A Blog with Baylor County, Texas Roots!

The other day I was very happy to find the blog Moments in Time, A Genealogy Blog by Diana Quinn. Of course, I am always thrilled to find blogs with roots in areas where I research, but that covers most of the South, a bit of New England, and, for my husband’s family, New York and New Jersey. But to find someone researching in Baylor County, the area where my mother was born and grew up (and which also has a few distant family branches from my father’s side) and a county which has never had more than a few thousand residents, is a real treat.

Diana’s family research extends well beyond Texas; recent posts connected with Irish research deal with the Irish Uprising.

Blog Tweaks

As I get back into my genealogy research and blogging routine, I have been making a few tweaks to Greta’s Genealogy Bog:

- A “Lookups I Can Do” page. This page lists books that I have in which I can do lookups; these fall into two main categories: county books (Anderson County in South Carolina, Baylor County in Texas, Collin County in Texas, and Garland County in Arkansas) and land deed books by A. B. Pruitt for Pendleton District/Anderson County and Greenville County.

- A link to my Weebly website, “Greta’s Genealogy.” Right now it has half of my Genealogy Research Toolbox. Eventually the Research Toolbox on this page and the Weebly site will both have the complete Toolbox. You will notice that some headings have no entries for them right now; that is because I am still in the process of adding my bookmarked sites to these pages.

I have also started putting up my family lines on the “Greta’s Genealogy” website. My original plan was to learn how to use my genealogy program to create the web pages, but since it is so simple to create and link pages using Weebly, I have decided to simply create this part of the website page by page. That may sound like a very labor-intensive process, but it is surprisingly a lot of fun.

- Some old items have been removed from the sidebar. A few were links to sites that no longer exist, and others were research-related links that you can now find in my Toolbox. I will probably leave the South Carolina and Texas links on the main paige of the blog, however.

Playing Favorites

It did not take me long to pick out my own favorite posts from the past year; there weren’t many. Actually, there were five, or, if you count each post of a four-part series, eight. It’s not that I don’t care for most of the other posts (said the mother to her pouting children); it’s just that not many particularly stood out for me.

My blog is a labor of love, a way of sharing with others who share my love of genealogy and a medium to get the cousin bait out there. So I don’t always try to “knock one out of the ballpark.” I do make extra efforts for Memory Monday posts and Carnival of Genealogy entries, but the driving reason behind this is to write down my memories in the case of the former and to write down my research processes and results in the case of the latter (heartfelt thanks to Jasia to providing the inspiration and the prod to do this).

My quick review of last year’s posts reveals one of the reasons that my writing plan for next year includes more blog posts on my research: other than Friday newsletter summaries, there weren’t many posts on this subject. I don’t count Surname Saturday; that’s pure cousin bait and does not address “Here is why this family is interesting/difficult/surprising” or “Here’s how I did it.” The newsletter summaries may continue, but I’m hoping to have some kind of weekly “This Week’s Research Problem” feature.

Here are the five:

Ode to My Family’s History: Through the Lens of Gilbert and Sullivan

This almost did not get written. I cannot write poetry – but lyrics to catchy tunes, that’s another matter. A few early tries yielded a couple of lines for several different tunes. I almost gave up. Then the Long Boring Meeting happened. Notebook came out. Pencil flew. Inspiration combined with silliness was covered by an earnest expression, and the various presenters and speakers thought I was fascinated by their golden words.


Memory Monday: The Tree in Our Basement

The number of responses to this surprised me. It was one of those minor things that had more significance for my family than we realized at the time.


From the Will to the Estate Packet: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Definitely a labor of love: A write-up of one of my most exciting and astounding research discoveries. However, procrastination often smothers inspiration. I give all credit to Jasia’s Carnival of Genealogy at Creative Gene for the fact that this series ever saw the light.


Greenville Love

This was the companion piece to “From the Will to the Estate Packet.” My first research trip turned out to be the Best Vacation Ever, even though I spent a lot of it in the Greenville County Public Library.


Memory Monday: The Flower Bowl

Another surprise post. Little things loom large.


This will probably be my last post of 2010, so I would like to wish a Very Happy New Year to all of the readers of this blog. In the coming year, may you find the time to enjoy your families and do your research, enjoy the good health you will need to do both, make some amazing discoveries and smash at least one big brick wall.

Voting Is Now Open for the Family Tree Magazine 40

Or: Holy Shmoly, I’m Gobsmacked!

First things first: Thank you to the people (in the plural because I’m assuming there were two) who nominated Greta’s Genealogy Bog for Family Tree’s 40 Best Genealogy Blogs in the “Everything” and “My Family History” categories. You have made my day, week, and month. I was also very happy to see that most of the blogs I nominated were on the list but a little worried that two of them were not there; I hope it was not my fault for choosing the wrong category or doing something else ineptly (wouldn't be the first time).

Visit the nominated blogs and you will see why I wrote “We Are Surrounded by Writers and Artists” last Friday: witty, wise, and warm writers as well as some truly talented photographers and digital scrapbookers. (And talk about killer categories....)  The list of nominated blogs can be found at the following blogs:

Dear Myrtle’s Genealogy Blog

FootnoteMaven

GeneaBloggers

To vote for your favorite blogs, you can go to the Family Tree voting site here, and there are links at many of the blogs with the Family Tree 40 Best Genealogy Blogs 2011 logo.

Voting is open until 11:59 p.m. on Monday, December 20, 2010, and the results will be published in the July 2011 issue of Family Tree Magazine.

You Are Missing Out on All of the Best Stuff

if you read my blog, find your ancestors, and do not get in touch with me.

I find myself returning to a theme I posted on back in June: “About that Paragraph at the Bottom of This Page.” That post included the following two paragraphs:

“So there is no reason to be shy: please do not hesitate to contact me!  I post the information and you are free to copy it. But there is more where that came from; these are only the “bare bones”!  If the feeling that you are a beginning researcher and don’t have much to contribute is holding you back, don’t let it!  I still consider myself a beginning researcher, and once I was a real newbie.  I basically knew my parents’ immediate families and little else.  Yet I dared to write to a couple of experienced researchers who I was certain had information on my mysterious great-grandfather.  I had one piece of information to trade:  I knew his mother’s maiden name.  And we continue to trade information.

