Ancestry, history, cold cases, and more.

What's in it

• New case files as they open, like File 001: Padre Island is named for a priest whose birth year nobody has ever documented.
• Finds from the records: censuses, parish registers, land grants, wills, and what each one proves.
• The stories behind them, and how the research got there, dead ends included.

Cold cases, the old kind

The cold cases here are family and historical mysteries: a birth year nobody wrote down, a line that stops cold, a story the records don't back up. Never crimes against living people.

Who writes it

I do. I'm James Duncan, and I run Skeleton Files from Spring, Texas: family history worked from original records, with every person tied to the document that proves them.

Your address

It's used only to send the newsletter. It's never sold or shared for advertising. The first email asks you to confirm your address, and nothing else is sent until you do. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and you can also write to hello@skeletonfiles.com and I'll take you off the list. The details are in the privacy policy.