Friday Newsletter and Follow News 3 December 2010

This Week in Genea-Blogging

Want to have nightmares tonight

… and probably for many nights to come? Read Michael John Neill’s “Cleaning Mother’s House” at Rootdig. But that’s not the scariest thing, though as cautionary tales for genealogists go, this has to be a real doozy. Even scarier is when something like this is a perverse reality, as Thomas Macentee describes in “Family History Held Hostage – Don’t Let This Happen to You” at Geneabloggers.

And in line with the above two articles, here is a word-for-word quote from an e-mail from a cousin that I received just this week, with only the names changed:

“I was able to find Lauren’s contact information and I called her this morning. She told me that no one has continued the work that Theresa had been doing regarding family history. She and her sister Ellen have had no interest in family history. She thought that Theresa had discarded some family history material because Theresa had thrown away family photos and other things while living in a rest home. Lauren thinks she has one notebook with family information from Theresa.”

Ack!


Some great Tombstone Tuesday posts this week

Apple writes about one of those things we need to think about and, if we are lucky, take care of ahead of time in “A Headstone Before Its Time – Tombstone Tuesday” at Apple’s Tree.

In “Tombstone Tuesday – A Cemetery in the Woods,” Cindy at Everything’s Relative writes about her visit to an ancestral cemetery among the trees.


Just one little peak - please?

Audrey Collins at The Family Recorder gives us “A sneaky peak at the new ‘Start here’ desk” at the National Archives. It looks nice!


A Tribute

At Long Lost Relatives, Susan Petersen has written a lovely tribute to her mother in “The Women in My Family Tree – Patricia Landon Kelly Peterson.”


Why Our View of Historical Figures Is Never the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothin’ But the Truth

Chris Paton’s post “William the Womble” at Chris Paton: Walking in Eternity is about a relatively recent (1990s) statute of William of Orange and how what was to have been a totally realistic depiction of the monarch underwent some changes on the way to realization. He presents an interesting illustration of how people tend to choose symbol over reality.


Hmmm, How Do We Handle This One?

Something we all have to figure out what to do with at one time or another in our research: “Sorting Saturday – What to Do With Ancestors Who Aren’t Your Ancestors.” Tracing people has occasionally turned up genealogical gold for me, so I’m interested in the answer. Read some suggestions for how to do this at Michelle Goodrum’s The Turning of Generations.

A Memorable Event

The mood and atmosphere around GeneaBloggerdom has been very special this week. And no, not just because many of us have been gearing up for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories.

It’s the 100th Carnival of Genealogy at Creative Gene. We’ve had lots of special events that have brought our virtual community together, but going for those 100 posts has been so exciting. And the amazing thing when you read these posts is how many of them “knock it out of the ballpark” – doing it for Jasia, the COG, and all the GeneaBloggers. It’s a wonderful thing.


Happy Blogoversary to Amanda at ABT UNK!

Happy Third Blogoversary to the California Genealogical Society and Library Blog!


This Week I Started Following These Blogs:

Old Stones Undeciphered

Genealojournal

Connecting Our Kin: A Family History Collection

Genealogy for Beginners – Helpful Hints

Genealogy: Our Astounding Past

Kathryn’s Genealogy Help Columns

My Channel Island Ancestry

My Tapley Tree … and its Branches

Shakin’ the Family Tree

Slowly Being Driven Made by the Ancestors (a claim many of us could make…)

Torres Family NM Genealogy and History Blog

With Gratitude

Your Peachy Past


My Research Week

This week has been a combination of routine (plodding along entering information on the Hiram Brinlee Sr. family) and the exciting - more delicious information about the Floyds.  This time it's Rich and Randy who have some jaw-drop-worthy information on family speculation about the murder of Ransom Floyd, brother of my great-great-grandfather George Floyd.

Ancestry hints can be a great help, but mismatch of images isn’t

I received one of those “Possible record match” hints from Ancestry in my e-mail for a World War I Draft Registration Card for Vincenzo Terrana. When I called up the image, however, it was for someone with a different name, something like “Tesorio.” But when I scrolled back (the cards are listed in alphabetical order by Registration Board), I found Vincenzo’s card. I submitted a correction to Ancestry and will probably just directly connect the image as a source. And it provided a new piece of information – a date of birth that differs from the family history my husband’s family has for the Terranas.


Hey, I just wrote about this

in "You Are Missing Out on All of the Best Stuff," which was about people who find my blog in a search for a common ancestor but do not get in touch with me. As I was entering for information on one of my families in one of my Ancestry Member Trees, I checked out some of the “matching” family trees. One of them in particular had some of the “more detailed” information that I have found on several different branches of the family. If it were just on one branch, I could assume that the person may have a close personal connection with this branch and therefore more detailed knowledge than the other researchers that I am familiar with. But there were details on several branches that I figured he could only have found on my blog. And he is welcome to the information. But I didn’t recognize the name, so I am guessing this is one of many people who has been to the blog but never gotten in touch with me.

Blog Spruce-Up

I added new links under South Carolina links. I hope to add to the Texas links this weekend.