Mike DeBacker
@gatheringleaves.bsky.social
#Genealogy enthusiast and armchair family historian. Please check out my #FamilyHistory blog located at https://gatheringleaves.blog/
I also love #cartoons, and I collect #ComicBooks. My comic book blog is located at https://ximocblog.wordpress.com/
I also love #cartoons, and I collect #ComicBooks. My comic book blog is located at https://ximocblog.wordpress.com/
Pinned
Had I Known Then What I Know Now
When I was a kid growing up in Texas in the 1960s, I suffered from an identity crisis. While I didn’t know who I was, I knew who I was not. For one, I was not born in Texas, and that was a pr…
gatheringleaves.blog
Growing up in 1960s Texas, I had an identity crisis due to feeling out of place. After years of research, I learned about my diverse ancestry, including a Puritan, Continental Army soldiers, and ancestors struggling through wars and rebuilding lives.
gatheringleaves.blog/2021/10/16/h...
gatheringleaves.blog/2021/10/16/h...
Reposted by Mike DeBacker
Not sure who needs to hear this, but any govt official who violates someone's constitutional rights -- and is acting outside the scope of their lawful authority -- can be PERSONALLY liable in a civil suit.
ICE officers. Cabinet members. White House staffers. Even the president.
ICE officers. Cabinet members. White House staffers. Even the president.
April 18, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Not sure who needs to hear this, but any govt official who violates someone's constitutional rights -- and is acting outside the scope of their lawful authority -- can be PERSONALLY liable in a civil suit.
ICE officers. Cabinet members. White House staffers. Even the president.
ICE officers. Cabinet members. White House staffers. Even the president.
Reposted by Mike DeBacker
Tonight is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s midnight ride. May his memory remind us all to resist the tyranny forming in our government.
April 19, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Tonight is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s midnight ride. May his memory remind us all to resist the tyranny forming in our government.
Reposted by Mike DeBacker
If we make it through this dark period with democracy intact, it may be because the administration's incompetence was greater than its depravity.
April 19, 2025 at 1:47 AM
If we make it through this dark period with democracy intact, it may be because the administration's incompetence was greater than its depravity.
Reposted by Mike DeBacker
ONE IF BY LAND
TWO IF BY D.C.
the north end church in boston
it’s 250 years today
@northendpage.bsky.social
TWO IF BY D.C.
the north end church in boston
it’s 250 years today
@northendpage.bsky.social
April 18, 2025 at 3:44 PM
ONE IF BY LAND
TWO IF BY D.C.
the north end church in boston
it’s 250 years today
@northendpage.bsky.social
TWO IF BY D.C.
the north end church in boston
it’s 250 years today
@northendpage.bsky.social
Ten Patriots gatheringleaves.blog/2025/04/13/t...
Ten Patriots
This coming Saturday, April 19th, marks the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Given the current circumstances of tyranny, this anniversary holds even greater significance. …
gatheringleaves.blog
April 19, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Ten Patriots gatheringleaves.blog/2025/04/13/t...
Reposted by Mike DeBacker
Reposted by Mike DeBacker
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde
Hero.
Hero.
January 22, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde
Hero.
Hero.
During the Wild West era, my great-grandfather, James M. Dobbs, worked as a conductor and engineer on the Panama Railway. He was based in Aspinwall on the Caribbean side of the isthmus in the 1880s when the French were leading the efforts to construct the canal.
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/09/27/p...
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/09/27/p...
Panama Man
Aspinwall, Panama was a wild-west town deserving of the same notoriety as Dodge, Kansas; Tombstone, Arizona; and Deadwood in the Dakotas. According to David McCullough in his masterpiece on the bui…
gatheringleaves.blog
January 22, 2025 at 4:57 PM
During the Wild West era, my great-grandfather, James M. Dobbs, worked as a conductor and engineer on the Panama Railway. He was based in Aspinwall on the Caribbean side of the isthmus in the 1880s when the French were leading the efforts to construct the canal.
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/09/27/p...
