Late Summer 2025—
Ancestral Landscapes—Searching for My Place in the World
Cindy’s ancestors came beckoning her into their story, and as she followed their stories, she found surprises in her own. In a collection of 18 essays she recounts her travel to the places they left in Europe and where they arrived in America, and the stunning insights she found on this path.
Look for updates and pre-order information here or follow on Instagram @cwaszak
Ancestral Landscapes: Searching for my place in the world was inspired, in part, by the discovery of archival photographs of great grandparents whose images were beckoning me to learn more about them. Starting with genealogical research, she found scores of ancestors who left Europe in the 17th, 19th, and 20th centuries to settle in the North America continent. She investigated three specific migrations across the Atlantic, each of which involved multiple ancestors—England to Virginia, the Netherlands to New York, and Germany to Iowa.
Aware that her ancestors’ settlement anywhere on this continent was connected in some way to the genocide and removal of Indigenous people who were here before they came, she sought to learn and tell the stories of the people whose land her ancestors settled—knowing that these two explorations are entwined with each other.
With land a central focus, she began to travel to the points of departure and arrival for each ancestral migration, wanting to learn what she could from these places.
As she began these travels, photographs became as central to her storytelling as the writing. Her travel was spread out over a longer period of time than she had envisioned and did not follow any of the migration sequences. Initially this was frustrating, but she learned that each location informed her travel to the next one. The time between each trip allowed her to write in depth about her experiences and with more reflection, gain a better understanding of what she learned there.
To her travels she added the destination of Haywood County, North Carolina where my mother’s family settled more than a couple of centuries ago, a place I knew well from childhood, but saw differently after my other travel. As I wrote about settler ancestors, I also reflected upon ancestors I knew, great-grandparents, grandparents, my own parents and how their lives informed my own.