One American Family

Among the English settlers of colonial America, men outnumbered women by roughly seven to one.

Family lore has it that my seventh great-grandmother Honor O’Flynn was kidnapped in Ireland, put on a ship, and offered as a bride to one of those men.

Millions of soldiers fought in the American Civil War. A very small number fought from the first day of battle to the very last.

Billy Gaul, my great-great-grandfather, was among those soldiers.

After World War II, our one-time ally the Soviet Union became our most frightening enemy in the Cold War. Americans feared the end of humanity.

Starting in the 1960s, an army of scientists worked in secrecy, to make sure that didn't happen.

Bill Durbin, my dad, was among them.

My name is Michael Durbin. The story of my family is filled with people like these, people who witnessed a great experiment—an experiment in democracy called the United States of America.

Collectively they lived through every presidential administration and every war, every social struggle and cultural era, and more than three centuries of medical and technological advancement.

Join me on a new podcast as I learn more about my ancestors and the lives they lived as the history of the United States unfolded around them.

It's called One American Family: The Story of a Nation as Seen from the Branches of One Family Tree.

Available wherever you get your podcasts.