Planning a family reunion?

Now is the time to start talking about/planning a family reunion for this summer–or be really on top of things and plan it for next summer!  I don’t think there’s anything more frustrating then to get a letter/email/phone call like this:

"So, you’re coming to the reunion next month, right?  EVERYONE is going to be there!!"

…and depending on what type of extended family you have you could also hear/read this:

"What do you mean you can’t AFFORD to come?  Everyone is coming!  How will it look if you’re the only person that doesn’t come, & so forth."

Whereas after that last bit maybe you don’t want to go anymore–family reunions are still a must-do at least once a decade.  C’mon–really!  But when the planning is last minute–it can really hamper previous vacation plans, and getting time off work/school could be sticky too.  So if you’d like to see your family, start NOW on the family reunion stuff.  

Here’s some links to planning, hope you enjoy! 

 

http://family-reunion.com/

http://genealogy.about.com/od/family_reunions/

http://www.bhg.com/bhg/category.jsp?categoryid=/templatedata/bhg/category/data/familyreunion_062301.xml

http://www.ehow.com/how_55_family-reunion.html

http://www.aagsnc.org/articles/reuniontips.html  (nice checklist)

http://www.celebrate.myevent.com/?affID=1739&campaign_name=FamilyReunions&ad_group_name=familyreunions&ad=858240493&gclid=CNWJ_OugipECFQ6CPAodDyQQFg (pay site)

Popularity: 46% [?]

Organizing those photos

Is one of your goals this year to organize all those photos and mementos you have from family and such?  If so there’s a great class called Library of Memories.  It is a class that teaches a system of organization by Stacy Julian.  It IS related to scrapbooking–but can translate to all your family history mementos.  Registration opens on Jan. 12th and spots go pretty quickly so sign up while you can.  Personally I really want to take it–the class is only offered once a year since its an ongoing thing.  However–thanks to Google bankrolling a huge private-island wedding, I can’t. 

sorry, don’t mean to be bitter. 

not really. 

But you should check out the class.  Stacy is a great teacher and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy about organizing your memories. 

http://www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com/lom2008.php

Popularity: 47% [?]

Family Favorites

Another random thought on documenting your current family history–because its not just the ancestors you should be thinking about–its your decendents too!

 

So, spend a few minutes listing your family’s favorite meals.  Places you like to eat, recipes that have been handed down for generations, things you remember making as a kid. 

My mom made a really yummy Tuna Casserole.  We just called it Tuna Casserole–of course it had noodles too–that went unsaid.  She made it with crushed potato chips on top, or sometimes torn up bread that would toast–so yummy!  Then my sister started making it in high school when it was her turn to cook–don’t know what was different, but somehow Jean perfected Tuna Casserole! 

Now, however–that recipe is part of my past–because my children are anti-cheese and my husband has a thing against fish.  but every now and then I still think about Tuna Casserole.

And smile.

Popularity: 47% [?]

What we do when we assume

You know this joke right?  Its a play on the word ‘assume’.  You make an ___ out of "u" and "me". 

Whether you conciously do it or not, you make assumptions every day of your life–about a variety of  topics, people, situations, etc.  But when it comes to your family history, assumptions can lead you to a dead end. 

Michael John Neill has written a nice article on this subject over at Ancestry. 

Which reminds me that my mom was relating that she’s found out new information on an ancestor of ours–he claimed to be born in one state, when in reality he was from another–it was an appearances thing.  Just goes to show that unless you were there witnessing the event–you have to take everything with a grain of salt. 

Popularity: 63% [?]

Are YOU the black sheep in your family?

If so, you’re in good company! 

Or are you the lone sane person in a family tree overrun with crazed squirrels? 

I found an interesting article at  Blog Some Genealogy .  Take a look, and then I’ll pose a challenge–find a politician that you’re related to!  Personally I am related to George W (and the rest of his family) thru a G-G-G Aunt (or something–I’m not looking at the page right this second) Cora Neff Bush–she married into the Bush family.  Plus I’m related to ole T.J himself–so that’s where the red hair comes from! 

Of course, we’re all descended from Noah–unless A.B.C had it right when they put water-pirates in that made-for-t.v special a few years back.  And on that same note–we’re all descended from Adam–unless you go for the whole alien photocopy thing.  So if we go back far enough–and side-step the circular family trees (you know, the ones plagued with the crazed squirrels) I’m sure we’d find lots of familiar names. 

 

Oh, that so reminds me—when my cousin and I were roomies in college we had a friend J.C.  J.C was cool in his own way–a bit eccentric, but nothing really worrying.  well, nothing that required counseling.  But cuz’ had been working on her FH at the time and noticed that J.C’s last name was in a lot of her research. 

From the same state that he was from.

And the same county!! 

Turns out they were not too distant of cousins!! 

Yet more proof that U of C, Provo is a small, small world unto itself! 

(and another reason that it was good that the friendship never went any farther!!)

 

J.C–you know we love you!! 

And cuz–you KNOW who I’m referring to and I know you’re laughing your self silly! 

Popularity: 62% [?]

