Mightier Acorns
I started a family-only genealogy blog in 2007 and called it “Mighty Acorns,” referring to the old poems:"as an ook cometh of a litel spyr" [a spyr, or spire, is a sapling] -Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, 1374 "The greatest Oaks have been little Acorns." -Thomas Fuller's Gnomologia, 1732 "Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow." -D. Everett in The Columbian Orator, 1797 (citations courtesy of The Phrase Finder) My research has shaped the way I think about my roots and origins. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with the notion of finding “important people” in my family tree, but as I found more and more “little acorns” - farmers, teachers, and the dozens upon dozens of silent, unnamed women who are all but erased from their own histories - I came to appreciate the fact that I wouldn’t exist at all without any one of the people hiding in the background of history. To me, the fact that they existed and survived makes them mighty. In 2014, I decided to open up my work to the rest of the world, and re-branded the new blog as “Mightier Acorns.” A Busy Decade I was 42 years old when I launched Mightier Acorns, and I felt like I needed to accomplish a few things. By 2020, I had crossed several big projects off my list: • published a replica of the 1911 Callin Family History (available on Lulu.com in paperback or hardcover) • published my 2016 memoir/novel, Tad’s Happy Funtime (available on Amazon in paperback and e-book) • returned to school at Towson University and finished my Bachelor of Science in Music (vocal performance) - Class of 2020! • published my revised Callin Family History (available on Lulu.com in an 800-page hardcover edition) • published War Poems, a collection of poetry written by my great-great-grandfather, John H. Callin about his experiences as a Union artillery sergeant in the Civil War (available on Lulu.com in hardcover) • narrated and hosted for the Pseudopod horror fiction podcast and Escape Pod, the science fiction podcast
