I Wouldn't Go Back If They Built A Bridge

Please note: this is the full-color version of the book (ISBN 978-1683150886). For the more economical black-and-white version of the book, search for ISBN 978-1-68315-092-3.

About this Book and the Author

This book combines insights and methods from family history and genealogy, so that readers can chart their families’ paths as they moved from one country to another in Europe and North America since the early 1600s, using DNA results plus information about the history of local places where their people stopped or stayed. The book highlights the places in Europe where Ardith Maney’s four families had lived and explores some of the frustrations that encouraged the ancestors of her four grandparents to consider escaping to North America and starting up new lives across the Atlantic. The photos of the Atlantic Ocean displayed in the book reference some of the hardships and uncertainties of the ocean voyages that the author’s four main families had to endure on their way to North America.

The author taught local government at Iowa State University before retiring and focusing her energy on fusing information at the local level with the more technical results that are now offered by large DNA search engines. Hopefully some of the techniques that she has used and places where she has worked with local historians and specialists, such as England, Ireland, Scotland, Atlantic Canada, and New England, will add to the skill sets of researchers interested in similar topics. The title for the book comes at the suggestion of Ardith Maney’s siblings who, like her, remember their father quoting his grandfather, ‘Citizen’ John Maney, the immigrant who came to Massachusetts from County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1874 while he was in his mid-20s.

She also enjoyed her career teaching women in politics and administration in the Political Science Department at Iowa State University. Ardith cherished the opportunities that she had as an ISU faculty member to write research papers and books during her career, based on work that she did during stays in Washington, DC, New York City, and in state and local government archives in various parts of the USA. The author also thanks staff and faculty at Iowa State’s Extension Program for outreach opportunities she delivered to people in small cities and towns inside Iowa, as well as making it possible for her to do work trips to the Cote d’Ivoire, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kenya, Lithuania, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, and the country of Georgia.

Finally, she appreciates having received genealogical information provided by family and friends, including the late Robert Lovett, a cousin on her maternal side who was a senior business researcher at Harvard University’s Baker Library, as well as stories from Alvah Bradstreet (1862-1961), her maternal grandfather. The people who helped her connect with others from the countries mentioned above are too many to mention. As the reader may have already understood, the author has enjoyed learning about the Atlantic Ocean all of her life; so it should not be a surprise to find out that she is currently living in Milwaukee, WI, high above the city harbor and the sea lines through Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes that go to the world beyond.