(Updated February 28th, 2011)

Black History Month wraps up today. I hope you'll enjoy this compilation of all the great articles Red Room Executive Editor Gina Misiroglu solicited for our publishing partner Black Voicesand for Red Room. So many of these stories has had us thinking about our roots, so we decided to ask Red Roomers to blog the about the one ancestor whose story they found the most intriguing. Each post was a fascinating look not just into history, but into the way we think about the past and our specific connection to it.

Two posts stood out:

• Not only does member Salvatore F. Buttaci memorably evoke an ancestor who was a hero in the wars of Italian unification in "Red Shirt," he makes his own father's pride in his ancestor live vividly again.
• A somber trip to a two cemeteries introduced member Cheryl Hall-Russell to her grandmother's grandmother, and the family that owned her. She gives us much to think about in "Grandma Abby—Slavery and Strange Bedfellows."

These two bloggers will receive books by Red Room authors:

Jessica Anya Blau brings three adult siblings home to care for their ailing mother in Drinking Closer to Home. Susan Henderson calls it "a gloriously rich portrait of three adult children who discover that the tensions and hurts they still have between them are inextricably tied to their laughter and their love."

The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's History of Infidelities is Katharine Weber's memoir of the rich, strange, and fascinating cast of characters in her family. "(T)heir stories-with their myriad layers of truth and fiction-have both illuminated and influenced who Weber is today.

You can read all the "most interesting ancestor" blog posts here. I hope you'll find some favorites, leave a comment letting the blogger know, and share it by clicking "Send to a Friend." All of Red Room's past blog topics are listed here. Thanks as always for blogging!

–Huntington W. Sharp, Senior Editor, Red Room