52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History: Week 4
Describe the house in which you grew up. Was it big or small? What made it unique? Is it still there today?
Now this could get emotional! This week my task it to talk about my childhood home… or homes as I remember it. I’m very fortunate to have not moved very often in my life. I’m hoping that trend continues, but only after I move to a nice, quiet town where I want to spend the rest of my days. I know I’m a little young to be thinking about the rest of my days, but as the town around me grows, I can’t help but realize city life is not for me.
My family tells me we lived in a small trailer when I was born, but moved to the bigger one I do remember later. I’ll have to trust them on this because I was only a few months old at the time and my memory ain’t what it used to be if you get my drift. We lived in this trailer from my early baby years until I was in Kindergarten. I remember the circumstances around the end of our time there so clearly.
Mama, Papa, George, La Moss and myself went to Hippodrome for Pa’s birthday. Had supper at Yates. Very stormy night. The wind blew like mad and it rained very hard. “Bitter Times” name of show at Hippodrome this year.
This Monday, I posted my Mystery Monday post on Duncan Walker’s family. When I first started posting Mystery Mondays, it was with the hope that some day I used the right keywords for a Google search to send answers my way. Maybe I’d get lucky and someone would be able to discern a place or the time period of a photo to help me.
This week, more then I expected happened. At some point last week, I received some blog comments from Grace Leonard (Hi Grace!). I quickly shot off an email to her because she’s connected to me through the Love/Menzies line and I just loooove that line (pun intended). Plus it’s so rare that I get people actually researching the same lines as me, I couldn’t let her comments go unanswered!
It turns out Grace is a little more familiar with the Love line then I am! In fact, she could identify Duncan Walker and his family! Oh gosh, it felt like Christmas! According to Grace and the dearly missed Everett Leonard, Duncan Walker married William Wallace Love’s sister Martha! Now all I have to do is find the documentation to back it up!
Grace also let me know that it isn’t easy to get Jane Menzies-Love’s death certificate. It’s getting harder and harder to get information about this woman and the circumstances surrounding her death! I’m thinking ordering the 1890 Essex County, NJ deaths microfilm from the Family History Center might be the best bet. I’m chomping at the bit to get going on my New Jersey research and I think I might overcome my shyness to finally go in and order my first microfilm!
Also, a few changes:
As of yesterday I turned off the captcha filter on the website. I didn’t realize how much people hated it! No one complained to me about it here but if this makes it easier for people to enjoy my blog, then it’s a change I’m more than happy to make! I also turned off the requirement for an email address. Emails are never published on the blog, but they are viewable to me in the administrative side. I was only utilizing that to get back to people who were seeking family information. So if you’re looking for information, be sure to leave your email or look in the sidebar for my email!
Hopefully this blog will be easier to navigate in the coming months when my site redesign is finished. If I have to pull some late nights I’m determined to finish this once and for all! It’s driving me bonkers! I’ve mainly been focusing on the content, but now that I’m into a rhythm, I think it’s time to finally make that design I’ve wanted from the beginning!
Unknown Cityscape
Yes I am still incapable of posting without the use of a picture. 🙂
Alright, I’ve researched my supplies, I’ve made plans, and I’ve used trial and error to go through my chaos of papers. All of this with the help of Elyse Doerflinger‘s book Conquering the Paper Monster. If you feel even a little overwhelmed by the task of organizing your genealogy papers, I definitely recommend this book. I’ve changed my methods a million times in the last 10 years. She explains in very easy to understand terms all the technical terms you may be stuck on. The different types of supplies, the terms you should look for in your supplies. There’s so much information in there and I wouldn’t even dream of trying to reiterate it all here! Just go get the ebook, it’s only a couple of bucks. You’ll spend more on your office supplies then you will the book.
The Alethea class had John Wanamaker’s Quartet out to the church. Made about $8. Very nice night. Grandma came up for supper and went to the entertainment with the folks.
Week 3: Cars. What was your first car? Describe the make, model, and color, but also any memories you have of the vehicle. You can also expand on this topic and describe the car(s) your parents drove and any childhood memories attached to it.
I don’t have a drivers license so I don’t have any first car memories yet. I’ll just stick with cars from my childhood. There are two that I remember well, but my family had a lot of cars before that.
I love that I’m organizing my research. I love even more that it’s giving me an opportunity to look at every piece of documentation that I have in my possession. Before I started my organization, I was just so overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I had. It was tiring just to look at it. Now I’m making heads and tails of it and finding little clues where I didn’t notice them before. Something as simple as remembering to scan the back of a photograph.
It’s time for another one of my favorite genealogy blogs! This week I chose Marian’s Roots and Rambles. Even though I’ve been blogging since March of 2010, I’m still new to genealogy blogging. I’m still searching out blogs that I like and can relate to. Marian’s Roots and Rambles is one I’ve been reading for awhile. I can always relate to what Marian is writing and she’s another active twitterer.
Really I find all of Marian’s posts interesting and worth reading and it’s hard to limit myself to just 5 favorites. So just head on over and read some of Marian’s blog and leave her a comment telling her how much you enjoy it. I’m vowing to comment more this year and Marian’s going to be one I make sure to comment on regularly.