“But you do not need even that.  I am simply happy to find out a little about you and your family connection, if that is all you know.  You may have a piece of information I have been searching for. And I also believe that I should treat people searching for information with as much consideration as those first two contacts and many others have treated me.”

The inspiration to bring this subject up once again was provided by Leah at The Internet Genealogist in a post earlier this month that was innocuously titled “November To-Dos” but started with a very justifiable rant about people who end up on her blog from a Google search for shared ancestors but never get in touch with her.  There was also a comment from Lisa Wallen Logsdon of Genealojournal and Old Stones Undeciphered about a program called Tynt that tells her how many times material has been copied from her blog and pasted elsewhere and also creates a (removable) link to her page.

That got me to thinking.  What things do I share freely and what things do I mind being copied? The information itself I share freely, though if it is used in anything that you publish, formally or informally, it would be nice to have my blog cited.  When the actual word-for-word content is copied in splogs and other uses that qualify as plagiarism, then I definitely mind.

But it is still the people who consider themselves family historians/genealogists who find my blog through a search and do not contact me that are of the greatest concern to me.  If you just have a passing curiosity, perhaps the few items you find here are enough.

If you are serious, however, you are really missing out on a great deal of information and enjoyment. Because the descendant reports that I publish in features such as Surname Saturday and even the juicier posts (such as “What My Ancestors Did for Entertainment” and “The Other Thing My Ancestors Did for Entertainment”) are just the tip of the iceberg.  I am no longer able to keep up with posting all of the material that I and my “research cousins” are turning up.  For several of the families I am researching, my cousins and I maintain informal mailing lists so that we can exchange information.  Sometimes there is so much information to convey that we have to have a "Texas telephone call."  The “cousin bait” that I put out on the blog has brought in a couple of “cousin ex machina” solutions to brick walls.  I even went on a research trip with cousins that I met online!  Other cousins send me scans of family photos and tell me family stories.  I regularly send out scans and hard copies of documents I have located.  Only a small portion of this makes its way to the pages of this blog.  If you want to be where the action is, contact me!

Copyright (c) 2010 Greta Koehl

Family and Friends Newsletter Friday 12 March 2010

I am writing this Friends and Family Newsletter late on Friday night! First, there was “Who Do You Think You Are" to watch, and it was an awesome episode. As a matter of fact, it came on right after I had finished and posted my article for the First Carnival of African American Genealogy: Restore My Name – Slave Records and Genealogy Research.

Then I was reading some blogs and saw that several had already changed to the new templates. I had seen the news the night before on GeneaBloggers and had given a trial run to some of the new templates, but wanted to make sure that my blog header banner would be compatible and that all of my pages would show up at the top (the template at the far right didn’t seem to include them all), so I hadn’t made the change, yet. But after seeing how other blogs looked I had to go to back to the Blogger Template Designer and play, and, well, you see the results. Things I love about the new templates:

- The flexibility. Now the blog really is like a doll. I can change its clothes. Today I have a subdued background, but be forewarned, on some days it may be much more colorful – despite the great craze for “simplicity” in blogs these days – and I especially like the patchwork-quilt background.

- The fact that I can keep my header banner (I am very attached to it). I had created an “extra, experimental” blog to try to work out a way to incorporate some of those neat free backgrounds that are available, but they only work on a template that doesn't seem to work well with my banner.

- The ability to have a nice, wide space for my posts as well as enough room so that some of my “gadgets” don’t get cut off.

Another change I have made is to add the "Woo-Hoo! Wall" to my Pages. This is modeled after Bart's "Fireplace Mantle" page at Stardust 'n' Roots. I moved most of the awards to this page, and I think that the front page of the blog loads more quickly now. Any new award would be featured on the front page for a while, and then eventually moved to the Woo-Hoo! Wall.

Now for the news.

Mystery of the week.

The oldest son of my gg-grandfather Elisha Berry Lewis, James West Lewis, was one of the Lewis kin who went to Texas from SC. He is shown on the censuses for Travis and Wilbarger Counties in 1880 and 1900. I had always thought he was buried there and that the J. W. Lewis shown in Midway Presbyterian Cemetery in Anderson, SC was not him, even though E.B. and some other Lewis family members are buried there. However, when I looked up his grave on Findagrave, the inscription indicates he served in Co. B, 4th SC Infantry. Sounds like him. He died in around 1904; was he taken to SC to be buried there or was he perhaps visiting family when he died there?

Blogs

Jo Lee at Those Who Went Before in “Who Do You Think You Are? Premiere WOW” tells about watching the premier episode in amazement when one of her own lines – Hodge – was featured in the show.

Schelly at Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog writes about the NY Times columnist Neil Genzlinger’s clueless and condescending reaction to WDYTYA in “America’s WDYTYA – Tree or Shrub?”

Bill West at West in New England, in “What I Thought About ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’”, writes that one of the graves from which SJP was shown brushing snow off was that of his ancestor Mary Eastey!

Tipper at The Blind Pig and the Acorn has posted another Appalachian Vocabulary Test. (Come on, broaden your education!)

In the belief that any good idea is worth stealing – I shall adopt this practice started by Cindy at Everything’s Relative – Researching Your Family History in her “Visits and New Follows” by noting that this week I started following these blogs:

Genealogy Freelancers
Climbing Joshua’s Tree
Climbing My Family Tree
Help! The Faerie Folk Hid My Ancestors!
Journey to the Past
Know Your Story
Roots and Branches

Future Plans

Nothing firm yet, and everything depends on having enough money left over after paying tuition bills, but I am tentatively starting to begin to think – just think – about possibly attending the annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies in Knoxville August 18-21. We could actually drive there and my husband said he could enjoy the historical sights while I attend the conference. Just thinking …

Where Have Our Contact Buttons Gone?

When accessing Greta's Genealogy Bog today I first noticed that it took one to two minutes for the page to load. Then when I went to the "Layout" page only the top section would appear; it took another minute or two for that to load.

I googled various word combinations having to do with blog problems and finally found some advice to check Activity under Window. That revealed that the problem involved the Contact Button. It was then that I noticed that my blog no longer showed the Contact Button. I visited several blogs that I remembered having these buttons, and none of them appeared to have it any longer, either.

What's up?

Update: Today (Monday) the Contact Button seems to be working and the blog seems to load OK. Not sure what happened. Some type of Blogger maintenance maybe?