Was it Genealogy or Family History?

ge·ne·al·o·gy  (jn-l-j, -l-, jn-)

n. pl. ge·ne·al·o·gies

1. A record or table of the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestor or ancestors; a family tree.

2. Direct descent from an ancestor; lineage or pedigree.

3. The study or investigation of ancestry and family histories.

---

[Middle English genealogie, from Old French, from Late Latin genelogia, from Greek genelogi : gene, family; see gen- in Indo-European roots + -logi, -logy.]

---

gene·a·logi·cal (--lj-kl) adj.

gene·a·logi·cal·ly adv.

gene·alo·gist n.

Hmm…that’s a big word. As a kid I always had a hard time saying it. I still have a hard time spelling it! If you feel uncomfortable with that big word but you still want to do the work—try this pronunciation:

fam·i·ly his·to·ry

Yup, they’re the same thing! But seriously, if you want to start working on your personal family history, now is a great time to start! It has never been easier to find information on ancestors. {you know, those people who originally bought that interesting plate that has been handed down for generations} Thanks to the Internet (lets all sing Hallelujah!) you have so much information at your fingertips! Can you feel the power yet?

Still stumped as how to start? Well, lets start with numero uno (as my dad would say). Meaning you!

1. What is your name?

2. What is your birthday

3. Where were you born?

4. Who are your parents?

For some individuals, #’s 3 and 4 could pose problems. That’s when you start exploring your options:

1. Get a copy of your birth certificate

Or

2. Start bribing your parents friend and/or siblings with obscene amounts of money, chocolate, your firstborn—whatever it takes—for information.

*personally I would recommend option #1, although #2 could be much more interesting.

If you’ve flown thru the first 4 steps easy peasy, then find out all that same information for each of your parents and keep going back until you can go no farther—and you’ve run out of people who are alive to get information out of. This process is also called: Compiling a Pedigree Chart—yup, just like if you were a prized racehorse! And of course being the modern internet savvy people that we are—you can easily do a Google search for specific people. Say you found that you have a Gr-Gr-Grandmother named Bridie O’Malley who was born around 1857—just type in that name and the year in and you’d be surprised at how much information you come across. Of course there are lots genealogy/family history companies out there just waiting to help you—so if you have some time, take a tour through a handful of sites—see what you find.

www.genealogylocator.com

www.genealogy.com

www.ancestry.com

www.genealogy.org

www.familysearch.org

www.genealogy.about.com

Popularity: 54% [?]

FamilySearch Indexing

For the past two weeks I have been working on the FamilySearch
Indexing project. This is something that I read about at church and felt that
it would be an important program to participate in.

The FamilySearch Indexing project is being run by the LDS
Church and is one of the ways that they will be indexing all of the content that
they have digitized out of their vault. I have blogged in
the past about how excited I am to have this information made readily available to
everyone. For this reason I have felt that it is important for me to help out as much
as I can.

When participating in the project you download a software application that allows
you to do the indexing. You are given a choice of different
areas to begin indexing. Many of the areas deal with census data, but there are
some birth and death indexes as well. I have mostly been working on West Virginia
Births as it is a smaller database and a good place to learn how to read different
handwriting. The software displays your batch which consists of a single page image.
From this image you begin typing data into the project form. The software is easy
to use and gives you many tools to assist in deciphering the handwriting.

I received a message from the project yesterday saying that in January of 2006 there
were around 150,000 names entered. In January of 2007 there were around 3 million.
This is a tremendous increase and shows how involvement in this project is taking
off.

I would encourage everyone to help with this project. The faster that this data gets
indexed the faster it will be made available for us to do our research from the comfort
of our home without having to pay subscription fees.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Family History Overhaul

The Deseret News wrote
a lengthy article on the changes that are going to be taking place with familysearch.org.
Here are some of the highlights:

• “New online tools will allow novices to log on and

Popularity: 90% [?]

Preserving old formats

I have been reading some different articles the past few weeks that deal with preserving old formats of data. The old formats might be audio tape, VHS, old floppy disks, etc… With the change in technology it becomes more difficult to find ways to access the data (most computers don’t have floppy drives anymore), and the data becomes deteriorated. After reading these articles I realized that I have some old audio tapes of interviews that I conducted back in college of my grandmother and grandfather. I have already transcribed them and have the documents saved on my computer along with printed copies, but I haven’t listened to the tapes in over 10 years, so I don’t know what the quality is. These articles have been a wakeup call to me that it is time to get the tapes onto a cd and also have a digital version on my computer. I am usually pretty good about updating files on my computer to the latest formats which should help them stay current for awhile.

Here are some links to the various articles discussing old formats.

Preserving Audio

Going
Digital Doesn’t Mean Forever

Popularity: 51% [?]

Relay for Life

Last night I had the opportunity to participate in the American
Cancer Societies “Relay for Life“. For those
who have never seen one of these events, it consists of a tribute to cancer survivors
and also remembers those who have lost their lives to cancer. I spent the night (10
hours worth) walking around a high school track. During the early hours of the morning
I had the opportunity to ponder things. As I was walking I saw many similar family
names. This got me to thinking about genealogy and how important it is to trace your
genealogy and now your families medical history so you can work on prevention rather
than treatment.

If you even have the chance to participate in one of these events I highly recommend
it. It is a very solemn experience and was well worth the time that I gave to it.

Popularity: 51% [?]

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