Finding the maiden name of a female ancestor can be a challenge. Men’s names were recorded in town vital records but the wife was usually listed by her given name only.

On my October 13, 2019 return drive home from St. Petersburg, FL, I decided to detour a bit to visit my Uncle Bob’s grave in Auburn, MA. Uncle Bob was a profound influence, equal to, in some ways greater than, my parents’ influence in my life.

Most people in this country don't trust the media. Gallup, which runs an annual tracking poll on public perception of the media, asks a rather simple question every year. "How much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media -- such as newspapers, TV and radio -- when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly?"

As we put Election Day 2019 in the rearview mirror and look forward to 2020, here are 20 election thoughts for your consideration.

When I was a younger, more avid book collector, I dreamed of living in a home with a personal library, my books catalogued on floor-to-ceiling dark wood shelves in sections: history, music, politics, biography, and a special spot for books of collected letters, journals, and diaries of notable writers and politicians. John Steinbeck’s “Journal of a Novel,” President Reagan’s “The Reagan Diaries,” and “Selected Letters of William Faulkner,” for example.

A party of 33 from Maine, including 12 students, ages 9-21 from the Portland area, Dover-Foxcroft, Waldoboro and Farmington, will meet with elected officials on Capitol Hill regarding climate change legislation. The students will participate in trainings on Nov. 11 in preparation for the Nov. 12 meetings with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden and members of U.S. Sen. Angus King’s staff.

Our community should consider renovating vacant houses to provide homeless citizens safe, affordable shelter.

To parents and friends of our area's children: If your family lives in one of the towns served by RSU 68 (Charleston, Dover-Foxcroft, Monson and Sebec) and your family needs assistance in providing warm winter clothing and a gift for each of your children (ages infant to 17 years old), the Kiwanis Club of Dover-Foxcroft may be able to help.

I know I have said this before, and I will likely say it again, but neither side in the American political debate takes government finances seriously. One party pretends to care about deficits and (rightly) lowers taxes while (wrongly) allowing spending to continue to grow exponentially. The other party pretends that our debt problem doesn't exist, and proposes ever more creative ways to make it significantly worse.

There's a real race going on in Maine's 2nd Congressional District where Republicans will pick their nominee to face U.S. Rep. Jared Golden next year.

At about five o’clock, on the way home from work, Eileen called me from the road craving “real food.” I agreed to meet her at a nearby restaurant we frequent. Once seated, we scanned the menu, choosing our meals before our waiter arrived. At our table moments later a waiter asked, “Can I start you off with something to drink?” Eileen asked for water. I ordered an iced tea, unsweetened, with lemon.

Recently this newspaper published an article about the possibility of the town entering into a lease agreement to place a solar array on the Dover-Foxcroft airport property. The town manager, Jack Clukey, was quoted as saying, “In order to do that, the site would no longer function as an airport.” Unfortunately, there is far more to this story than what this quote suggests. A follow-up story suggests that local pilots opposed the solar project, hindering something which could potentially have financial rewards for the town. This is simply not true.

As I write this column, Maine's Legislative Council -- which consists of 10 lawmakers, six Democrats and four Republicans -- is beginning to work through the process of considering the roughly 400 bill requests submitted by lawmakers for the second session of the Legislature.

The first text from my daughter arrived at 10:40 Tuesday morning. “I’m in lockdown.” “It’s not a drill.”

As our health care delivery deteriorates -- lacking the quality and outcomes found in other advanced nations at twice the cost -- the hospital conglomerates, the government and the press are sometimes claiming progress. And, in spite of this, the growing national outrage is being met by policymakers scrambling to hold our nation’s bloated health care money pit.

In my 9/21/18 column, “Give Political Thugs the Bum's Rush,” I told a story of Maine Senate Democrat Leader Beverly Bustin’s 1995 reaction to Maine voters electing Angus King as Governor, and a new Republican majority to the Maine Senate.

All of us should be celebrating Maine Forest Products Week, Oct. 20-26. Maine’s forest products industry has a long and successful history in our state. From our earliest days, Maine’s vast timberlands have been an important asset, sought after first for masts for the king’s navy, and today for lumber and paper. The future will include any number of forest products from composites to bio tech to uses that have not even been imagined yet.

Americans hate taxes and some of us dread the Ides of April on a par with being told we need a root canal. Grumbling about taxes is hardly new. Our ancestors felt exactly the same. Our ancestors protested taxes of all sorts whether the infamous tea tax, poll taxes permitting men to vote, or the ubiquitous real estate taxes.