Thank You

Well, I came home today and the letter from Diane Haddad was still in my inbox. So it’s real.

Diane’s letter was actually not the first e-mail that hit my eye. I saw several e-mails that contained comments from Greta’s Genealogy Bog, and that’s when the news first hit me. So I actually learned through the comments.

And that’s the way it often happens, of course. Because we GeneaBloggers do spend a lot of time talking back and forth. Come on, most of you know it – we love to talk, even if it is in writing.

That’s why I love my blog. I don’t read it, of course, except for when I have to read over what I’ve written. I love it because it’s like my virtual back fence. I go to the Blogger reader (based on the Follow function) that is on the dashboard first, and then (true confession time) I go to that list that extends so far down the left side of this blog and click on the other articles I have not yet read. I apologize if that list makes this blog slow in loading, but I like it that way. Yes, this is a much more primitive way to do my blog reading, but it somehow makes the experience more immediate to me; it really does feel as though I’m “talking over the fence.”

And how I enjoy that experience. So many times I’ll read something another blogger has written and have a shock of recognition or an outburst of vehement agreement – “Yeah, what (s)he said!” – or think “I can really use that information” or “Gosh, I never thought of that before.” We do not have to explain our obsession to other GeneaBloggers; they “get” it. They “get” that insatiable desire to know – about our ancestors, about what happened – and to make sure that these souls who contributed to our existence are never forgotten.

In candor, there are so many times that I read something another GeneaBlogger has written and think “I wish I had written that!” The breadth and depth of talent among Geneabloggers is amazing. Maureen Taylor perceptively added to the list of 40 a sampling of more fantastic GeneaBlogs, and I can think of a bunch more that never fail to inspire me and often make my day. I am so humbled to be on Family Tree’s list of 40, but then I am humbled everyday when I read what my fellow GeneaBloggers have to say.

Thank you, Maureen for your lovely article, thank you Diane Haddad and Family Tree Magazine, thank you to everyone who voted for me, and thanks to all my Genea-buds out there who make life ever so much more interesting!

A Bit About Greta’s Genealogy Bog

Greta’s Genealogy Bog has a statement of purpose at the top left, so I will not duplicate that. Instead, here are a few items about the blog and the kinds of features, links, and information you will see here.

I am not a professional genealogist or even one who has achieved the level of an advanced amateur. As the logo for the blog states, “Obsessed by genealogy since 2005.” In September of this year I will reach my 5th anniversary in genealogy and in August this blog will reach its second anniversary. I would describe my status as that of a keenly interested amateur somewhere around the advanced beginning or beginning intermediate stage. When I do learn something about the research process – new (for me) methods, sources, etc. – I like to share that information, even though it may not come as news to the more advanced researchers.

You will see two tabs at the top of this page entitled “The Texas Team” and “The South Carolina Crew.” These pages contain lists of blogs with Texas or South Carolina connections. Lower down on the left side of this page are various research-related links, including lists for Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, Illinois, and Arkansas. I hope to add to these links during the GeneaBlogger games. I also hope to add a page with a list of families that I am researching; for the time being, it will probably only contain families about whom I have written on this blog, with additional families to be added later.

Regular Features

Memory Monday: I started Memory Monday in January 2009 in fulfillment of a New Year’s genealogy resolution. Ideally, in the course of our genealogy research we should not forget to write down our own memories for future generations, and these posts are my effort to do just that.

Family and Friends Newsletter Friday: This is a newer feature which includes a summary of research I have done during the previous week, a few items on posts of interest on other blogs (not a roundup such as those on Genea-Musings, Apple’s Tree, or Transylvania Dutch, but rather just a few things that I found interesting or amusing), and often an “Off-Topic” part covering areas that interest me: music, language, my cats, gardening, birds, or local events.

Featured Family Friday: This feature is, I admit, mainly “cousin bait.” It does provide some basic information on the families I am researching; the main purpose, however, is to have other people who are researching the same families as I am find this blog through a search on those names and, I hope, get in touch with me. There is a Contact button at the left of this blog, and I invite other researchers and anyone else who wishes to contact me to use it.

Transcription Tuesday: This is also a new feature that I have started in order to chronicle and share my efforts to fulfill another New Year’s genealogy resolution – transcribing various genealogy-related materials that I have acquired.

Follow Friday: An occasional feature - writing about other genealogy blogs - that I really enjoy. It does not appear every Friday, but the Family Newsletter often contains "Follow" features.

Wordless/Wordy Wednesday, Madness Monday, Treasure Chest Thursday: These are a few other GeneaBlogging themes that appear on this blog occasionally rather than regularly. I also participate in carnivals and blogging prompts when possible.

Since I am attempting to take advantage of my participation in the GeneaBloggers Games to improve my research and blogging skills, some of these features may not appear during the next couple of weeks but will be resumed later.

I welcome all comments, either directly on the blog or through the use of the Contact button on the left.

Two New Pages Added to This Blog!

I'm so excited - I actually accomplished a technogeek thing today (thanks to Thomas Macentee's easy-to-follow instructions on GeneaBloggers) and added two new pages to Greta's Genealogy Bog: The Texas Team and The South Carolina Crew. These pages contain lists of blogs that have a Texas or South Carolina connection. If your blog has that connection and you do not see it on the list, let me know in a comment to this post or by using the Contact button on the left of this blog and I will add it. The South Carolina Crew in particular could probably use an update. The next page to be added will probably be a list of the families that I am researching.

Bandit’s A Blogger’s Best Friend Award

My warmest thanks to the much-respected Genea-Bloggers listed below for presenting me with Bandit’s A Blogger’s Best Friend Award. I love following their blogs and find their writing so interesting and intriguing that I couldn’t NOT comment:

Karen at Ancestor Soup
Lori at Genealogy and Me
Carol at Reflections from the Fence
Nancy at My Ancestors and Me

Since these four ladies are also loyal followers and commenters on my blog, they would definitely be on the list of awardees from me, but since I have been out of town, I have had to postpone my participation until now.