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/09/27/p...
This is a photograph of my mother’s grandmother, Helen Spiegel Dobbs, and a friend putting on a show of international unity at a resort in New Mexico sometime between 1913 and 1916. (Read about at Gathering Leaves Blog)
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/09/b...
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/09/b...
Back When We Were Friends
This is a photograph of my mother’s grandmother, Helen Spiegel Dobbs, and a friend putting on a show of international unity at a resort in New Mexico sometime between 1913 and 1916. In this picture…
gatheringleaves.blog
January 9, 2025 at 3:38 PM
This is a photograph of my mother’s grandmother, Helen Spiegel Dobbs, and a friend putting on a show of international unity at a resort in New Mexico sometime between 1913 and 1916. (Read about at Gathering Leaves Blog)
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/09/b...
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/09/b...
Three of my father's ancestors signed their names to the Portsmouth Compact document in the Spring of 1638. Please read all about it and why watching #FamilyGuy will never be the same for me at #GatheringLeavseblog.
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/08/t...
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/08/t...
The Importance of the Portsmouth Compact
A month ago, I wrote an article titled “Massachusetts Ancestors with Wikipedia Articles.” Yet it’s only now, through further study, that I am realizing the significance of what three of those…
gatheringleaves.blog
January 8, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Three of my father's ancestors signed their names to the Portsmouth Compact document in the Spring of 1638. Please read all about it and why watching #FamilyGuy will never be the same for me at #GatheringLeavseblog.
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/08/t...
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/08/t...
Happy New Year, Everyone!
I uploaded my headshot without wearing glasses and then asked ChatGPT to use my image to create historical images of my ancestors in certain life experience situations. Please read all about it in the Gathering Leaves dot blog.
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/02/i...
I uploaded my headshot without wearing glasses and then asked ChatGPT to use my image to create historical images of my ancestors in certain life experience situations. Please read all about it in the Gathering Leaves dot blog.
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/02/i...
Imagine Me and You. I do.
I paid $20 for a month of ChatGPT Pro to see how it could help me with editing the rewrite of my book on Family History, Gathering Leaves. I have been working on this rewrite called Gathering More …
gatheringleaves.blog
January 2, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Happy New Year, Everyone!
I uploaded my headshot without wearing glasses and then asked ChatGPT to use my image to create historical images of my ancestors in certain life experience situations. Please read all about it in the Gathering Leaves dot blog.
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/02/i...
I uploaded my headshot without wearing glasses and then asked ChatGPT to use my image to create historical images of my ancestors in certain life experience situations. Please read all about it in the Gathering Leaves dot blog.
gatheringleaves.blog/2025/01/02/i...
Interesting. German-Americans are no longer the largest ethnic group in America. And they may never have been. The answer may surprise you:
wapo.st/3OLLXgv
wapo.st/3OLLXgv
Column | What’s America’s largest ethnic group, and why did we get it wrong for so long?
The identity of America’s largest ethnic group has long seemed cut and dried. But new data is challenging the conventional wisdom.
wapo.st
December 10, 2024 at 9:57 PM
Interesting. German-Americans are no longer the largest ethnic group in America. And they may never have been. The answer may surprise you:
wapo.st/3OLLXgv
wapo.st/3OLLXgv
My Dad Predicted Obamacare in 1972
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/10/12/m...
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/10/12/m...
My Dad Predicted Obamacare in 1972
My father, David DeBacker, was a hospital administrator and both he and his father, a doctor, were proponents of what some folks would call “socialized medicine.” In the 1972, he gave a…
gatheringleaves.blog
December 10, 2024 at 8:16 PM
My Dad Predicted Obamacare in 1972
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/10/12/m...
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/10/12/m...
In the 19th C., the lower Manhattan neighborhood now called Alphabet City was then known as Little Germany or Kleindeutschland. For over 60 years, this was the home for some of my mother's German ancestors. Here is what Christmas was like there in the 1870s.
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/12/05/c...
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/12/05/c...
