About the book...

Searching for Ichabod: His Eighteenth-Century Diary Leads Me Home knits thirty years of historical and family research into the seams of a contemporary journey of discovery. Ichabod is missing. Julie Foster Van Camp sets out to solve the mystery of his disappearance two hundred years ago. Unconventional methods unearth his diary. A farmer, medical practitioner, shoemaker, and religious liberal, Ichabod Foster survived two wars with Great Britain, participated in the birth of Vermont, and migrated to the Holland Purchase lands of western New York when he was seventy-one years old. In a cramped, snow-covered log cabin beside the dead bodies of his son, brother, and sister-in-law, Ichabod took his last breath January 1, 1813. In her quest to find Ichabod’s grave, Van Camp digs beneath primary source materials to uncover universal themes of death, birth, religion, survival, and war. People she bumps into while traveling through Rhode Island, Vermont, and New York reinforce her sixth-sense encounters: Ancestors live among us so long as they are remembered.

At once a historical narrative that recapitulates the family history of many migrants from New England, a how-to-guide to conducting historical research, and a journal of personal discovery, Searching for Ichabod will provide inspiration to anyone interested in investigating his or her own family history.
     —Alan Berolzheimer, director of publishing, Vermont Historical Society

I loved how you blended history and genealogy to tell your intriguing story about Ichabod, and your fascinating journey to find out more about him.
     —Henry Z Jones Jr., author of More Psychic Roots: Further Adventures in Serendipity & Intuition in Genealogy

The account is as riveting and complex as a good mystery novel, but it is real grass-roots history.
     —John H. Conlin, editor of Western New York Heritage Press, Inc.

This well-written, engaging memoir offers all the elements of a good nonfiction story . . . and a sympathetic narrator who makes the reader care about her and the search.
     —Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, author of You Can Write Your Family History