The Genealogy & Family History Social Network

September 2010 Blog Posts (33)

Russia, In Color, 100 Years Ago

This website link from Boston.com was recommended on a listserve that I subscribe to and I wanted to share it with my readers. I can’t believe how haunted I am by these photos.

They were taken between 1909 and 1912 by a photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who was commissioned by Czar Nicholas II to…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on September 30, 2010 at 9:46pm — 1 Comment

Two family history blogs

I now have two family history blogs (apart from this one):

Personal Family History and Family News. This blog, on Wordpress, is a log of our family history research, and also has snippets of information about our family, either family news in the present, or anecdotes from the past.
General Genealogy Research: This is a more general blog (on Blogger) on family history and…

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Added by Steve Hayes on September 30, 2010 at 12:46am — No Comments

New link - New information access

Have you heard of issuu.com yet? This is an interesting resource in several ways. For one thing, you can access the latest genealogy magazines at Issuu. As we all know slick magazines abound for all types of subjects, including genealogy and history. But why pay the huge cover prices when you can access them free on-line and (if you register for free) even download the magazines as PDFs. Issuu is what digital publishing is all about. If you register, you can even create and upload your own… Continue

Added by William S Dean on September 27, 2010 at 9:48am — No Comments

Bing vs Google vs Dogpile for Genealogy

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Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on September 25, 2010 at 5:28pm — 3 Comments

Seeing through the screen -- the truth about your genealogy

When I was young I was often fascinated with the visual effect of

staring through a window screen. If you focused your eyes just right,

the screen could appear to be a solid surface. But if you looked beyond

the screen, the outside world became visible. Sometimes in research,

especially in genealogy, we need to see through the screen to the larger

world outside of our family. Once we have seen the world, we can then

refocus on the screen (our family) with renewed… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 25, 2010 at 4:02pm — No Comments

Looking for Michael Coe

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Searching-for-Michael-Coe/146419285394327?v=wall

Added by Mary Kinch on September 24, 2010 at 10:49pm — No Comments

Blue Star Flag

For those who don't know what a Blue Star Flag is .............

The Blue Star Flag first appeared in 1917, when an Army captain who had two sons serving on the front line designed it as a tribute to

their dedication and service. The flag quickly became the unofficial symbol of a

child in the service. Today, families who have a loved one serving in the

military display a blue star flag in the inside front window of their homes to

show the family’s…

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Added by Bob Mooney-Pa on September 24, 2010 at 1:10pm — No Comments

AITKEN or HARPER from Glasgow and Ireland

Hi all, please bare with me while i get use the all this blog stuff. Im sure ill find my way around. Im looking for family members who live in Glasgow and are related to any of the HARPER family

Hugh HARPER

Born 28th Nov 1886

Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland

married 2 April 1920

Houston Renfrewshire Scotland to

Elizabeth MILLER

born 16 feb 1897

Millport, Buteshire Scotland

They had 6 children

James…

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Added by Cathy SUMMERSELL on September 24, 2010 at 9:24am — No Comments

The Dreaded "A" Word

...no not that one! "Adoption", genealogically speaking. By that what I mean is an "adoption" that can put a knothole in your family tree. Let me give an example from my own experience. There is a family debate as to whether my Great-Grandfather is adopted or not. George Grimsley was born 27 Oct 1867, Emporia, KS to John Smith Grimsley and Katherine (Drake) Grimsley. I have found numerous references to his birth, including the almost definitive Cutler's History of…

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Added by Darin Grimsley on September 22, 2010 at 10:50am — 4 Comments

Some common mistakes in genealogy

I tend to look at an awful lot of genealogy and some of it is really

awful. Here is a compilation of a few of the most obvious and easily

rectified errors:

1. Failing to look for and record the correct full name of an ancestor.

One of the side benefits of looking at a large collection of user

submitted family trees is that it is fairly easy to compare the

submissions of any one individual and see the variations. In this case, I

have used… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 22, 2010 at 9:13am — No Comments

Most Rev Daniel Lavery St Louis

Hi Folks,

any one know anything about the Most Rev Daniel Lavery who servedin St Louis circa 1896-1906

Added by Bernard Collins on September 21, 2010 at 9:47am — 2 Comments

Massachusetts Tour Guides and their Myths

The John Harvard statue located in Harvard Yard

A few years ago Philadelphia began a campaign to stop tour guides from telling myths and to start studying history…

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Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on September 21, 2010 at 7:03am — No Comments

My genealogy blogs

You are invited to have a look at my four main genealogy blogs:

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Added by Judy Webster on September 21, 2010 at 12:55am — No Comments

William Harvey Hinkle's Parents

WILLIAM HARVEY HINKLE'S PARENTS WERE ANN KESNER AND JACOB HINKLE. ANY INFORMATION???

Added by Diana Hinkle Johnson on September 19, 2010 at 2:26pm — No Comments

Maybe the Pinta..yes, THAT Pinta...

It's funny. Sometimes we neglect tracing back one of our ancestors because...well, because there's so much material about other ancestor lines or we think a particular line is so exciting and interesting. Lately, I've been re-tracing my footsteps to my great great grandmother, Maria Josefa Bermudez (1826-1880). She married into the Yorba family in 1842 in San Juan Capistrano. I had done sketchy research into the Bermudez line in California, but wanted to start seeing where and who they were… Continue

Added by William S Dean on September 18, 2010 at 10:55am — 3 Comments

No absolutes in genealogy

People's lives are inherently messy, no matter how short or how long and

trying to completely quantify a life is probably unattainable. Even

huge biographies, like Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln do not do justice

to a life. So what can we hope to accomplish as genealogists? How much

information is enough? Where do we stop? Or do we ever stop in

collecting information? If you are like me, you will always believe that

there is one more document and one more place to… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 17, 2010 at 10:13pm — 1 Comment

Musings Before and After "the facts" Part One - Before...

All things considered, many genealogists never get to visit significant geological "roots". Imagine going to the place where some of your ancestors first set foot on "the new homeland". That's what awaits me September 20-21 in San Diego, California. In 1769, California was still "terra incognito" to the Spanish who "owned" it. Isolated points along the coastline had been roughly mapped, but nothing was known. There were no settlements, no waiting stockpiles of supplies, no allies. That is the… Continue

Added by William S Dean on September 16, 2010 at 11:24am — 1 Comment

Register for our next live webinar (October 6, 2010) - Helping Unlock the World's Records

Join us for our next live webinar on Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 2:00PM EDT. The webinar, Helping Unlock the World's Records: an Insider's Perspective on FamilySearch Indexing will be presented by Jim Ericson, product marketing manager at FamilySearch.

Registration is free but space is limited.

Webinar…

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Added by Geoff Rasmussen on September 16, 2010 at 10:39am — No Comments

Library of Congress Newspapers on Microfilm

Interlibrary Loan is one of the most underused resources for

genealogists. As I teach classes at the Mesa Arizona Regional Family

History Center I frequently ask the class participants if they are aware

of the interlibrary loan process. Usually, only one or two out of

twenty or more have even heard of borrowing books from remote libraries.

In our own Mesa Public Library, the Interlibrary Loan selection appears

on the individual login screen for registered users… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 16, 2010 at 8:43am — No Comments

What place controversy?

In a recent post, DearMyrtle asked the question "Being Politically Correct: What should we do as historians?"

I think this question falls into the category of the inclusion of

controversial information into our genealogies. Should we "edit" history

to take out all the undesirable and difficult subjects? What about the

criminals, the illegitimate children and the poor and… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 15, 2010 at 10:30pm — No Comments