Megan Smolenyak – Medium

Megan Smolenyak

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Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing: Adventures in Discovering News-Making Connections, Unexpected Ancestors, and Long-Hidden Secrets, and Solving Historical Puzzles

Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing: Adventures in Discovering News-Making Connections, Unexpected Ancestors, and Long-Hidden Secrets, and Solving Historical Puzzles

Get the inside story as the "Indiana Jones of genealogy" reveals how she cracked her headline-making cases and redefined history.

2012

Megan Smolenyak

Megan Smolenyak

Stories

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Megan Smolenyak

Taylor Swift’s Formidable Female Forebears

Thanks to this mother-daughter duo, she’s got cousins around the globe

11 min readFeb 23, 2024

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Taylor Swift’s Formidable Female Forebears

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Megan Smolenyak

Joe Biden’s Irish Roots

This is an updated version of an article that was first published in Irish America in 2013, but for obvious reasons, has become freshly…

10 min readFeb 16, 2020

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Joe Biden’s Irish Roots

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Megan Smolenyak

6 Things You Didn’t Know about Hannah Waddingham’s Roots

Manx, Music, Military, Moxie and More

7 min readMay 17, 2023

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6 Things You Didn’t Know about Hannah Waddingham’s Roots

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Megan Smolenyak

DNA Testing Dispels a Genealogical Myth

A bunch of people named Smolenyak, all hailing from the same tiny village, thought they shared a common ancestor. We were wrong.

11 min readApr 27, 2021

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DNA Testing Dispels a Genealogical Myth

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Megan Smolenyak
in
Age of Awareness

Why Pharrell Almost Didn’t Exist

Every one of us is an amalgamation not only of all our ancestors, but of their decisions, and in 1831, Ambrose Hawkins was contemplating…

19 min readOct 3, 2016

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Why Pharrell Almost Didn’t Exist

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Megan Smolenyak

How I Found my Elusive John Murphy

The Deadly Trail that Finally Revealed a Phantom Branch of My Family Tree

11 min readMar 8, 2024

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How I Found my Elusive John Murphy

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Megan Smolenyak

Meg Ryan’s Rusyn Roots

Big Screen Po-Nashomu

6 min readOct 30, 2023

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Meg Ryan’s Rusyn Roots

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Megan Smolenyak

Meg Ryan’s Irish Heritage

She’s going back to her acting roots, so I took a dive into her ancestral ones.

4 min readOct 23, 2023

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Meg Ryan’s Irish Heritage

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Megan Smolenyak

Cut from the Same Cloth: Joe Biden and Stephen Colbert Share More than Their Irish Heritage

Genealogy has been an unexpected door-opener for me leading to many “Who the hell let me in here?” moments over the years — not the least…

4 min readApr 11, 2023

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Cut from the Same Cloth: Joe Biden and Stephen Colbert Share More than Their Irish Heritage

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Megan Smolenyak

Captured in Time: Nameless English Singing Girls upon Arrival in America in 1890

I Just Wanted to Figure out Who They Were, but Found Myself Ensnared in a Victorian Melodrama

12 min readMar 21, 2023

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Captured in Time: Nameless English Singing Girls upon Arrival in America in 1890

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Megan Smolenyak

Megan Smolenyak

Book Author

Friend of Medium

Genealogical adventurer & storyteller who loves solving mysteries! You may not know me, but chances are you’ve seen my work. (www.MeganSmolenyak.com)

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