"The Hunt for Ancestors" by Erika Hoffman
– “Sounds like your mother’s kin.”
We learn where we came from, what we want to leave behind.
Erika Hoffman lives in Chatham County, North Carolina. She is a member of The North Carolina Writers network, The Triangle Area Freelancers, and Carteret Writers. Her stories have been featured over 430 times in anthologies, ezines, magazines, and newspapers. For sale on Amazon are compilations of some of her published pieces. In addition, two small traditional presses published her novels. Her first, Secrets, Lies, and Grace, was produced by Comfort Publishing. A pseudonym was used: Riki Vogel. In 2019, Library Partners Press of Wake Forest University published her mystery, Why Mama.
Author’s Talk
Erika Hoffman
Like most young people, I didn’t listen when my maternal grandma wanted to tell me stories about her ancestors who, she claimed, were important folks once-upon-a-time. She wanted my sibs and me to know that our people were in New Jersey and Philadelphia before the Revolution, and they were merchants, accountants, and farmers. She wanted me to know she’d come from educated folks, well, at least on one scion of her tree. Not much of this mattered to me. But my widowed grandma, who led a very middle class married life, felt it important that we know her forbearers had been “somebody” at some time. My dad’s grandparents never talked much about their German lineage. There were farmers, soldiers, bakers, and tavern owners. My dad’s first language was German because his grandma took care of him in an apartment above a tavern, and his grandma spoke German. So… none of this mattered to me until I reached my 50s. Then, I became interested in my genealogy and in writing. I was so busy before then— raising my four kids, teaching, and married life that I didn’t give the distant past much thought. When my aged, widowed dad moved in with me and my kids were off to college, I began to pen my stories. I commenced the journey to discover from whence I came. If you like my story here, The Hunt for Ancestors, then you can find more of my true stories in My Sassy Life which is sold on Amazon along with three sequels; in Erika’s Take on Writing along with three sequels; and in Erika’s Take on Travel with one sequel. I’ve been published 430 times in the past 12 years. After my stories are sold once, I compile them into collections which readers can purchase through Amazon or KDP.
