Follow Friday - A Brief Edition

Blogging has been a bit sparse as the Holidays grow near.  I'm enjoying family and hope you all are as well!

I've seen so many great posts in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, but this one by Amy Coffin, I just had to share.  I love the idea!  Check out a great idea by her mom for what to do with all those Christmas cards and Holiday photos!

Jen Woods over at Climbing My Family Tree had a great post idea.  It was simple, but brilliant.  She posted a signature from an ancestor she found in a probate packet.  It's really the little things that make you feel great about a find.  Do you have any ancestor's signatures? Did they give you an extra special feeling when you saw them?

At Renee's Genealogy Blog a cute poem was posted about grandma and her genealogy addiction.  In my case it would be mommy!

An excellent point (and one that is still valid today).  I always find it amazing how the story changes depending on the outcome of a war/conflict.  A perfect illustration of that in this post by Donald Shaffer on the Civil War Emancipation blog.  While I agree that we may never know if this exchange took place, we can most likely check newspapers for all the blustering opinions of the day!

Save A Grave shared a post from the Archdiocese of Washington about the oddest mausoleum, I've ever seen.  When space is at a premium...build up!  I agree with the concern of upkeep.  We've all seen what happens to old cemeteries and the thought of a 32-story deteriorating mausoleum is scary!

I hate knee-jerk reactions.  I hate jerks two and this has them both!  Legislators trying to take away the Social Security Death Index because it will help stop fraud/identity theft.  Just shows the ignorance of many of those that make our laws.  Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak makes some excellent points.  Maybe she should run for office!

Until next post, have fun tending those roots!

Follow Friday on Saturday- The "I'm Always Catching Up" Edition

So Google Reader has been telling me for some time that I had 1000+ posts to read and I finally found time to catch up.  While there were many more posts I would have liked to share with you all, these were the ones that I just had to include.  I'm also posting this on Saturday, because I just couldn't pass up a post on Black Friday, so my followings were postponed until today.  Now to make sure that I keep up on my Reader on a daily  basis....

I'm actually starting out with a post that was not from another blog, but I felt it was significant to genealogists anyway.  As I was reading CNN this week an article on "Brown Babies" in Germany caught my eye.  Perhaps a part of history that we are unfamiliar with, but as genealogists could come across if our research for ourselves or others includes African American ancestors.  Ignoring the political incorrectness of the "Brown Babies" label, the article illustrates that a large number of children (in the thousands) that were given up.  These children were fathered between white women and African American Soldiers following WWII.  The women being encouraged to give up their children and the military moving the Soldier when a relationship was discovered.  Shameful.  Please check out the post, "'Brown Babies' Long Search For Family Identity".

I actually came across this as I was reading the news.  Save A Grave posted the same video.  Very sad that so many people's remains were washed away in Tropical Storm Irene, that only about 1/2 of them have been recovered, and then to top it all off some of the tombstones that had been recovered were stolen/vandalized.  Seriously?

Lorine McGinnis Schulze over at Olive Tree Genealogy has a challenge for us all!  Read about her request that you  give 15 minutes to photograph tombstone at local cemeteries in the "November's Genealogy Challenge" and then get out and photograph those stone and get back with Lorine!  I'll be heading out this weekend!

Greta's Genealogy Bog tells how she is having fun creating a webpage for her family's genealogy in her post, "Fun Stuff You Can Do With Weebly."  I love Weebly.  Thomas MacEntee first introduced me to Weebly in one of his many awesome webinars and I use it almost daily for my PTA's website.  It's so easy, you just drag and drop.  Did I mention FREE too?  Who doesn't love free stuff.  There is a "pro" version with more bells and whistles that you pay for, but I haven't needed it yet.  Greta has reminded me with this great post that I need to do the same and get to creating a page for my family's genealogy.  Check out Greta's experience with Weebly.  Everyone I know that uses it absolutely loves it!

At Faces of My Family, Lisa Swanson Ellam reminds us that sometimes it takes awhile to get the answers we need.  It took 11 months in her case, and a slight surname spelling variation!  Don't you love successes!?!

