battlestar Galactica.
• MadMen.
• Breaking Bad (although I admit to like Better Call Saul better0
• Fleabag.
• Killing Eve. 

If you never saw the BBC's Sherlock, that should be at the top of your list to watch in quarantine.

The universe is trying to talk to you!

When friends tell me to trust the universe, that the universe has a plan, this is what I always, always think of - three-minute skit from Amy Schumer featuring Bill Nye:


I loathe being told the universe has a plan for me. Just like I loathe being told a god has a plan for me. If either is true then either is shit - absolute shit.

I've been thinking about the millions of people whose entire careers, entire livelihoods, are paused and, potentially, gone forever, because of COVID-19. I know so many people personally who are going through this (if you don't, please don't ever tell me you don't know what privilege or living in a bubble is). They are scared. It's more than just the loss of the income (which is horrible enough) - it's the potential loss of everything they've worked for and been all of their lives. It is a loss of identity and purpose. You have to go through that yourself to know what that's like. And I so understand.

I have been more unemployed than not since February 2005. Not many people know that, because not many people read this blog and because I don't talk about it except with just three or four people. I don't talk about it because it's humiliating - even though logic tells me it's not my fault, I feel like it's my fault. Plus, it's been easy to hide: I've lucked out with some full-time, short-term, high profile gigs a few times over the years, landed some part-time work that lasted several months here and there, and I kept really busy with personal projects that I could make sound really important. I've frequently talk about those experiences - not the in-between time - and, as a result, people think I've done really well professionally these last several years. If you look at my résumé, there's no misinformation or misrepresentation on it, ever - but if you really looked at it and did a little math, you could figure out there are some BIG gaps between gigs.

I've been okay financially, despite my chronic unemployment, because I'm doing something I vowed I would never, ever do: I'm supported by a spouse. It's been humbling. Not in a good way.

Lots of people have tried to break my spirit over the years, and still I persisted - but chronic unemployment, and the 2016 election, and being completely reliant on someone else, did what they all failed to do. Yeah, I broke. I'm so full of fractures I'm surprised I don't crumble into a pile of rubble. I'm still working to embrace the new me, the oh-so-shakeable woman who walks away from fights rather than jumps in, who doubts herself even more than before (and it was a LOT before), whose career is over.

But I've realized something about myself as I've watched so many people in the USA struggle with being on home quarantine during this pandemic and with challenges I've been dealing with for well more than a decade: I've done pretty damn well living in isolation for several years.

Since February 2005, I've gone MONTHS without seeing anyone except my husband and whoever I might see when I walk my dog or go to the grocery, and I haven't lost my marbles. Me being home so much, for so long, week after week after week, is

• why I go on epic long walks most every day, something I never did before I became mostly jobless.
• how and why I learned to cook. I can walk up to the pantry and fridge and throw something together that's more than edible. I couldn't do that before, not at all. 
• why I have professional blogs written months in advance and my web site looks like I'm flourishing. 
• why I've been able to retrieve all sorts of pioneering materials I've produced over the years and reproduce them on my web site so they will have a much longer life. 
• why I have had time to really delve deep into some of my professional interests, like regarding public health misinformation - I'll never get paid for all this research, but I have loved the journey.
• why I can edit videos.
• why my family tree is now traced back so, so far back.
• why I have raised garden beds full of tomatoes at the end of every summer.

Not everything worked out: I tried a few times to remake myself professionally and go in new directions. I was intensely involved in civic and political activities for more than two years, expecting that it would both make me feel hope after the disastrous 2016 election and perhaps lead to employment. But I'm proud that I tried - and not half-ass tries, but a fully-invested attempts. I absolutely would regret NOT trying those things at all than trying and failing as I did.

And on the rare occasions I've worked in these last several years, I've done some of my best work, and I'm proud of that work. I went back and read some of the things I've produced in the last 10 years and, welp, I know this is arrogant, but some of this stuff absolutely kicks ass. I would read something I didn't remember producing and think, Damn! This is Good! I forgot!   

In her remarks to her nation regarding COVID-19, Queen Elizabeth II said, "I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge."

That really resonated with me, because during my years of social isolation, I tried to do things that, years later, I can look back on and think, okay, you didn't totally waste your time. And I feel like I can, indeed, say that.

Seeing people crumple over a month or so home quarantine is sad, and I'm sorry, I really am. I am not at all mocking them. This is hard, absolutely - I get that more than most. But it also makes me realize just how well I've done in all these years of isolation.

Life isn't that different for me in-home quarantine during COVID-19, except that I'm so scared of the behavior of others when I have to go to the grocery every two weeks, and we can't break my monotony by going out to eat, the way we could before. I had already given up going to the movies except maybe twice a year. The biggest difference is that I can't go to concerts or go on public transit to reach meetings (which aren't happening anyway). And, of course, no motorcycle riding. Unlike in many other countries, motorcycle riding isn't banned, and we are going to go on a motorcycle ride in May at some point, our first since we're back from Mexico, though it will be short - I don't want to use any public bathrooms through June, at least.