The terms of the award include passing it on to two of our most loyal followers, so I’ll take the liberty of including two bloggers per award:

Linda at Flipside
Amy at They That Go Down to the Sea
Apple at Apple’s Tree
Judith Richards Shubert of Genealogy Traces and Tennessee Memories
Leah at Random Notes
hummer at Branching Out Through the Years
Tipper at Blind Pig and the Acorn
Amanda the Librarian at ABT UNK
Joan at Roots ‘n Leaves

Oops, that’s nine. Oh well, I can’t count. And I can’t omit any of them, as they and the four ladies at the top all write blogs that entertain and educate me. Oh, heck, I might as well admit it – I am always reading things on their blogs that I wish that I had written.

Awardees, you may acknowledge and/or pass on the award as you wish. I’d just like to say “Thank you” to all of you for visiting my blog and for providing such rich food for thought on your blogs.

For Robin of Where I Come From

Robin of Where I Come From, bless yore heart. I am delighted to receive the Happy 101 Award from you. You have helped put me into a totally silly and cheerful mood tonight, so I dedicate the following post to you. Because #1 on your list of things that make you happy was “Being a Mom,” the theme of this post will be the Top 10 Things That Make Me Happy About Being a Mom.

(Folks, if you have not checked out Where I Come From, do it now. Robin has a very forthright and engaging writing style that will delight you.)

(I also see that Where I Come From is also an elite … ahem … Texas-linked blog, and will add it to the “Texas Team” forthwith.)

Top 10 Things That Make Me Happy About Being a Mom


1. Still being able to shock my daughters.

2. Still seeing the looks of wonder and excitement as they check out their stockings on Christmas morning.

3. Learning to sympathize with and understand my own mother by experiencing first-hand how difficult it is to be a mother.

4. Having a daughter to speak Russian to and geek out about linguistics with (older daughter).

5. Having a daughter who even loves the “pest birds” (grackles and blackbirds) who visit our backyard and says, “They’re God’s creatures, too” (younger daughter).

6. Having daughters who love all the same science fiction stuff that my husband and I love, who love some of the same music we do, and who like to watch Top Gear and Junkyard Wars with us. (However, Daughter #2: Stealing Mom’s Dr. Who scarf is not cool.)

7. No longer having to continually get up in the middle of the night because we had babies who Just. Wouldn’t. Sleep.

8. Having to be careful about drinking liquids around my daughters because they can quickly crack me up with an off-the-cuff remark to the point that … well, you know, the tea comes out my nose. (Daughter #1, please do not say: “Thanks for the visual, Mom.”)

9. Having someone to inherit my genealogy research.

10. Having daughters who have been known to say: “Mom, you need to put that broom down and come with us. We all need to get manicures and pedicures, pronto.”

For Becky Wiseman: Top 10 Things That Make Me Happy When I’m Traveling

I am thrilled to learn that Becky Wiseman of kinexxions has also awarded me the Happy 101 Award. Because Becky was one of the first GeneaBloggers whose blog I found, admired, and tried to emulate, this is a true honor for me. So, in honor of Becky, through whose posts on her travels so many of us are deriving much vicarious pleasure these days, I would like to devote the following post to her: “Top 10 Things That Make Me Happy When I’m Traveling.”

1. A pleasant and adventurous traveling companion. (But not too adventurous. I am not going to climb that mountain.) And, in certain countries, one who can drive stick shift, remember to keep on the left side of the road, and park in impossible spots.

2. A camera that works (including a flash that goes off when it’s supposed to and not just when it wants to).

3. Cooperative weather. That’s right, Mr. Cumulus over there, move your fat behind and let the sun shine on this tombstone.

4. Good music on the radio or my iPod. (And a companion who does not mind screechy violins or sing-alongs in Hungarian. See #1 above.)

5. The knowledge that I haven’t forgotten anything. (Well, OK, that one’s never gonna happen.)

6. Animals to watch, pet, or somehow interact with.

7. At least one rainbow, and at least one spectacular sunset. (And I never get tired of them.)

8. At least one good (non-chain) bookstore.

9. Schmoozing with people we meet along the way.

10. Coming home to a house with no basement flood (it’s happened before), no cat-caused mess, and nothing in the mail that had to be dealt with immediately.

Happy travels, Becky – we’re all having a blast reading about your journey!

A Warm Spot in a Cold Day

My heartfelt thanks to Karen at Ancestor Soup, Dorene from The Graveyard Rabbit of Sandusky Bay, and Cheryl of Heritage Happens for awarding me the Happy 101 Award. These are blogs that I greatly enjoy reading and it means a lot to me to know that they enjoy my blog, too.

As a way of expressing my gratitude for the pleasure reading their blogs has given me, I would like to pass the award along to the following 10 bloggers. Those who are awarded this honor are supposed to list 10 things that make them happy and pass the award on to 10 other bloggers. I would like to make this optional, to be left to the discretion of the awardees – you may do either, both, or neither, or you may do less than 10 if you wish.

Amanda Acquard at A Tale of Two Ancestors

Amanda the Librarian at ABT UNK

Ruth Stephens at Bluebonnet Country Genealogy

Mavis Jones at Georgia Black Crackers

Janet Iles at Janet the Researcher

Texican Wife at Mountain Genealogists

Astrid at Of Trolls and Lemons

The Folk Archivist at Folk Archivist’s Blog

Joan Hill at Roots ‘n’ Leaves

J. Mulder at Tracing My Roots

Please check these blogs out if you have not already; they provide food for the mind and food for the heart.



10 things that make me happy:

1. My patient husband.

2. My funny and awesome daughters.

3. My comedian cats.

4. My gaggle of backyard bird visitors.

5. My generous relatives, close and distant, who provide me with information, photographs, and encouragement.

6. The GeneaBlogging Community, which gets my vote for the absolute best online community.

7. Digging in the dirt and watching things grow.

8. Finding ancestors!

9. Getting paid to work with foreign languages.

10. The thought that there is so much wonderful music to listen to and so many good books to read in this world.

85th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: Orphans and Orphans

Many thanks to Jasia for all her encouragement and to footnote Maven for coming up with another wonderful COG poster.

Welcome to the 85th Carnival of Genealogy. I cannot describe how excited I am to be hosting this edition, which deals with a subject that is very dear to me, particularly in the context of genealogy: Orphans. (Even the problems with the blog carnival site have not been able to dim my enthusiasm.) Participants were invited to write about one or both types of “orphans” we encounter in genealogy:

The first type of orphan refers to those ancestors or relatives who lost their parents when they were young.

