Genealogy Blog Family History

Family History BlitzPosted by Administrator on November 20th, 2009

 As I mentioned in my last post, our family just came into a huge list of names and dates. And it seems like the subject of compiling everything in one place has been in the air every time my cousins and I get together. People have records here and records there, stuff shoved into shoe boxes or old photo albums. Because we can’t shake the nagging feeling that we need to make an inventory of all the records we have, we are getting together this Saturday for a family history blitz.

This means we’re going to go online and see what we have already. Then we’re going to take all the loose bits of paper and notes on the backs of photos and make sure everything is accounted for. At the end, we’ll know where we’re missing information, where our efforts should placed. 

Has anyone out there ever done this? Did it work? Let me know.

Family history treasure trove out of the bluePosted by Administrator on November 17th, 2009

From out of the blue, I have happened upon a treasure trove of family information from my father’s side. Last night, I just happened to be talking to my little brother about learning more about our genealogy. We know our father’s family comes from England, Scotland, and Prussia. We know some of them immigrated to America aboard the Mayflower. But as far as names and dates, we were clueless. There was a Cherokee princess in there somewhere, but that was about it.

As result of our conversation, my little brother happened to bring it up when he was talking to our father this weekend. That’s when my father, who has done a substantial amount of family history, passed him a file of hundreds of names and dates. In one fell swoop, we were able to get better acquainted with several generations, where they were born, where they were married, and where they died. There are uncles and aunts in there, too. 

Sometimes, to get started, I guess all you need to do is talk about it. Parents and grandparents can be an invaluable resource in getting started. Sometimes your questions can spur something they had forgotten. Something is bound to come up. Pretty cool, huh?

What the Heck are Death Records? The Diary of a Born-Again GenealogistPosted by Administrator on August 19th, 2009

I remember hearing my parents talk about death records when I was a child and feeling a chill go down my spine. Death? All I knew about death was skeletons and graveyards and ghosts. It turns out my parents weren’t morbid at all, nor were they fans of Edgar Allan Poe. Rather, they were genealogists and finding death records for them was like striking gold.

Yeah, I grew up taking my genealogy for granted. Perhaps better than most average Americans, I knew my roots back to the Mayflower and into Europe on one side and back to Hawaii and Japan on the other. I knew I had a scoundrel of an Irish grandfather who sold away a huge piece of prime real estate on the North Shore for a ship full of rum. I had a Japanese grandfather who ran away with a Chinese circus (I’ve tried to talk my wife into letting me return to my roots and start a career as a lion tamer, but she has turned me down flat!). In short, the work was all done for me.

Lately, however, I’ve felt the need to do some digging of my own on my wife’s side and more on my own side. I am what you could call a born-again genealogist.

I’m hoping to document my progress in this blog. As I relearn all of the terminology and learn how to use a microfiche, I’ll chronicle my exploits in this blog. I just hope I don’t run into any skeletons, ghosts, or Edgar Allan Poe, for that matter.