Welcome to Shake the Tree - Discover Your Roots

My name is Rebecca Kichta Miller and I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, mostly on the South Side, and am the eldest of seven children.  I have been "doing genealogy" since 1971 when my mother gave me copies of two family trees: one that my mother’s brother created after a trip to Ireland and the other done by a distant cousin of my father's who was trying to document their maternal great grandmother’s family for the DAR. (Both of which were wrong!)

 In 1975, I moved away from Pittsburgh.  In the days before the internet, while my children were at school, I spent many hours scouring libraries and repositories for information to fill in the gaps on those family trees and many vacation days back in Pittsburgh collecting photos, stories, and memorabilia.  Once living in Northern Virginia and working in Washington, D.C., I discovered the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the DAR Headquarters.  With the advent of the Internet, a trip to Ireland, many, many interviews with close family members, and numerous educational seminars, webinars, and conferences under my belt, I now consider herself a “Not-Certified Genealogist."