The second type of orphan would be those siblings or cousins of our ancestors who could be called “reverse orphans.” They are the relatives who, for whatever reason – death at a young age, never having married or had children, or having children who did not survive to provide descendants – have no direct descendants of their own, so it falls to us, their collateral relatives, to learn and write their story.

And, with her usual ingenuity, footnote Maven has come up with a third type of orphan in genealogy!

No matter what type of orphan, their stories are touching and often inspiring. In addition, these tales often carry a mystery within them. I am delighted to see what a strong emotional hold our “orphans” have over those of us who do genealogy research. The message comes across loud and strong in these articles – whether expressed in so many words or demonstrated by the loving care devoted to the research – that the stories of these people deserve to be told. As these articles demonstrate, studying these relatives also improves the quality of our research as a whole. It was also striking how groups such as the Graveyard Rabbits and geneablogging themes such as “Tombstone Tuesday” help to perpetuate the memory of people who might otherwise be forgotten.

If you submitted an article to the Carnival of Genealogy using the submission form and do not see your article below, my profound apologies. The blog carnival submission site stopped worked after the first few days. Just let me know and I will include your blog in this article as well as post it in its own separate article.

Now let the stories begin:

In “Tombstone Tuesday – John S. KINNICK,” Dr. Bill Smith of Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories describes a mystery involving a “reverse orphan” ancestor in which a family legend is smashed by a tombstone. You’ll have to read the story to see what that means!

Cathy Palm of Cameron Collections tells of a wonderful relative she was privileged to know personally in “Who Else Would Tell Her Story? Adelia McCrea – Renowned Mycologist.” Adelia, a pioneer in the field of science, was quite an accomplished woman - you can even take a look at one of her patents! This is not Cathy’s first Carnival post, but it is the first for Cameron Collections.

Over at the Folk Archivist’s Blog (this is a new blog to me, and am I glad to find it!), in “Spinster and Bachelors, not just lifeless limbs in our family trees,” Liza Painter provides a superb analysis of the importance of our spinster, bachelor, and childless relatives, emphasizing equally the important roles they played in family life, the contributions they made to society as a whole, and how they enrich our family research.

Dorene from Ohio has written a touching tribute to a young football player who life was cut short by an automobile accident in “Chester John Thompson, Football Star” at the Graveyard Rabbit of Sandusky Bay. This article illustrates how the work of Graveyard Rabbits and GeneaBloggers can help to preserve the memory of people like Chester, who died too young to marry and have a family.

The Carnival provides an introduction to another interesting new blogger: J. Mulder over at Tracing My Roots. Her “Orphans” COG entry is “The Forgotten Uncle” – love that title! J. M. writes: “I choose the second definition of Orphans, the reverse orphan. This ancestor fits the bill exactly, and so I decided to write an article about him. It brought some surprises, to say the least!” Imagine finding out that you had an uncle you had never heard about before. J. M. was able to locate pictures and several documents, and has used them to put together an informative and moving portrait of her “forgotten uncle.”

Far from being forgotten, the memory of an aunt who died as a baby has been preserved and cherished, as described in Joan Hill’s article “Carnival of Genealogy’s Orphans and Orphans: Baby Irene” at Roots’n’Leaves. Joan’s telling of the story of Baby Irene’s short life packs a powerful emotional punch and skillfully conveys the “need to tell the story” that compels us to write about these orphans. It involves a picture of a beloved family member, family stories, and, what is quite fascinating, the possible genetic explanation behind Baby Irene’s death and the family childbearing pattern.

At Reflections from the Fence, Carol’s story of her “orphan” relative in “85th Carnival of Genealogy, Orphans and Orphans” is particularly intriguing because the relative to whom she has written a wonderful tribute is both a “reverse orphan” and a “regular orphan.” Carol’s story of a talented and witty woman whose life was cut short too early has some dramatic twists and turns that will draw you in.

John Newmark at TransvylanianDutch, who seems to have a full plate of orphan relatives of both types, need no prodding to preserve the memory of “reverse orphan” relatives; he has already posted a number of articles on his great uncles Mandell Newmark and Samuel Van Every. Moreover, in “Orphans” he outlines a fascinating “orphan-related” (or more precisely, “orphanage-related”) mystery in his family history. The ultimate fate of another family of orphans also remains unknown. Given John’s sleuthing skills, we can look forward to reading about how he gets to the bottom of these mysteries.

Apple’s touching story of “Rose” at Apple’s Tree really tugged at my heart because it reminds me so much of my own brick wall great-grandmother. It is an irresistible combination of mystery – actually, several mysteries – with a heartrending tale of how her great-grandmother had to experience the fate of an orphan even though her parents were still living. Apple has done some outstanding detective work to fill in the blanks in Rose’s life, and her yearning to learn the remaining “whys” and “what-ifs” is contagious.

Katrina’s tale of the McQuarrie twins at Kick-Ass Genealogy, “Ausker and Olive McQuarrie: Carnival of Genealogy 85 (Orphans and Orphans),” demonstrates how compelling we find the stories of those we research, even when we’re not quite sure that we are related to them. Katrina details her efforts to explain discrepancies in records and we are left wondering if the continual reappearance of the twins in her searches is their way of telling her that they want their story told. You’ll have an itch to learn the true story of these twins.

Ruth Stephens’ thought-provoking and affectionate article at Bluebonnet Country Genealogy, “85th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: Orphans and Orphans,” poses the question that must nag at so many researchers: “What if?” Ruth has orphans of both kinds in her family history and has compiled a brief photo history of each of them. By the way, I am embarrassed to admit that I did not original include Bluebonnet Country Genealogy in my list of Texas-connected GeneaBloggers (“The Texas Team”); that has been corrected.

In “Miss Johanna Tieking,” Bev Bird of Tieking – Stevenson Families pays tribute to one of the very people who accumulated the family treasures that Bev is now able to use to learn and write her family history. Bev eloquently expresses the sense of responsibility many of us feel for keeping our childless and single relatives’ memories alive.

At The Pieces of My Past, Tracy spins the tale of how a paper with seven names gave but a hint of the tragedy-laden story that lay behind the list in “COG 85: Orphans and Orphans.” Tracy also makes a good case for looking at all the family circumstances when we form our definition of an “orphan.” An excellent example of weaving a story from all the little bits of information!

