While raising
her own family and working as an industrial baker, Saundra achieved her degree
in English from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She dabbled in journalism
publishing dozens of articles in Alaska Business
Monthly, Alaska Magazine, and other publications. Combining her writing and
genealogy interests, Saundra was recognized for her short story Of Donkeys, Mules, & Plains Ponies
in a 2015 contest sponsored by the Kent Family History Society in England.
Feeding
her insatiable curiosity, Saundra crossed the continent and big waters to walk
in Peter Kirk’s footsteps and learn more about his English history. Locked in a
Derbyshire county archive vault studying ancient parchments and parish records,
she found a family steeped in antiquity extending back to the foresters who
protected the King’s royal forests of the 14th century. More recent records
told the centuries-old saga of the Kirk family ironworks, which rode the wave
of expansion during the Industrial Revolution, through the Victorian era, and
into the 20th century.
Saundra
Middleton continues to write, finding fodder in her globetrotting adventures, backpacking
treks into the wilds, and simply, in her daily life. " />
Raised in
a small island town in Southeast Alaska, Saundra Middleton was lured away to Seattle,
Washington after high school, curious about big city life. There she found a suburb
built by her ancestor Peter Kirk. Living in Kirkland, she discovered some of the
rich history surrounding his immigration, launching a broader interest in
genealogy. After several years, she returned to the Far North, longing for its
open places.
While raising
her own family and working as an industrial baker, Saundra achieved her degree
in English from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She dabbled in journalism
publishing dozens of articles in Alaska Business
Monthly, Alaska Magazine, and other publications. Combining her writing and
genealogy interests, Saundra was recognized for her short story Of Donkeys, Mules, & Plains Ponies
in a 2015 contest sponsored by the Kent Family History Society in England.
Feeding
her insatiable curiosity, Saundra crossed the continent and big waters to walk
in Peter Kirk’s footsteps and learn more about his English history. Locked in a
Derbyshire county archive vault studying ancient parchments and parish records,
she found a family steeped in antiquity extending back to the foresters who
protected the King’s royal forests of the 14th century. More recent records
told the centuries-old saga of the Kirk family ironworks, which rode the wave
of expansion during the Industrial Revolution, through the Victorian era, and
into the 20th century.
Saundra
Middleton continues to write, finding fodder in her globetrotting adventures, backpacking
treks into the wilds, and simply, in her daily life. " />