"The gift was her original idea, and she has a name: TABITHA KING."

I trust you read about the generous $1.25 million donation to the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

When I read Tabitha King's response to the news story about the donors, referred to as "Stephen King and his wife," I thought about all the women I've struggled to research in my family tree. Centuries of nameless women, identified in records only as "Mrs. X," or "wife of X."

Apparently we haven't made much progress. In 2019, the news media referred to an accomplished author and philanthropist as someone's wife, like she has no other identity.

Admittedly Tabitha King's husband, Stephen King, has a higher profile after authoring 60+ books and selling 350 million copies, but it's a sad reflection on how far our society hasn't come. The news outlets reporting the gift deserve the criticism they're receiving, and we can only hope the incident raises our universal consciousness.