In “Orphaned by Another Means,” TCasteel of Tangled Trees presents the challenge of learning more about a great-grandmother who lost one parent and was abandoned to a harsh fate by the other parent. There is a family legend and some conflicting scraps of information – a familiar paucity of information to anyone who has researched a brick wall. As I also have a great-grandmother who was said to have had to work for another family at a young age, this story touched me and I am eager to learn more.

In “COG: Lee Rutter – How Do You Connect?” Jen of ShawGenealogy shows the tenacity that genealogists need to have when they pursue the story of an “orphan” relative whose story consists of puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together. And, of course, the compulsion to learn more never goes away, no matter much meticulous research may have uncovered, as Jen so ably demonstrates.

Bill West of West in New England pulls together all the pieces of information on his Grant Aunt Winnie, who died at around age forty without every marrying, in “Winifred McFarland.” Bill’s article is a good example and reminder to assemble and record all the documents, photographs, and oral history about each of our relatives who may still be present in the keepsakes and memories of the living.

The beautifully told and poignant story in Tonia’s article for the COG, “Orphans and Orphans: A Sad Bit of History,” at Tonia’s Roots, begins and ends with headstones. What I especially love (among other things) about this article is that it puts the story of the family in question into historical context.

At Genea-Musings, Randy Seaver’s “Orphans of two kinds” recounts the histories of both types of orphans who have appeared in his family tree. He has posted previously on these orphan relatives and you should click on the links to the articles if you have not read them already in order to experience the full poignancy of all these short lives. The recounting of the causes of death alone is enough to make you grateful to be alive in the 21st century.

Jasia of Creative Gene honors her Aunt Gee in “Remembering an Aunt with Many Names.” This beautiful tribute is a wonderful way to remember a generous and beloved aunt who had no children of her own and at the end of her life did not even have a funeral or memorial. My wish for all of our “orphan” relatives would be to be remembered in just this way.

footnoteMaven, ever alert, has caught an omission in my typology of orphans. There is yet a third type, described in her contribution, “An Orphanage.” I am definitely eager to follow fM’s progress as she tries to identify her orphans. (From now on I will always think of any collection of orphan photos as an orphanage.) Good luck with your quest, fM, and please keep us updated on what you learn and how you learn it!

Preston Moore was the first “reverse orphan” ancestor I ever researched and he is the one who pulled me into this obsession. It just did not seem fair that my cousin and I knew what happened to all of his siblings and knew nothing of his fate. My ignorance about Civil War military units and lack of experience in genealogical research probably made my search for him more circuitous than it needed to be, with some false starts and dead ends along the way, but I am glad I never gave up. I have recorded the tale of this search and its results in “Orphans and Orphans: Searching for Preston Moore” and “The Two Preston Moores.”

As I suspected, there is at least one “Orphans and Orphans” post I missed, and it has several intriguing twists, so you won’t want to miss this one: Charles Hansen’s “Orphans for the Carnival of Genealogy #85” at Mikkel’s Hus. (This is cross-posted in the main Carnival post and as a separate post). The biggest mystery in Charles’ story of his great-uncle Laurits Hansen is this: How can one of a pair of twins, the one who was reported as dying at five days after birth, have survived to become father to a family of a family of 11 children? The path to the solution of this mystery involves twins, an early christening, a flood, and one of the pitfalls of research using microfilm. My apologies for missing this one, Charles - it's a humdinger!

That concludes the 85th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. My thanks to all who participated; I am certain that readers will enjoy your submissions and learn from them, as I have. And now, you all know what comes next:

Call for Submissions! The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy will be: The Other Holiday Happenings! Often times December to mid-January birthdays and anniversaries get over shadowed by the Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year holidays. So we're going to shine a spotlight on those family members and ancestors this time around. Select one or more December to mid-January birthdays and/or anniversaries on your family tree. Write a short tribute to or memory of those birthday guys and gals and write a toast to the anniversary couples. Share it in the COG!

And this edition will have a Part 2 as well (separate blog post)! We can't go into the Christmas holiday without our genealogy wish lists for Genea-Santa!!! So write up a list of what you'd like Genea-Santa to bring you and share it in the COG :-) The deadline for all entries is December 15th. This edition will be hosted by Jasia at Creative Gene.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy using our carnival submission form. Please use a descriptive phrase in the title of any articles you plan to submit and/or write a brief description/introduction to your articles in the "comment" box of the blog carnival submission form. This will give readers an idea of what you've written about and hopefully interest them in clicking on your link. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Thanks to Louise at Our Twigs for Kreativ Blogger Award; and 7 Things, Goofy Version

My sincere thanks to Louise Bernero at Our Twigs. She was kind enough to honor me with the Kreativ Blogger award, which really lifted my spirits at the end of a long day. You should definitely check out her blog, and when you do, open up the full-size version of her profile photo; it’s lovely. I also apologize for not including her among the Texas Team of genea-bloggers; that has now been corrected.

As called for and to show my gratitude, I am posting Seven Things About Me: Goofy Version.

1. I have a Doctor Who scarf.

2. I got the scarf at a science fiction convention.

3. I can bend the last joint of my fingers without bending the other joints.

4. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 31.

5. My Christmas ornaments include a "Texas Christmas Wreath" made of barbed wire.

6. In college I camped out on the steps of the Kennedy Center overnight to get tickets to performances of the Bolshoi Opera.

7. There is an incredible amount of catnip in my house. (Not because we buy so much; mostly we always put some in our cats’ Christmas stockings – go ahead, snicker – and they usually get some from our catsitter for Christmas. Rather because we give them so little: R.B. is already so brazenly naughty without the added inhibition-suppressing properties of catnip; BooBoo is already a bug-eyed loon, especially when he has that little red laser-pointer dot to chase; and Pipsqueak has her grungy little catnip bag that she tokes up on every day.)