Jennifer Shoer at the Scrappy Genealogist is, well...scrapping!  Join Jennifer for Scrapbook Sundays.  They've been going on for about a month, but it's never to late to start!  Something I've often wanted to do, but never seemed to find the time.  I'm starting to grab pictures and information and I hope to be joining Jennifer and her fellow participants!  What better way to remember our ancestors and to pass something beautiful on about them!

A great post by Deb Ruth at Adventures in Genealogy where she details some great finds and connections she made through Find-A-Grave.  I'm always a big fan of Find-A-Grave and have had much success there as well.  Don't miss out.  Read her post, "Connecting on Find-A-Grave".

Lots of great stuff out there and I'm going to do everything I can to not get so far behind again!

Follow Friday - Getting Caught Up on All the Wonderful Posts

I was catching up on my Google Reader account (1000+ needed to be read) over the past week or so.  Lots of great blog posts.  I really need to commit to doing my reading each morning so large numbers don't sneak up like that on me again!  And again! And (well you get the point)...

Here's just some of what caught my attention:

I saw a tweet (can't remember whose right now...memory like a sieve) about an incredible story that had to be checked out.  So, of course, I did.  I found myself at the Provenance blog and an incredible and sad story by Judy Wilkenfeld called Evidence.  After searching for answers about what happened to her father's mother, sister and brother during the Holocaust.  She got her answers and some surprises.  Check out her incredible tale!

If you haven't discovered SaveAGrave.net yet, you really should.  Follow on their site, on Facebook and Twitter.  You won't regret it.  Lots of brilliant news related posts on what we genealogists/family historians love...cemeteries.  Every day I'm amazed at the amount of news stories out there on this subject.  I was particularly thrilled when I saw a FB post on the Avondale Mining Disaster.  Being from coal miners in northeastern Pennsylvania it certainly touched me to see someone caring and determined to not let those people be forgotten.  You can check out the news article that SaveAGrave shared on the Times Leader called "Recalling Avondale".  Don't forget SaveAGrave's website, Facebook page, and Twitter account (@SaveAGrave)!

Over at Sleeping Gardens was a beautiful post called Ceramic Flowers.  I am stunned at how beautiful and delicate they look.  I don't know if the majority of the ceramic flowers hold up this well, but they are truly a gorgeous touch.  I'm surprised they aren't more widely seen and used!

As I was checking through the Geneablogger's Daily Blogroll I came across a post about scanning Black and White photos from Julie at Wandering Roots, called Tuesday's Tip on Scanning Black and White Photos.  You know (and this is going to sound bad), but I can be lazy with some things.  Everyone can from time  to time, but I didn't realize I had been lazy with my scanning.  I mean I scan at 600 dpi and I know all about the .TIFF vs .JPEG/JPG stuff, but that's not where I was lazy.  It never crossed my  mind to scan black and white photos in the scanner's black and white mode.  Julie's excellent post shows what happened when she scanned everything the right way, but in B&W.  Me...I would still be sitting there scratching my head and cursing the scanner for not working properly.  For once my laziness paid off...I had been scanning in color the whole time, not realizing it was a good thing!  Thanks for sharing, Julie!  Go and check it out!

Sassy Jane Genealogy had an excellent post called Google Maps and Uncommunicative Records.  She shows us how to make use of Google and the officiant's address that appears on some marriage licenses.  Not going to ruin the surprise.  Head on over and check it out.  It would have taken me years before this dawned on me!

And finally (at least for this week...still have more to share next week!) there is a new blog called The Catholic Gene.  As described on the blogsite it is a collaborative blog where the authors have 2 things in common:  "a love for both genealogical research and the Roman Catholic faith".  You don't have to be Catholic to follow this blog, but if you're doing any research involving Catholics you'd be a fool not to follow them.  I'm very excited to see all the posts that are sure to come from their genealogical bevy which includes: Cecile Marie Agata Wendt Jensen, Craig Manson, Denise Levenick, Donna Pointkouski, Jasia, Lisa A. Alzo, Lisa (aka Smallest Leaf), Sheri Fenley, and Stephen Danko! I'm so excited...I'll have to do a first communion blog post soon!

Until next time, have fun tending those roots!