Every story has a beginning. But for some families, that beginning is a blank page—ripped out, mislabeled, misplaced, or never written down in the first place.

I’ve spent years exploring the haunted side of history on Haunted Lineage: the legends, the shadows, and the unexplained. But soon, I’m stepping into something entirely new. I’m participating in Podcasthon 2026, a global charity week running March 14–20, where thousands of podcasters highlight a nonprofit they believe in.

While I’ve often shared research and history on this site, this is the first time I’ve centered an entire project on the practical, technical side of legacy research. It’s a shift from investigating external hauntings to uncovering the ones buried in our own DNA—and honestly, the stakes feel a lot more personal this time.

Why This is Personal (And Why It Matters)

If you’ve followed the show for a while, you know I grew up in a small, traditional town. I’ve talked about paranormal experiences and shared pieces of where I come from. But what I haven’t shared until now is this: in my house, the word “orphan” wasn’t a trope from a movie. It was the rhythm of our lives.

My mother was an orphan from an extremely young age—and she was never adopted. I grew up watching my father, driven by his own historical and genealogical curiosity, dig through archives in the city where she was born. We lived about two hours away, so those trips were our “mini-vacations,” but for my dad, they were missions to recover what time had swallowed.

I’ve seen the magic of a family connection found after 60 years. I’ve also seen the silence when the paper trail simply ends. That kind of silence is its own haunting, and it’s why I’ve chosen to highlight the National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, Kansas.

Teasers: What’s Waiting for You in the Episode

On March 14th, we’re pulling back the curtain on a 75-year movement that reshaped the American West. Here is a glimpse of what we’ll be uncovering:

• 1854 New York City: We explore a city before electricity and paved streets, where a staggering 1.5% of the entire U.S. population arrived in a single year, creating an impossible crisis for vulnerable children.
• The “Public Meetings”: You’ll hear about the “placing out” system—where children stood on platforms, waiting to see if a family would select them, in scenes that looked uncomfortably like an auction. We’ll even explore how this touched my hometown.
• The Fragmented Records: Discover how 66 volumes of records from a single organization hold some of the only keys to thousands of missing identities.
• A Living Memorial: I’ll share how the history of the Orphan Train riders is being kept alive today in a way that turns a simple walk through town into a journey through the past.

Behind the Scenes: Information Not in the Podcast

While the episode dives into the history, I wanted to provide some extra context here for those ready to do their own digging:

• The “Anomalous” Census: If you are researching your own tree, look for children in 1880–1920 records whose birthplace is “New York” but who are living with a family in the Midwest with a different surname. These “anomalies” are often the first breadcrumbs.
• The Power of the Valise: The museum houses original travel trunks (valises). While we talk about the riders, what I didn’t mention is that for many, these tiny bags contained a Bible and a single change of clothes—the only physical items connecting them to their previous life.
• The “Agent” Logs: Beyond formal records, agents kept personal logs. These notes often contain the real reason a child might have been moved from one home to another—details often too raw for official reports.

Resources for Readers (If You Want to Dig Deeper)

If this topic hits close to home—or you’re simply the kind of person who believes history matters most when it’s tied to real lives—here are some practical places to start a legacy journey:

• National Orphan Train Complex (NOTC) Official Site: Background, visiting info, and ways to support their work.
• NOTC Research Services and Rider Search: They maintain an Orphan Train Rider database with info on 8,000+ children and offer database searches to help you find your missing links.
• FamilySearch Overview of the NOTC: A helpful jumping-off point if you’re approaching this from a genealogy workflow.
• If you do nothing else, do this: Write down every version of the name you’ve heard in your family (spelling matters!), approximate birth year, and every location you can tie to the person—even “someone said New York” is a starting pin.

Resources

Save the Date: The Episode Drops

The Podcasthon special episode of Haunted Lineage drops on March 14, 2026, at 10:00 AM Central.

When it goes live, I invite you to listen—not just for the history, but for the human side of what it means to lose a beginning… and what it takes to reclaim it.