Christmas Eve 1874 in Manhattan’s Little Germany
A little while ago, I made the discovery that the family of one of my great, great-grandmothers lived for a time in a New York City neighborhood that was then known as Little Germany. The family of…
gatheringleaves.blog
December 10, 2024 at 12:01 PM
In the 19th C., the lower Manhattan neighborhood now called Alphabet City was then known as Little Germany or Kleindeutschland. For over 60 years, this was the home for some of my mother's German ancestors. Here is what Christmas was like there in the 1870s.
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/12/05/c...
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/12/05/c...
Once upon a time, my great-grandfather owned a grocery. It accidentally burned down. He was insured but instead of rebuilding, he finished college and became a doctor. Here's his story:
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/06/30/t...
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/06/30/t...
The Accidental Doctor
A simple reason so many of my posts relate to my mother’s side of the family is that many of her ancestors came over during colonial times. All arrived before the Civil War. On my father̵…
gatheringleaves.blog
December 7, 2024 at 2:57 PM
Once upon a time, my great-grandfather owned a grocery. It accidentally burned down. He was insured but instead of rebuilding, he finished college and became a doctor. Here's his story:
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/06/30/t...
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/06/30/t...
A few years back I discovered that my maternal grandfather's great uncle and namesake was a war profiteer who after the Civil War required a presidential pardon.
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/10/18/t...
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/10/18/t...
The Third Man
On July 4, 1864, the day that my great-grandfather turned five years old, the town that he lived in, Marietta Georgia, fell to Union forces following a nearly two month-long series of battles and s…
gatheringleaves.blog
December 6, 2024 at 10:59 AM
A few years back I discovered that my maternal grandfather's great uncle and namesake was a war profiteer who after the Civil War required a presidential pardon.
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/10/18/t...
gatheringleaves.blog/2020/10/18/t...
The author uncovers their Colonial American ancestry, which contributed significantly to New England’s colonial governance and society, with notable historical contributions documented on Wikipedia.
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/12/02/m...
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/12/02/m...
Massachusetts Ancestors with Wikipedia Articles
Growing up, I had no idea I had Colonial American ancestors on both my parents’ sides. My mother’s colonial ancestors settled in the South, from the Carolinas to Georgia. My father’s an…
gatheringleaves.blog
December 2, 2024 at 9:01 PM
The author uncovers their Colonial American ancestry, which contributed significantly to New England’s colonial governance and society, with notable historical contributions documented on Wikipedia.
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/12/02/m...
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/12/02/m...
Looking for info about my father’s Pickering family, who moved from Salem to Mendon, Mass in the 1730s. I scoured Google Books and found a book titled "The Annals of the Town of Mendon" #genealogy #familyhistory #googlebooks
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/10/25/m...
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/10/25/m...
More Pickering Papers
I was curious to find information about my father’s Pickering ancestors who moved from Salem to Mendon, Massachusetts in the 1730s. I scoured Google Books and came across a book titled “…
gatheringleaves.blog
November 28, 2024 at 7:19 PM
Looking for info about my father’s Pickering family, who moved from Salem to Mendon, Mass in the 1730s. I scoured Google Books and found a book titled "The Annals of the Town of Mendon" #genealogy #familyhistory #googlebooks
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/10/25/m...
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/10/25/m...
Today, while I was digging around at newspaperarchive dot com, I found another negative report about my great-grandpa. The writer specifically mocks him for being a Southerner and “having a grandfather," In other words, being from an old family.
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/11/27/i...
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/11/27/i...
International Man of Mystery Part 6
When my great grandfather James M Dobbs was appointed to a consul generalship in South America at the start of the 2nd Cleveland Administration, his name appeared in newspapers all over the United …
gatheringleaves.blog
November 27, 2024 at 11:08 PM
Today, while I was digging around at newspaperarchive dot com, I found another negative report about my great-grandpa. The writer specifically mocks him for being a Southerner and “having a grandfather," In other words, being from an old family.
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/11/27/i...
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/11/27/i...