And Stefan still goes to work, which scares me even as that paycheck comforts me.

So many seem to be giving up on home quarantine and have picked their own dates to go "back to normal" - I've heard people say they are going to stop isolating on May 1, others say they are going to in mid-May. But I'm sticking with this: no crowds, no public performances, no movies, no mass transit, not having anyone over and not going to restaurants through June. In fact, I am not going to ride public transit through the entire summer, at least. I'm not getting on an airplane through the rest of 2020. I'm lucky to be privileged to choose to not do all that.

Stefan wants to go camping in September, and it scares me, because it means public bathrooms and restaurants. We'll see.

"We'll get through this." Well, no, not all of us will. As of the day I write this, more than 60,000 people in the USA didn't get through it - they're dead. It's probably twice that number from COVID-19 - many people who have died from this aren't being counted because they never made it to a medical facility or never got tested. And the people that loved them don't feel like they themselves have gotten through it either.

Plus, I fear that nonprofit theaters, theater festivals, dance groups, museums and a whole slew of arts-related nonprofits aren't coming back. We desperately need the arts to contribute to social cohesion, but it's never a political or civic priority for that to happen, and while everyone is obsessed with starting sports back up, no one is talking about the arts. And that hurts my heart beyond anything I can put into words.

It's amazing to think people thought this would be over in a couple of weeks. I don't think things are going to be "back to normal" a year from now.

I've updated my will and am trying to get some other things in order, in case I get sick. Because I know I'm not surviving this if I get it. I'm not making plans beyond 2020, because I don't really know if there will be such for me, if I get this, and there is still a big chance I could.

Don't confuse this talk with being with peace with this or resigned to this - I'm not at all I'm so incredibly angry that there is still no widespread testing, still no systems in place for contact tracing, and there's a President who wants people to put me and everyone else at risk so he can keep his hotels open. I want to have a future, and I'm not sure I do now.

And, no, the universe does not have a plan.

Financial literacy classes are delusional & blame poor people for being poor

An appropriate message for May Day:

...financial literacy standards frame economic well-being primarily as a personal practice, overlooking the various mechanisms that generate inequalities. They ignore the role of Wall Street, the lack of government financial regulation, and a financial system in which crises are par for the course...

Financial literacy is silent about the need for decent working conditions, unemployment insurance, paid leave, a living wage. It also leaves unmentioned the subject of rising economic inequality marked by income volatility and unaffordable housing. Mounting student loan bills are presented as a problem of financial smarts, not skyrocketing college tuition. Instead, a financial literacy narrative endures which maintains that people are in debt because they spend their money on luxuries like lattes and avocado toast.

The Financial Literacy Delusion: We need honest narratives about the distribution of wealth. Amazing blog from Agata Soroko, PhD candidate and part-time professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa.

Williamstown Theatre Festival Memories of Peter H. Hunt

30 years ago, I was working for Peter H. Hunt, first in New York City, then in Williamstown, Massachusetts, for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It was one of the best six months of my life.

In March or so of 1990, I left Hartford Stage in Connecticut, where I had worked for two glorious seasons, to be publicity director at WTF (don't think for a second that the other meaning of that acronym was ever lost on any member of the company). I had been at Williamstown for the 1988 season, fresh out of Western Kentucky University and before Hartford Stage: that first season, I was the publicity assistant, in an unpaid internship, working for a publicity director who made my life hell, in a season that would turn out to be the last for Nikos Psacharopoulos (if he called the office for my boss and I said she wasn't there, he would hang up without another word). Were it not for some wonderful other interns and very kind and/or colorful celebrities, I would have quit mid-season. When that summer was over, I vowed I would never go back.

But you always go back to Williamstown. It's a joke among everyone that works there - one summer is never enough. And so I went back for the first season that Peter H. Hunt was the sole Artistic Director, first to New York City, for the annual benefit, and then to the Berkshires for the summer season.

Peter was best known for winning a Tony award for the Broadway musical 1776 back in 1970 or so. He directed the movie as well. I have no idea how many things he directed on stage and screens big and small - a lot. That first summer when I had been at WTF, Peter had directed Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and it had knocked EVERYONE out of their shoes: one of the critics who regularly poo poo'd all things Williamstown asked me after she saw it, in all seriousness, "When is this moving to Broadway?" It remains one of the best productions of anything I have EVER seen. When I heard that Peter had been named sole artistic director for 1990, after sharing duties the summer before with two others, I thought, damn, if every production is half as good as Arturo Ui, my job as publicity director will be awesome.

It was awesome. But never easy.

Peter would walk into a room like a boisterous Hemingway, commanding everyone, dominating the space. I was terrified of him at first, but I quickly grew to adore him. I will never forget my first "moment" with him: the Williamstown season had just been announced with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum opening the main stage and a very controversial play, No Orchards for Miss Blandish, opening what was then called The Other Stage. The latter had a rape scene and a LOT of other violence, and we were having a senior staff meeting to discuss whether or not we should put a warning in the lobby or in advertisements about the graphic nature of the play. I had a look on my face that, somehow, betrayed my thoughts, because Peter looked right at me and laughed and said, "Yeah, you're right, what we should have is a warning in the lobby of 'Forum' about the rampant dated sexism in it!"

