Saturday, January 1, 2011

Ancestor Approved Award

Last month I received the Ancestor Approved Award from Kelly at Sunny Ancestry and Jenny at Are My Roots Showing – thank you both for thinking of this blog!

Some time ago I received this award and posted the following list; however, since that time there have been a couple of additional humbling, enlightening, and surprising things that have happened, so they are appended at the end and highlighted in bold:

Surprised, Humbled, Enlightened

1. Surprised at how many family legends on the Brinlee side are true and how many on the Floyd side are not.

2. Surprised that the forbears of some of my “dirt poor dirt farmer” families were pretty well off.

3. Humbled at the generosity of distant cousins who share information and pictures and at the generosity of fellow GeneaBloggers who share information and expertise.

4. Surprised that there are so many Revolutionary War Patriots, Civil War veterans, and Quakers in my background.

5. Enlightened by the fact that most of my genealogy breakthroughs are due to stubbornness rather than any brilliance on my part (harrumph!).

6. Humbled that so many of my ancestors could persevere after losing their land, their spouses, and their children.

7. Enlightened by how much history you can learn through genealogical research.

8. Surprised to find a Dallas County sheriff and a drafter of the Texas Declaration of Independence in my family tree.

9. Surprised and enlightened by how addictive reading other bloggers’ accounts of their genealogy mysteries and research conundrums can be.

10. Humbled and surprised – no, amazed – that I am here at all, considering all the hardships my ancestors had to go through.


11. Surprised and enlightened (and hooked) by how much you can learn in a research trip.

12. Surprised and enlightened by what a great experience a genealogical society conference can be and how much the experience can be enriched by meeting up with fellow genealogy bloggers.

13. Even further humbled by meeting even more generous cousins who have shared their research and documents.

14. Surprised and enlightened that talented genealogy bloggers continue to pop up in the blogosphere.


My form of “passing it on” will be to make an extra effort to highlight new bloggers in my Friday newsletters, not just by listing them under the blogs I have started following, but also highlighting some of their posts.

1 comment:

  1. I find the posts you're highlighting on Fridays really helpful to understand what creative paths others are taking with their blogs. Thanks for sharing and being so involved!

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