Cincinnati, Ohio, was the hometown of Tracy Stone Lawson's great-great-great paternal grandfather, Henry Rogers.  Tracy grew up in Sharonville, Ohio, a Cincinnati suburb, and attended Princeton High School. While in high school, she was an editor for the school newspaper, news director for the Princeton Instructional Television station, and also worked as a reporter and feature writer for the Suburban Press weekly newspaper.  She graduated summa cum laude from Ohio University in 1988, with a Bachelor of Science in Communications degree.  After working for a time in advertising and as an investigative analyst for the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, Tracy settled into a career in the performing arts, teaching dance and choreographing musicals.

Tracy has had a long-time interest in her family's history and genealogy.  In 1990, her parents gave her a special Christmas present based on this interest. It was a journal written by Henry Rogers, who came from a long-time milling family in Cincinnati during the 18th and 19th centuries.  He, his wife, Maria, and her parents traveled on a horse-drawn wagon from Cincinnati to Philadelphia, then on to Trenton, New Jersey, during the summer of 1838. The purpose of this working trip was to observe other working mills so they could improve the family milling business, and also visit relatives in Ohio and New Jersey.  During this trip, Henry kept a journal of all the places they visited along the way. Tracy enjoyed reading it, and became curious about many of the places Henry and his entourage visited. After making most of the same trip herself by automobile--along with her young daughter--during the summers of 2003 and 2004, and keeping her own journal, Tracy was inspired to compare and share information about both trips--taken over a century and a half apart--in her first published book, Fips, Bots, Doggeries, and More: Explorations of Henry Rogers' 1838 Journal of Travel from Southwestern Ohio to New York City.

 

Currently, Tracy lives in Bexley, Ohio. She remains interested in genealogy, has returned to choreographing musicals for Bexley schools, and is currently working on two new writing projects.

Ms. Lawson is available for talks illustrated with a PowerPoint.