A place for exploring our ancestry
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 2: Challenge
Because my New Year’s resolution was to keep in touch with my DNA matches, it should not have been a surprise when I went to my Ancestry Message Center and found that notes from my “cousin matches” had been piling up.
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2019
No more procrastination! First things first!
I’ve just discovered that many of the things I’m setting aside time for now that I’ve retired (on the so-called bucket list) are things that I thought of doing many years ago and put off for one reason or another.
The prompt for the first week in January is Start. A small word for that all important first step forward, or in the case of genealogists, backward as we search for those who have come before us.
#NotAtRootsTech Feb. 8-11 in Salt Lake City, UT
I’m not there 😦 but I can still enjoy the live streaming at https://www.rootstech.org/
Today I’ll be participating in an interesting webinar coordinated by Geoff Rasmussen titled “Strategies to Find the Most Challenging Ancestors with Autosomal DNA Data”.
Sharing genealogy wisdom from Roberta Estes, whose blog, DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy, I follow. Going through many of these in our own DNA research. Well worth reading!
Sooner or later, this happens to every genealogist. You are “gifted” with an ancestor one way or another and either they turn out not to be your ancestor at all, or at least not by that surname. Then, you have to saw that branch off of your own tree! Ouch!
There are lots of ways for this to happen, but this past week, we added a new way – and to me – this new avenue is even more frightening because it carries with it the perception of validation by DNA. After all, DNA doesn’t lie, right? Well, it doesn’t, IF it’s interpreted correctly. And that IF should be in the largest font size possible.
Bad New Ancestor Discovery (NAD) #1
Yep, last week, Ancestry.com released a new feature that uses only your DNA to find your ancestors called New Ancestor Discoveries. Great idea. Not terribly accurate – at least…
View original post 2,884 more words
As we decorate our homes for the holidays, I thought it would be interesting to see how my ancestors would extend greetings of the season in their own native language:
Merry Christmas – England and America: Reed, Mullett, Rankin, Pollard, Hallett, Trostle, Thompson, Dodds, Gray, Cunningham, Shields, Puckett, Stone, Roberts, Garrett, Roberts, Hutchison, Lewis, Magnes, Munson, Gunning, Bailey, Hendricks, Grizzle
Fröhliche Weihnacten – Germany: Gotto, Fromm, Stitz, Massong, Dostert, Thein, Junemann, Kruse, Isenhour, Dahms, Lehrmann,
Nollaig chridheil huibh – Scotland: Brownlee, Hamilton, Ewing, Finney, Hamilton,
Nollaig Shona Dhui – Ireland: Mulhall,
Joyeux Noël – France: Beauchamp,
ᏓᏂᏍᏔᏲᎯᎲ – Cherokee Nation: McGill
Wishing all my followers Peace and Joy in 2016 …
I guess I’m a victim of writer’s block right now and this blog struck me as very honest and creative too. Enjoy!
In this brand new year, with every day just waiting to be lived and more ancestors just waiting to be discovered, there is so much potential for writing new stories. So the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge seems like the perfect way to bring these stories to life.
And since I’m encouraged that I was able to follow through on my resolve to reach out each day to someone who shares and/or is researching my ancestors, I’m going to choose one ancestor each week and write a little story. As Amy Johnson Crow says, “No story is too small.”
Today, I went to the First Monday Trade Days in Canton, TX. Now, I have to tell you right off that this event is monthly, but is held on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday BEFORE the first Monday of each month.
It was an ideal day to wander up and down the little roads and dirt pastures covering the 100 plus acres and browse through the nearly 7000 vendor spaces. Sunny, cool and lightly breezy made for a very pleasant experience. We try to go there at least once a year to see the amazing assortment of odds and ends and antiques and junk displayed by sellers from all over to the delight of buyers who are eager for a bargain or something unusual.
However, I can’t look through these forgotten treasures without thinking about the person who once owned them. The grandmother who put up preserves, beets or okra in the pretty blue-green Ball canning jars. The carpenter who carefully held up the old level to the front door frame of his home that he built with his own hands. The little boy who treasured the worn out baseball glove with laces hanging loose from many seasons of play. The little girl who carried the Raggedy Ann doll around by one arm until it almost pulled loose from her hand-sewn body.
For sure, the next time I go through the boxes of my own keepsakes, I’m going to take a minute or two to step back in time to yesterday, once more and think about the people in my family who have left me more than a cast iron skillet, or a Jewel T coffee pot or a depression glass punch bowl or a celluloid dresser set. They have left me a part of themselves, a token of our connectedness. And I’m going to take a photo of each treasure and include it in the media files for each ancestor so I will never forget how special each piece really is.
Do you have some favorite keepsakes from your ancestors? How do you preserve the memories that each one brings with it?
AncesTrees 