Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Dear Genea-Santa

This Saturday’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenged, issued by Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings, is as follows:

1) Write your Genea-Santa letter. Have you been a good genealogy girl or boy? What genealogy-oriented items are on your Christmas wish list? They could be family history items, technology items, or things that you want to pursue your ancestral quest.

2) Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook status or comment to this post.

Dear Genea–Santa:

You were very, very good to me last year:

- I was able to attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference and meet up with fellow Genea-Bloggers.

- I got to go to Greenville, South Carolina to research my Moore line with my cousins Paula and Carolyn. We had a blast and found enough information on our Moores to keep us busy for a long time.

- I was contacted by a distant Floyd cousin who, together with another cousin, provided my Texas Floyd cousins and me with a whole bunch of new information on the Floyds. This included the siblings of our great-great grandfather, George Floyd, as well as copies of letters written by several of our Floyd relatives. Now my Texas Floyd cousins and I are working on finding court records concerning our Floyd ancestors, and quite a bit of eye-opening information has come to light.

- I learned from a cousin on the Brinlee line that we have a match with a Tennessee Brinley family that may help us break through the brick wall (find the parents of Hiram and George Brinlee) and some other Brinlee cousins sent me some wonderful Brinlee family photos.

- I have had a ton of fun reading genealogy blogs and corresponding with other genealogy bloggers, as well as with quite a few distant relatives and other people who have contacted me through my blog.

- I have attended most of my local genealogical society’s meetings as well as the Spring Conference and Fall Fair and learned a great deal.

So Genea-Santa, I am very happy with this year and I hope my list for next year is not asking too much. I have been a pretty good girl – I have done some transcribing, researched a branch of my daughter’s host mother’s family, done a couple of volunteer genealogy-related translations, and was able to post a number of pictures on Findagrave. I finished inputting Norman family information up through the great-great-grandparent level and have started on my last known set of great-great grandparents, Hiram Brinlee and Betsey McKinney.

1. My first request is a repeat of last year’s request: I would like one document – any type of document, but I would like for the document to have had a reliable source – that provides the names of my great-grandmother Susan Elizabeth Smith Bonner Brinlee’s parents.

2. If it’s not too much trouble, I would like to be able to attend the National Genealogical Society conference in Charleston, South Carolina. We have already made hotel reservations, but everything depends on my daughter’s final exam schedule in college working out – her exams will need to be early in May!

3. A chance to go back to Greenville for some research and to see more of the city would be awesome, and we would like to include some time in neighboring Anderson County as well.

4. And, as ever, I complete my list with one of the most difficult items to find of all: more time.

Please take it easy out there flying, Genea-Santa; there are going to be all kinds of crazy drivers in the air. I will leave out a kolache, some chocolate chip cookies, and, if that is not enough, some awesome whisky (to be taken in moderation in view of the “crazy drivers”).

Yours faithfully,

Greta