Posts Tagged ‘genealogy’

By Christine Sharbrough, CG

I have long been familiar with Find A Grave as a tremendously useful resource when looking for cemetery locations and the occasional luck of finding someone I’m looking for within their files. I have had less good fortune searching for my family within the records here, but with this week’s blogging challenge I decided to try again.

My first foray into this website was via the surname search – unfortunately for me – the links to the surnames I was interested in resulted in page errors. Undaunted however, I continued to poke around to see what else the site had to offer. Unfortunately, my next choice “search by location” was not successful either. Apparently, I can choose a location, but my only choices are to filter the search by very famous, somewhat famous, or all famous. Since I’m looking for my family – this doesn’t apply to me either.

The Interesting Monuments section caught my eye. As an Art History major, I’m always interested in statuary and monuments in graveyards. There are many wonderful examples of how families choose to memorialize their dearly departed. Anyone interested in gravestone art would be interested in this section as well.

Being a fan of Disney and in particular the Haunted Mansion ride, I couldn’t resist a look at the link Interesting Epitaphs. From hilariously funny to really bad puns, this area was great for a mid-afternoon chuckle. I also found the answer to the question I always ask when I see one of these humorous gravestones – what were they thinking? Along with the photo of the stone is a short bio about the deceased and the type of person they were. Makes for very interesting reading if you’re curious to know what type of person would have a non-traditional epitaph.

Back on the home page, my eye was caught by the link for Top 50 Contributors. After all, I would like to know exactly what it takes to be considered in the top 50 of anything and this one was an eye-opener. More than one hundred and five THOUSAND contributions to this site? By ONE person?? Incredible dedication. I’m impressed. You should be in the top 50 for that – if not the top five.

Still searching for my ancestor, I went back to the home page and decided to look at the cemetery itself where I know he’s buried to see if I could browse the listings and find him. The cemetery was there, but my ancestor was not. Not surprising, he’s been a hard guy to find. Even the general search did not turn up any hints to his whereabouts. Well, this all seems rather dismal and depressing until you realize, as I did, that I can add him to the Find-A-Grave website myself so that other people in my family can find him.

This is the true value of this site, in my opinion. If you don’t find what you’re looking for – put it in there so the next person will. Pay it forward by helping your fellow genealogists. You may not make it to the Top 50 contributors for this site, but you’ll be number one in the eyes of someone searching for that very information.

Have a great week!

Image (c) 2010 by Gena Philibert Ortega

At  Family History Expos (FHE), collaboration with genealogical, lineage, and historical societies as well as libraries, family history centers, and vendors is key to providing the best experience for our Expo attendees. From a conference planning perspective, our goal is to provide the best experience possible for our attendees to ensure that they have their questions answered and have the best possible learning and sharing experiences by putting them in contact with people who can help them. These types of experiences would never be possible without collaboration from our many friends across the country who work in a variety of institutions and organizations and come to share the benefit of their knowledge with others.

FHE provides organizations and individuals an opportunity to showcase their holdings, services, and talents in the fields of genealogy, technology, and history by giving them opportunities via our Expos, syllabus, and website advertising. Bringing together the local community with local and national speakers and vendors creates a synergy that is unable to be duplicated elsewhere.

What works well?

This collaboration is a learning experience for everyone involved. Working with the local and national organizations and vendors gives each side a chance to understand the needs and wants of the other always with the focus of providing the best outcome for the attendees and teachers/vendors alike.

What needs improvement?

We are always looking for knowledgeable individuals to share their experiences and expertise with our Expo attendees. Do you have a new product you would like to put in front of an audience? Consider vending in our exhibit hall. Even if you do not have something for sale – it is a great way to show off what your organization has to offer! Would you like to give attendees the benefit of your expertise in genealogy? Submit lecture topics through our Call for Papers – the conference schedule is on our website at http://www.fhexpos.com/expos/ or sign up to volunteer for our Ask-The-Pros at the Expos booth and help with individual conference attendees research problems.

Looking forward to seeing you at the Expo!

by Christine Sharbrough, CG

Writing personal letters is a lost art. In these days of email, it almost seems like putting pen to paper is an outdated though quaint way of communication. However, as genealogists, we understand how important those letters have been to our family history research. Imagine, for example, that our ancestors never wrote anything down but relied solely on speech.
What a tragic loss that would be – centuries of history lost forever. Admittedly, in the far past the art of writing was for many not within the realm of possibility, but in the last century the majority of people have the capability.

However, in the last five years I would be willing to bet that there are precious few of us who would take the time to actually put pen to paper outside of a journaling class or scrapbooking event or to scribble contact information on the back of a napkin. It is far too easy to IM, tweet, blog, or email to make the effort.

I had the pleasure of writing to my 90 year-old grandmother recently, asking if she would be willing to share with me any photographs she had of her relatives from Italy. As someone who is homebound, I knew that she would appreciate the gesture and it is one in a long line of letters that we have exchanged over the course of my lifetime. When I was a child, I had always received post cards from her travels: Rome, the Black Forest, Africa, wherever she went she sent me one with her impressions on the places she visited. I have saved all of them over the years and returned the gesture with news filled letters of my own nomadic travels. As always, I received a response to this letter from her relatively quickly – always surprising to me since her response was a four-page, handwritten letter on 8 ½ by 11 notebook paper of all her recollections of her parents and siblings. My hand is cramping just thinking about it. Along with the letter was a photo of her mother as a young woman that I had never seen. Apparently, there are a few others of different family members, but this was one that she had a copy of to send. I’ll digitally photograph the others next week when I visit.

The letter will be stored with the others she has written to me and all those postcards received in my childhood.

Since I started my genealogical career at my grandmother’s knee as it were, I recognized the value of saving letters and asking scads of questions from the time I was still in the single digits. Looking through the box of mementoes I have collected over more than thirty years – I realized that the correspondence I have is largely from people who have passed away at least a decade ago if not more. It is sad to think that when my last grandmother passes, the letters will end. It was with this morose thought that I made my way to the mailbox today and was amazed at what I saw. A letter from my daughter – hooray! The tradition continues!