Peter directed Death Takes a Holiday in August of that season. What a cast - it included Maria Tucci, Blythe Danner, Christopher Reeve, and a newcomer, Calista Flockhart. It was a gorgeous production of a play that, on paper, seemed like a silly and dated melodrama, but at Williamstown, under Peter's direction, it was magical, mysterious and otherworldly. I remember when the designer brought in a sketch of a concept for the poster for the play, and we loved it so much we chose the concept art over his "finished" product. And when I say "we", I mean WE - Peter and I. Because Peter included me, little oh-my-god-do-I-know-what-I'm-doing? me. He wanted to know my thoughts, and it was okay if I disagreed or tried to steer him in another direction when it came to publicity - he listened.

I still have the poster for Death Takes a Holiday in my home office. It is oh-so-precious to me.

Peter lost his voice just before we opened that first production, so I showed him how to say "Eat Shit and Die" in sign language. He was delighted.

At one point early in the season, a dog showed up, wandering around the festival grounds, and he became my dog, as well as the dog of the entire festival. His name was Buster. He followed me EVERYWHERE. I had to go to Peter's office about twice-a-week for a one-on-one. I went into the office, closed the door, and as Peter issued his orders for the week, Buster barked outside the door. And barked again. "Is that Buster?!" Peter almost roared. "Yes..." I said, meekly. "Let him in!" So I opened the door and let Buster in, and that little tramp pranced right by me and over to Peter's side, as though to say, "I know who is in charge." Peter sat there petting Buster and continued to issue orders. After that, when I went into the theater during rehearsals to ask Peter something, Buster would come right in too and prance down the aisle over to Peter, who would keep directing while leaning over to give Buster a pet on the head.

And then there was the aftermath of the July 4th Pittsfield Independence Day parade. The parade organizers had called Williamstown every summer, hoping for a celebrity to be in the parade, and every year, all the "stars" said no. I told Peter the organizers really, REALLY wanted someone this year, and that Williamstown really needed a "we love this community" moment. He said, "I bet Tony Edwards will do it. Want me to ask him?" He knew that if he asked Tony, rather than me, he'd probably do it. Anthony Edwards was in rehearsals for Harvey on the mainstage, and was super duper nice. He was also known to most folks as Goose in Top Gun. Tony said yes, and the stage manager of Harvey, Scott LaFeber, said he would find and dress up in a rabbit suit and sit next to Tony for the parade. I offered to go to the parade with them, to troubleshoot, but they assured me I wasn't needed. Well, parade-goers EXPLODED when "Goose" from Top Gun was announced by the MC, to the point that a crowd almost rushed the car as it went down the avenue. When they came back and told me about the madness, they were laughing, and I laughed right along. They went and told Peter the same story, and Peter thought I'd dropped the ball and not taken care of "my people", and he called to ball me out and let me know it. I hung up the phone and just sat there, horrified. Scott walked in and thought I'd just gotten news that someone had died. I told him about the reprimand and apologized for not being there. Scott marched out, grabbed Tony, told him what happened, and they went right to Peter to say he'd been unfair, that they had refused my offer to tag along, that there was nothing I could have done, and on and on. It was the first time, and one of the only times, someone has defended me professionally. Peter called me as soon as they left and apologized, sincerely. I have never forgotten that apology. Most people aren't big enough to do something like that - Peter was.

At one point that summer, someone in the company tried to blame me for a profound misstep with a member of the press. I walked over to Peter's office in the evening, knowing he would still be there, and told him exactly what had happened, and exactly how I had NOT been involved. And he believed me. And he stuck up for me. And that pretty much sealed the deal for how I felt about Peter Hunt.

When the festival was over, I took a job on the West Coast at a theater where I could work year-round. A few weeks after I took the job, Peter called the theater, looking for me, and when I got on the phone, demanded to know if I was going to come back the next season, saying he absolutely needed me. To this day, I regret not telling him yes. That job I had taken on the West Coast turned out to be a disaster, and in the spring of 1992, I reached out to the Williamstown Theater Festival and asked if they wanted me back. They did - but I backed out before I signed the contract, right after getting offered my first well-paid position ever, in the HR office of a hard drive company. I couldn't take the hit financially of moving again, just to be out of a job again at the end of the summer. It was my last chance to work with Peter, and it was gone. And I never worked in theatre again.

All these years later, I don't know if Peter H. Hunt would have remembered me. But I remember him. I know not everyone liked him. Not everyone likes me. He remains one of my favorite people that I have ever worked for. He trusted me, he recognized me, he valued me - and I would have gone through fire for him.

Peter has died. He was 81.

I have more stories... like when he tossed his Tony medallion to me (at me?), but I'll save those for friends. We'll get together, drink wine, and share war stories of working for Peter H. Hunt.

Rest in peace, sir.