Kimberly Sears

Author, Freelance Writer, Historian

United States of America

I'm an aspiring author with a children's book and a young adult historical fiction novel in the works. I'm also a freelance article writer.

I love to write about travel, food, the outdoors, DIY home projects, sustainability and self-reliant lifestyles, and most of all history.
I'm passionate about family history and genealogy, Jewish and Biblical history, and the history of Spain and Latin America.

Below you'll find a small sample of my published articles. Contact me if you'd like to collaborate on a writing project.

Portfolio
Walden Labs
10/14/2014
Eliot Coleman and the Four-Season Farming Revolution

What if you could grow fresh vegetables year-round without heaters or grow lights? What if your rainbow of crops included everything from kale to radishes to spinach? What if you could grow them even in the snowy, bone-chilling winters of Maine? Organic farmer Eliot Coleman is doing just that.

Resilient Communities
02/01/2016
Tiny Fish, Big Controversy: The California Delta Smelt

Feeding a family isn’t as easy as it used to be. In only one year, from 2013 to 2014, grocery prices rose 2.7%.1 In the last few years we’ve seen huge price increases in fresh foods: fruits, vegetables, dairy, eggs, poultry, and especially meat—since 2009, the cost of beef has gone up by a whopping 35 percent!2 And experts predict that food prices will rise faster than inflation in 2015...

Off the Grid News
Helping Your Bees Survive Even The Harshest Winter

From the top floor of my city's downtown library, through the thick-paned glass windows, I can see the high-rise office buildings and apartments of the surrounding cityscape, and I can also see a small apiary - three rooftop beehives - that are being kept on the library's balcony.

Walden Labs
11/20/2014
How to Build Cold Frames and Hoop Houses for Your Winter Garden

Husband-and-wife team Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch are gardening experts known the world over for growing fresh produce all winter long in the harsh climate of rural Maine, without using any supplemental heat for their plants. Their secret?

Off the Grid News
Resilient Living in Argentina

As the 20 th century dawned, Argentina was among the 10 richest nations in the world and rivaled the United States as the great land of opportunity. So many immigrants were pouring in that in 1914 half the population of Buenos Aires was foreign-born![i] It was a land of milk and honey - or rather, beef and grain.

Jewish Roots Research
03/25/2010
A Brief History of Jews in the Netherlands

The first Jews in the Netherlands began coming to the Amsterdam in the late 1500s; they were Portuguese merchants who were conversos, Jews who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism. Because they were a boon to commerce, Dutch authorities welcomed these Jewish merchants. In the atmosphere of tolerance that they enjoyed in Amsterdam, many conversos reverted to their Jewish faith. Thus beginning in the sixteenth century there was a strong presence of Sephardic Jews (Jews from the Iberian...

OneGreatFamily Newsletter
09/17/2010
Attending Genealogical Conferences and Events

If you've never attended a genealogical conference or event before, you may feel intimidated by the prospect. After all, aren't genealogical conferences for professionals, or people who make genealogy their life's work? Actually, no. There are genealogy conferences, expos, retreats, seminars, and workshops for every skill and interest level.

Off the Grid News
Survival Cooking With a Dutch Oven

Quick: you've got your emergency foods stored in the pantry, but how are you going to cook them? Think fast, because without an off-the-grid cooking method you could be stuck eating cold cans of kidney beans in the event of a power outage or major collapse.

Resilient Comunities
09/03/2014
Use Growing Lights for Indoor Farming

Resilient-minded individuals grow food anywhere they can: in backyards, on decks and patios, or even on apartment balconies. But many of us overlook the option of growing food indoors. Indoor growing has long been stigmatized because of its association with marijuana. But now that cannabis growing has been legalized in some states and commercial food farms are realizing the benefits of growing crops indoors, indoor growing is taking off, with new innovations and technologies to support it.

Walden Labs
08/26/2014
Why You Should Start Raising Backyard Chickens Now

In October of 2013, 388 people in 23 states were infected with antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella bacteria from contaminated Foster Farms chicken. Last month, on July 31, the USDA announced long-awaited new regulations and a new inspection system for poultry products.

Resilient Communities
08/13/2014
The Wonders of Wood Gasification

Every so often we come across a simple but ingenious technological innovation that has the potential to help maintain a 21st century standard of living even should economic hardship or a major collapse set us back. One of these inventive ideas is wood gasification as an alternative energy source to run an automobile engine or power a generator to provide electricity for your home. The best part? Wood is a renewable resource that is readily available to most everyone.

OneGreatFamily Newsletter
07/08/2010
Smith, Johnson, and Jones: Researching Very Common Surnames

If you have a rare and unusual surname, searching census records, vital records, and online databases is fairly easy. You’ll be able to easily trace your family lines free from the worry that you might have found the wrong individuals that share your ancestors’ names. My last name, however, is Brown. In the 1990 federal census, Brown was the fifth most-common American surname. This article is dedicated to all our readers who, like me, have extremely common surnames to research. How can you...

Ebook for Client
07/03/2015
Organizing & Decluttering

Do you feel exhausted and overwhelmed by all the housework you do every day? Are you constantly hunting for lost shoes and lost papers, or arriving late to things because your life is in a general state of chaos? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, it’s time to order, organize, and simplify your life and your home.

Off the Grid News
Save Heirloom Foods

Italy's first McDonald's was about to open in Rome, and journalist and gastronomist Carlo Petrini was not going to stand idly by. Petrini assembled his friends and community to protest the global industrialization of food and take a stand for "slow food."

Off the Grid News
Avoid BPA in Your Food Storage: A Closer Look at Canned Goods

What chemical do we ingest in nearly every meal we eat, linked to hormone disruption, brain and behavior problems, cancer and heart problems? The answer is BPA or Bisphenol A, an industrial chemical used commercially in plastics and resins since 1957.