Live from Beautiful Falls Church, Virginia: It’s the iGene Awards!

(Our Special Reporter is reporting on the Fourth Annual iGene Awards ceremony. This Fab Event, which is just one part of the Mega-Event known as the Carnival of Genealogy, is celebrated each year all over the country by members of the Academy of Genealogy and Family History, an elite and exclusive organization of genealogy bloggers run by a mysterious and powerful coterie of Genea-Blogging Celebrities. One of the most mysterious and powerful members of that coterie is Jasia, author of the Creative Gene blog and the alleged mastermind behind the Carnival of Genealogy and the iGene Awards. Informed sources report that it is she who dictates the categories for the awards: Best Picture, Best Screen Play, Best Biography, Best Documentary, and Best Comedy.)

We’re reporting from the Red Carpet in glamorous Falls Church, Virginia (well, actually, from nearby less-glamorous Fairfax County), and I just cannot adequately convey the excitement and buzz generated by the Awards this year. And coming down that carpet I think I see ... can it be? Oh, my goodness, the humanity, you will not believe the major Genea-Blogging celebrities who have just graced the carpet and us with their brilliant, overpowering presence, why, it’s

BZZZZZT

[Black screen.]

One and a half hours later...

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for staying with us through the unforeseen technical difficulties caused by ice and snow on the power lines here.

Unfortunately, this lost time has seriously cut into the time we have for long-winded acceptance speeches and silly routines tonight’s entertainment, so we are just going to cut to the chase and hand out the awards:


The iGene Award for Best Picture goes to:

A photographic study of the pernicious effects of nepeta cataria addiction on an intimate circle of felines as demonstrated by a single evening of dazed decadence (aka, the New Year’s Eve our cats got stoned on catnip):

Silly Saturday: New Year’s Eve Nip Party

The iGene Award for Best Comedy goes to:

The best comedy is musical comedy, and this year’s winner, a light-hearted take on the travails, traps, and travesties of family research, is no exception:

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

The iGene Award for Best Screenplay goes to:

An intimate portrait of family life and an exploration into how a seemingly insignificant item can lead to a major emotional outburst resulting in revelation and new insights for the family:

Memory Monday: The Flower Bowl

Special acting awards go to Jane Lynch as the mom with the “tempest-in-a-flower-teapot” temperament and, as the bewildered daughters, six-year-old Dakota Fanning and three-year-old Elle Fanning.

It should be mentioned that the voting was quite close (that’s what happens when you have 10 nominees in this category), so the Academy would like to mention two deserving runner-ups:

Memory Monday: The Missing Mermaid and the Children Who Would Not Sleep

and

Memory Monday: The Tree in Our Basement.

The iGene Award for Best Documentary goes to:

A complex and nuanced, yet dramatic study of the research process drawn out over four installments in the style of the old cliffhanger serials:

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

(Commentator’s gratuitous aside to the viewing audience: There is a delicious irony to the victory of this multipart series: The winner of the Best Screenplay Award at last year’s iGene Awards was the two-part series “Searching for Preston Moore.” One of many shockers delivered by “From the Will to the Estate Packet” was that Preston Moore had not, in fact, died in the Civil War!)

(Note for you serious cinephiles out there: The Director’s Cut Version DVD of this movie includes the following bonus features:

Bonus Post: “Researching in Greenville” - the documentary behind the documentary!

The Cinematographer’s View: “Greenville Love” and “Main Street, Greenville, USA”)


The iGene Award for Best Biography goes to:

A loving tribute to a favorite uncle:

Billy Jack Brinlee, 1934-2010

The Runner-Up for this category is:

There’s One - or Two - in Every Family: A Visit with Bun and Square Brinlee

(The Academy denies that there was any nepotism involved in choosing two posts on members of the same family.)


And finally, the Academy would like to institute its own humanitarian award, the Genea-Bloggers’ Act of Genealogical Kindness Award, and present it to two very deserving recipients:

Tracy at The Pieces of My Past for asking a friend for information on my Tarrant line and sending me the material the friend provided.

Cynthia at Heritage Zen for helping me out with the Stepanishen family.

(Thunderous applause by the audience. Because this is the award that really counts.)


My humble thanks to the mysterious mastermind Jasia for making these Awards and the Carnival of Genealogy possible.

Live from beautiful Falls Church, Virginia: It’s the iGene Awards!

I’ve only been on the genea-blogging scene since August 2008, but I’ll attempt to plumb the depths of my scant oeuvre…

Best Picture: The stylish costume piece, “Doll Brinlee and Nina Pounds,” narrowly loses to the gritty realism of Hiram, Lizzie, Austin, and Odell Brinlee, presented in a contender in the winner in the Best Biography category, My Brick Wall: Susan Elizabeth Smith Bonner Brinlee. I treasure this picture of my great-grandparents and great uncles and will always be grateful to the second cousin who sent it to me.

Best Screenplay: All the contenders were multi-part productions: the three-part Getting Hooked by Genealogy, two-part Descendants of David Floyd?, and the winner, the two parter Finding a New Family and Alice Floyd Ezell Bibb. The winner was a tragedy wrapped inside a detective/mystery story. When the story starts, the researcher realizes that there must have been an unidentified daughter in the Caswell Floyd family, but does not realize that she had actually “found” that daughter once before. And as for the tragedy, although I know family researchers encounter untimely deaths often in their research, it seemed that every new piece of the puzzle brought another tragic event with it. This family truly touched me and I was glad I found them and could tell their story.

Best Documentary: My Playhouse, for the amount of detail and associated memories it brought up – it was often the center of an imaginary world inhabited by my playmates and me. Writing this was a reminder that space to play in may be more important than a variety of toys as an inspiration for imagination and creativity.

Best Biography: My Brick Wall: Susan Elizabeth Smith Bonner Brinlee, starring Lizzie Brinlee, a beloved figure in the fabled Brinlee clan. Small scraps of known information, tantalizing clues and hints, formidable research obstacles, and an enduring family mystery are interwoven in this work.

Best Comedy: I Totally Stole This, a “derivative yet amusing slapstick,” “reminiscent of the old one-reelers, yet oddly evocative of post-modernist sensibilities…, revealing minimalist aesthetics in its simplicity and forthrightness.” (The director deflects charges of derivation, claiming it is merely an homage to the masterful stylings of the original produced by Janet the Researcher.)

I want to thank every single ancestor I know of (reads huge list), the many genealogy blogs that have inspired me (reads long list), my family and friends (reads another long list), and last but not least (sounds of people snorting awake and some scattered applause), Jasia at Creative Gene and the Academy of Genealogy and Family History, for making these awards possible. Thank you, thank you. (Blows kiss to audience.)