Follow Friday: The Texas Team

A Land of Deepest Shade - Stephen Mills

ABT UNK - Amanda

All My Ancestors - Debra Osborne Spindle

All My Branches, The Graveyard Rabbit of South Denton County – Wendy Littrell

BeNotForgot – Vickie Everhart

Beyond Fiction – Ken Spangler

Blanton Family Roots and Branches – Debbie Blanton

Bluebonnet Country Genealogy - Ruth Stephens

Blue Eyes and Blue Bonnets

Branching Out Through the Years – hummer

Consanguinity – Patti Browning

Family Stories, Texas Family Stories, Family Stories in Stone – Caroline Pointer

Family Tales – Andrea Christman

GeneaBlogie – Craig Manson

Genealogy Traces – Judith Richards Shubert

Herstoryan – Herstoryan

Kinfolk News – Regina

Linsecum Lineage – Stephanie Lincecum

Moore History - Deep in the Heart of Texas - Laura Leigh

Mopsie Rabbit's Cemetery Memoirs - Mopsie Marilisa

MyFamilyRootsRunDeep – Life Goes On

Our Family History - Dana Huff

Our Twigs - Louise Bernero

Stephen's History and Genealogy - Stephen Mills

Texas History & Genealogy Blog - Teri

The Graveyard Rabbit of Wichita County, Texas - Robin

The Hopes and Dreams of a Texas Grandma – Tina

The Internet Genealogist – Leah

TransylvanianDutch – John Newmark

Untangled Family Roots – Amy Crooks

We Tree – Amy Coffin

Where I Come From - Robin

Wood County, Texas Genealogical Society Bulletin

In Today’s Follow Friday I would like to feature the “Texas Team” of genea-bloggers. I was almost going to call this group “The Texas Mafia,” simply because we Texans seem to be everywhere in the genea-blogging world. My initial criterion for inclusion in this group was a strong focus on Texas research, but it was hard to figure out exactly what level of involvement in Texas research made it “strong,” so perhaps we could just say there is a strong Texas connection. That also covers people who currently live in Texas (such as Patti Browning of Consanguinity) but do not have much or any genealogy research that involves Texas. I am sure I have not included all genea-bloggers with a Texas connection, so if you have that Texas connection and do not see your name here, please add a comment or contact me using the “Contact” button on the left and I will print a post with corrections and additions.

I was also going to write up a brief description of each of these blogs (some I have reviewed before: Judith Shubert’s Genealogy Traces , Amy Coffin’s We Tree, and Patti Browning’s Consanguinity), but it turned out that the group is larger than I thought, so I’ll try for individual posts for each blog on Follow Friday.

I have to admit that I feel so honored to be among this group – there are so many talented writers, storytellers, artists, and even techies in it. I will try to refrain from making the claim that it’s a Texas thing, but it won’t be easy.

Revisiting “Researching, Blogging, Social Networking, and Finding Time”

For some time I have been intending to write a follow-up to a post I wrote last July, “Researching, Blogging, Social Networking, and Finding Time,’” and then a couple of days ago I read FootnoteMaven’s witty post on the Carnival of Genealogy subject “Read My Obituary at the COG.” She points the finger at time-consumers Facebook and Twitter as the culprits – this could have been me! (Except for the Twitter part.)

I am happy to report that the time thing is working a bit better for me. I am now doing more genealogy and “enough” blogging. There is still a long way to go and I don’t always accomplish what I want to from day to day. Some days there are only a few look-ups or transcriptions, or I miss out on blogging prompts or carnivals (such as the blog obituary carnival – I even had a beginning paragraph, but still missed the deadline). If I have not made all the progress I had wished toward doing more genealogy, the distracting factors have primarily been work, family life, and “comatose days” – come home, eat, do a few chores, snooze in front of the TV.

What is different is that I am doing less social networking. There are various reasons for this, and I’m embarrassed to say that resolving to spend less time on social networking sites is not high on the list. The cutback actually happened sort of naturally.

- Facebook does not take up nearly as much of my time, mainly because my college daughter spends almost no time on it this year, and she was my main chat partner last year. This is not a 100% positive development, since I haven’t posted family pictures or document transcripts recently.

- I haven’t been on GenealogyWise for more than a month; that’s not all to the good, either, because it is still an avenue for getting in touch with other researchers and sharing knowledge.

For many genealogy researchers (including me), genealogy is an intensely social pursuit. Networking is a necessary, productive, and enjoyable part of genealogical research. If we cannot or do not interact with other people – connecting to relatives, experts, and other researchers to get the information we need by inquiring, learning, sharing, teaching, interviewing, and so forth – we seriously limit what we are able to achieve in our research. In addition, there is a need to share and publish what we have learned – to get feedback, advice, “attaboys,” or even commiseration. These things encourage and inspire us. Even some of the social genea-networking we do that doesn’t seem to produce direct results often fulfills this latter purpose and may keep us going when we get discouraged. For this reason, rather than making drastic cuts in social networking, it is probably better to reorder the networking we do if it is hindering instead of promoting our research.

For instance, I am trying to focus on a couple of mainstays in my blog, the Monday and Friday features: Monday Memories because recording our own memories is an essential part of genealogy that is often neglected, the featured families as a way to get in touch with other researchers, and family newsletters to keep interested family members current on my research. The Family Newsletters also keep me on track. Each week I have to report on what I have done, where I am, and what I need to do. Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun has been marvelous in helping me to set my genealogy research goals and priorities. Some of the carnivals help me to highlight research that I’m eager to share. Reading other genealogy blogs educates me, amuses me (there are some great humorists among the genea-bloggers), gives me new ideas, and reinvigorates me when I’m starting to drag.

I have noticed that when the Fairfax Genealogical Society resumed meetings in the fall there was a big spike in my research output. The meetings were a big incentive to get busy on my brick walls, both in preparation for the brick wall workshops and just because hanging out with other genealogy people gets the juices going.

Right around the time when I wrote “Researching, Blogging, Social Networking, and Finding Time,” several other blog posts appeared on the same subject; these thoughts had obviously stewing for a while with all of us. Some wiser heads noted that there seems to be a natural ebb and flow in our genealogy research, and that during the lulls we gather energy and inspiration to make a fresh and vigorous re-entry into genealogy. I believe they are right and am here to report that social networking has not killed my research.

Family Newsletter Thursday: 8 October 2009

Smith (Brinlee)

Another all-Smith week, but this was not boring work! The method of finding a family by looking at all “eligible” families with that surname over a large area (in this case, Tennessee) may sound tedious, but it’s actually fun.

