Leaves & Branches Genealogy

08/18/2025

Check out my first ever podcast interview with Darkwoods Paranormal!

Thanks for joining our exclusive live broadcast. Feel free to share your questions and interact with other participants in the chat.

08/12/2025

04/17/2025

“It’s better than any movie script or television play I’ve ever read!” says Lawrence Fishburne after discovering his paternal family on Finding Your Roots. The actor didn’t know his biological father’s name until DNA testing, as revealed on the show. Host Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. also learns about the background of his great-great-grandmother, Jane Gates. Finding Your Roots airs Tues., April 8, at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS.

04/17/2025

"The Rector Hotel of Garden City, Missouri, provided overnight lodging, supper and breakfast for five members of our wagon train in early March, 1928.
My father, Adelbert Leadbetter, having sold the large family farm, 3 1/2 miles northeast of Garden City, near Index, made up a train of five wagons to move household furnishings and farm implements to Butler, Missouri. There he had purchased the Silvercrest Farm near the Butler city limits, now the site of the Butler Country Club and Golf Course.
As we left the farm and headed towards Garden City, the heavy spring rains had made the dirt road formidable and travel was extremely laborious and slow. The first day out, our wagon train was able only to reach Garden City before nightfall. Father signed in for overnight lodging at the Rector Hotel and made reservations for supper and breakfast in the hotel dinning room for five of us; himself, our hired man, Frank Reeser, my two brothers, George and Isaac, and me. Our draft animals, mules and horses, were stabled and fed at the nearby livery barn. The luxury of these travel accommodations and the two meals in the hotel dinning room are vividly remembered as one of the most exciting times of my youth. We shared the company of a few other guests, local people, who occasionally took meals at the hotel and travelling salesmen who were regular guests.
I was then 16 years of age, finishing my sophomore year in high school. Brother George was 14 and Isaac, 12 years of age. We later were all graduated from Butler, Missouri, High School." - John Emerson Leadbetter
From Garden City, Missouri 1885-1985 pg 20.

03/30/2025

Crossroads of a Nation (Part 1) TRAILER

03/30/2025

Be sure to stop by and check out our new exhibit on Cass County Churches!

03/30/2025

This is why I'm not a big fan of submitting DNA.

23andMe has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and its co-founder and CEO has resigned as the struggling genetic testing company continues its push to cut costs. The San Francisco-based company also said Anne Wojcicki had resigned as CEO effective immediately but would remain on the company....

03/30/2025

07/25/2024

KSHB 41’s Caitlin Knute is profiling the work of Daniel Titus, a librarian from Kirksville, Missouri, who unknowingly helped to solve a murder mystery.

07/25/2024

While Americans across the country gathered to honor fallen military members on Memorial Day, one mid-Missouri family is doing what they can to ensure the veter

04/10/2024

It turns out Taylor Swift, whose upcoming album is titled "The Tortured Poets Department," is distantly related to a famous poet: Emily Dickinson.