Here is a look at my Puritan ancestors who lived in Salem, Massachusetts, during the time of the Witch Trials in the 1690s. This is also the story of a family that owned and occupied the same house for ten successive generations.
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/10/21/t...
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/10/21/t...
The Pickering Papers
Here is a look at my Puritan ancestors who lived in Salem, Massachusetts, during the time of the Witch Trials in the 1690s. This is also the story of a family that owned and occupied the same house…
gatheringleaves.blog
November 27, 2024 at 4:58 PM
Here is a look at my Puritan ancestors who lived in Salem, Massachusetts, during the time of the Witch Trials in the 1690s. This is also the story of a family that owned and occupied the same house for ten successive generations.
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/10/21/t...
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/10/21/t...
George Spiegel enlisted in the 58th NY Vol Inf during the Civil War. The regiment, composed mainly of immigrant soldiers, fought in key battles. Despite facing prejudice and hardship, the 58th displayed resilience. #genealogy #familyhistory
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/01/25/5...
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/01/25/5...
58th New York Infantry Regiment
George Spiegel enlisted in the 58th New York Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. The regiment, composed mainly of immigrant soldiers, fought in key battles such as Fredericksburg, Chancellorsv…
gatheringleaves.blog
November 27, 2024 at 12:08 AM
George Spiegel enlisted in the 58th NY Vol Inf during the Civil War. The regiment, composed mainly of immigrant soldiers, fought in key battles. Despite facing prejudice and hardship, the 58th displayed resilience. #genealogy #familyhistory
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/01/25/5...
gatheringleaves.blog/2023/01/25/5...
The Arc de Triomphe in Paris commemorates French victories in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I discovered that my ancestor, Lucien François Gaume, fought some of those battles and, in his 80s, earned the Médaille de Sainte-Hélène.
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/09/24/l...
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/09/24/l...
Lucien François Gaume, Veteran of the French Revolutionary Wars
In 2023, during my visit to Paris, my final stop before heading home was the Arc de Triomphe, located just a few blocks from our hotel. The Arc de Triomphe is one of Paris’s most iconic landmarks, …
gatheringleaves.blog
November 27, 2024 at 12:05 AM
The Arc de Triomphe in Paris commemorates French victories in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I discovered that my ancestor, Lucien François Gaume, fought some of those battles and, in his 80s, earned the Médaille de Sainte-Hélène.
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/09/24/l...
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/09/24/l...
Yet another discovery regarding my great-grandfather’s trip to Europe for the YMCA at the end of WWI during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919/20. #genealogy #familyhistory #wwi #ymca #spanishflu
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/06/09/i...
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/06/09/i...
International Man of Mystery-Pt. 5
In a previous post, I wrote of how I discovered that my mother’s grandfather lied on a passport application that he filled out towards the end of WWI. As a former Consular officer and recently reti…
gatheringleaves.blog
November 24, 2024 at 3:05 PM
Yet another discovery regarding my great-grandfather’s trip to Europe for the YMCA at the end of WWI during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919/20. #genealogy #familyhistory #wwi #ymca #spanishflu
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/06/09/i...
gatheringleaves.blog/2024/06/09/i...
My great-grandfather worked for the Panama Railway in the 1880s. His claim of immunity to yellow fever and the broader context of the Panama Canal's construction and its challenges are highlighted. #genealogy #familyhistory #dobbs #panamacanal #panamarailway
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/01/21/i...
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/01/21/i...
International Man Of Mystery-Pt. 4
I have solved yet another mystery. For a long time, my working theory has been that my great grandfather, James Monroe Dobbs, was employed by the Panama Railway for several years in the 1880s. I ha…
gatheringleaves.blog
November 24, 2024 at 2:35 PM
My great-grandfather worked for the Panama Railway in the 1880s. His claim of immunity to yellow fever and the broader context of the Panama Canal's construction and its challenges are highlighted. #genealogy #familyhistory #dobbs #panamacanal #panamarailway
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/01/21/i...
gatheringleaves.blog/2022/01/21/i...