Last night my husband and I were sitting in the family room, each with our laptop, when I suddenly yelled out, “Another family knocked off!” My husband stared at me in surprise. “I thought genealogy was a gentle pursuit?” “No one killed them,” I replied. “They’re not even out of my database, but they just went from Category 1 (good fit) to Category 4 (very unlikely).” A Google search for “John Morgan Smith” + Fritz (one of John’s sons) pulled up a Rootsweb message board post by a grandson of Fritz, who wrote that his “great-aunt Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Smith never married,” but had spent her life taking care of another family member. So she’s out. The fewer candidate families are left, the closer I feel I’m getting to finding “my” Lizzie Smith’s family.

I also sent out an inquiry to the person who set up the memorial to Lizzie on Findagrave to see if she could provide me with the source for the information that Lizzie was “born in Knoxville.”

Moore

(Forgot to mention this last week.) I started on the last batch of Moore obituaries. These were getting pretty far down in the weeds. This doesn’t exactly wrap up this project, but will definitely complete the first stage. I’m thinking that next I’ll start over with Samuel Moore (d. 1828, Greenville) and go down the lines again, noting and trying to fill in gaps, put inquiries out on the message boards, and check Ancestry, Family Search Record Search, etc., to see if new information pops up, and from there -- ? I’m not really sure what to do with it next. What form should I put this information in and what should be done with it?



Blog

To the person or persons who nominated me as one of the Family Tree Magazine's 40 Best Genealogy Blogs – thank you so much! I am honored by the nomination and by the company that the nomination puts me among.

Researching, Blogging, Social Networking, and Finding Time

Many people with a strong interest in genealogy – professionals, semi-pros, and keen amateurs alike – have taken up blogging and social networking to further their genealogy research. I think most of us discovered early on what an effective strategy contacting other researchers can be, whether they are researching the same lines and we want to pool information, or they have expertise in particular areas and we would like to learn from them. Many of our genealogy happy dances are occasioned not only by finding information, but also by making contact with distant cousins. So, in an effort to “put our research out there” and make more useful (and enjoyable) genealogy contacts, we have used blogging and social networking platforms to pursue our research goals.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I have bumped up against one of those hard facts of life: there are only 24 hours in a day, and I need to spend at least a few of those sleeping, not to mention interacting with my family and meeting my other non-genealogy-related obligations in life. This issue has been brought into even sharper focus recently by the addition of an alluring new social networking site created expressly for genealogists: GenealogyWise. Barely a week old, it has exploded in popularity, which has been reflected in the addition of hundreds of new members each day as well as quite a few blog articles on the subject. Most of these articles were positive and cited some new possibilities offered by “the new kid on the block,” although a considerable number of reviews also included some reservations about possible drawbacks. A few blog posts even set forth the authors’ reasons for not joining this new wave of social networking.

I held out for an entire day before I joined GenealogyWise. I though it wouldn’t hurt to sign up just to see what was there, and then if it didn’t seem to provide anything I couldn’t already do, I’d just let my participation languish.

It offered a lot. Many of the features I do have access to elsewhere – in a lot of different places. On GenealogyWise, they’re all packaged together: a place for blog posts as well as links to our “outside” blogs, pictures, notes, networking with others in various ways – through interest groups, posting on one another’s pages, an internal e-mail system, chat, and on and on. I was weak. I caved. I participated and had fun, especially when I found a number of friends from the genea-blogging community. I was even able to pass on a tip on a helpful researcher to another GenealogyWise user.

And yet… that “only so many hours in a day” problem will not go away. Last week I spent about the same amount of time I usually do reading and writing (e-mail, Facebook, blog posts), so which usual activity had to sacrifice the minutes and hours I spent on GenealogyWise?

It was my research. Actually, ever since I started blogging and Facebooking, my research time has been dwindling. At the very beginning, there may not have been a significant reduction, because I actually saved some time by posting pictures, notes, and research results on my Facebook page instead of writing individually to the relatives with whom I share research. But as my blog progressed and additional networking opportunities appeared on Facebook, that early momentum went into reverse. I still post some items to share on Facebook, but even that has suffered lately. And I miss the constant e-mailing back and forth I used to do with my cousins when I first started genealogy.

Different genealogy researchers have different amounts of time to devote to this passion, but I’m betting that I’m not alone in finding it extremely difficult to prioritize my genealogy-related activities so that I can pursue my research while enjoying the social aspect (which has always been high on my list of reasons for enjoying genealogy so much in the first place).

I have a full-time job (which I love and do not plan to retire from until I absolutely have to), a husband, a daughter in college, a daughter in high school, three cats, and some volunteer commitments. Yet I know I probably do not have the worst time crunch problems in the genealogy community; my daughters are still young enough that I can remember the time demands made by young children, and many retirees still have significant family and volunteer obligations. Moreover, professional genealogists and the passionate semi-pros and amateurs with a substantial web presence may love what they do, but they also have to meet their professional commitments to customers and the expectations of their Internet audiences in addition to pursuing their own research.

Until recently, part of my usual evening routine after getting home from work, in addition to chores and family time, looked like this:

1. Check and reply to e-mail.
2. Check Facebook and write replies, comments, and posts.
3. Read and comment on blogs.
4. Do research.

And now GenealogyWise has taken over spot #4, pushing research to the pathetic (and often omitted, at least during weekdays) #5 spot.

So what can I do to put my research back on track? I think it needs to be put back to a higher place on my list. After all, what will I have to share on my blog and on social networking sites if I don’t keep adding to my previous research? During weeks with heavier scheduling demands, blog reading and Facebook could be done on alternate nights.

And GenealogyWise? It’s still there, but I have to learn to use it efficiently. As long as it doesn’t get gunked up by Facebook-type applications and distractions, it should be a useful tool. Interest groups are numerous (and ever-increasing) but still small in terms of membership; participation should be selective, but it can definitely pay off down the line, just as posting on message boards does.

I may use GenealogyWise for a little bit of “mini-blogging” as well as posting links to my regular blog. By “mini-blogging” I mean short posts on current topics of interest to genealogy researchers as well as an occasional “names, place, and most wanted faces” posts to keep my brick walls and high-interest research questions out there; more in-depth posts will still be reserved for the regular blog. The other extreme is “micro-blogging” (aka Twitter), which I have so far avoided because I’m not any good at it.

I do not think I will ever be able to return to the good old days when I could average a good 10 hours or more of research a week, but I am learning to cut some of the clutter elsewhere.

But there are still times when I wish I could clone myself.