Category: GeneaBloggers Topics

Early Follow Friday: One Lovely Blog Award

Posted on by Kathleen

I’m so late with this, and I apologize for that! I swear forgetfulness didn’t use to be a part of my daily life. I just get so caught up in what I’m doing that sometimes until I find a little post it note to remind me, some things get set aside for a bit. I’ve been busy preparing for Grandpa Moore’s arrival next week, and I’m going to have jury duty within the next month. I’m trying to get myself back on track and on schedule!

Recently, I was awarded the One Lovely Blog Award by two fellow bloggers! First from Joanne at Keeper of the Records and then from Jennifer at The Erudite Genealogist! I can’t express how excited I am that other people are enjoying what I put into this blog. My main reason for starting this blog was to keep my family connected on the things I was doing. Having others enjoy it is a great side effect! It’s also great because I enjoy both of their blogs!

Here are the rules that Joanne posted on her blog.

  1. Add the logo to your blog.
  2. Link to the person whom you received this award.
  3. Nominate 7 or more blogs.
  4. Leave a message on their blog, letting them know they are “One Lovely Blog”!

I’m going to add the logo onto my sidebar sometime today but now it’s time for the fun part. My 7 picks!

  1. Begin with Craft – Love her blog! Valerie’s blog is what I hope mine also is. Just a little way of sharing how I’m learning and an “as I go through it” look at learning this whole genealogy thing.
  2. Little Bytes of Life – My favorite part is her weekly posts with little tidbits from different spectrums. News, Blogs, Pop culture. She follows it all!
  3. Marian’s Roots and Rambles – It’s rare that I don’t learn something or at least feel like I’m engaged in what Marian Pierre-Louis is writing!
  4. Nutfield Genealogy – I love all Heather’s posts. I’m fascinated by the aspects of history that I never learned in school. I love the way Heather takes news articles or historical events and relates them to her family.
  5. The You Go Genealogy Girls – This is such a fun blog to read. I was reading some back entries here when I realized, “Hey she has a research notebook, I should make a research notebook!” That sounds simple, but I’ve never made a list or grouping of what I’d like to research. I was flying by the seat of my pants! Well, not anymore, the notebook is now being constructed with an Excel file to boot!
  6. The Family Recorder – Audrey Collins is a great resource for British genealogy. I should hope so since she works at The National Archives of the UK! Since I’m just learning about some English roots, I’ve often referred back to some tips and information she’s written about.
  7. Greta’s Genealogy Blog – Last but not least by any means! Greta’s blog is a lot of fun. I particularly enjoy her What I Learned Wednesday posts. Most times, it’s something that I can stand to learn or acknowledge too!

So there’s my 7! If you aren’t already reading these, what are you waiting for?

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History: Movies

Posted on by Kathleen

Week 12: Movies. Did (or do you still) see many movies? Describe your favorites. Where did you see these films? Is the theater still there, or is there something else in its place?

Movies are probably the thing I’ve loved the longest. We’ve always been a movie family. We celebrate birthdays and holidays by having movie nights. My first job was actually working with my Mom in a locally owned video rental store. That store eventually sold their business to Movie Gallery, who subsequently got rid of all the stores. That’s alright, the video rental business isn’t going to be around much longer. Everything is going digital and I guess our original owner was smart enough to get out while the getting was good!

Yes I even made a scrapbook when I was leaving, I wanted to remember my special friends! Sadly, a lot of my regular customers are no longer living so it’s really nice to have a piece of them still with me!

There is a downside to working in a video store though. Eventually, you kind of burn out on watching the movies. Don’t get me wrong, I still love to sit back and watch a good movie. Only now, I tend to watch them less often and from the comfort of my living room. Usually through pay per view or I’ll buy the DVD. After so many years of feeling the need to know all the movies and trivia, I’ve kind of gone on movie hiatus. Don’t get me wrong, I was good at it! I had customers coming in for recommendations and I was able to know what movies they were looking for by the very fragmented details they gave. Once I left the job though, I kind of backed away from that. It is a little sad, but gosh I really appreciate movies more now.

As for actual movie theaters, we do have a small 6 screen theater “in town”. I remember seeing a lot of movies in that theater. However, it’s gotten very run down and it’s not in a great part of town. Over the years, I don’t think much maintenance has been done either. For some reason, this over-populated town hasn’t gotten a new theater though the citizens are screaming for one! Literally. No one quite knows whats happening there, but it’s sad. I might see movies in a theater more often, if I had a more comfortable theater to go to. Right now we trek all the way to the Arundel Mills Mall movie theater which is close to two hours away. We really only go that far for the big ones, like Harry Potter. 🙂

My favorite movies haven’t changed. I used to watch them at work all the time. Newsies, The Little Mermaid, Empire Records, American Outlaws, Gone with the Wind, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Sound of Music. I could really go one. That’s another side effect to having seen all those films. You really grow attached to them. Right now what I really love are mini series. I don’t understand why they aren’t more popular. When I first got into Genealogy, Mom bought a used copy of Roots so I could see that. Since then I’ve replaced it with the anniversary DVD. I also love North & South, Band of Brothers and Taken.

I guess I should have warned you I can tend to run on about movies!

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.
Fearless Females: Heirlooms

Fearless Females: Heirlooms

Posted on by Kathleen

March 6 — Describe an heirloom you may have inherited from a female ancestor (wedding ring or other jewelry, china, clothing, etc.) If you don’t have any, then write about a specific object you remember from your mother or grandmother, or aunt (a scarf, a hat, cooking utensil, furniture, etc.)

I took a few days off, and since I don’t have a recipe to share for March 7th, I decided to use the March 6th prompt. The heirloom that comes to my mind is one I’ve talked about before.

“The tree”. The one that started it all. This is what my Grandma brought with her on that fateful visit when I was in the eighth grade. The blue is the family tree and the other binder is the picture companion to the family tree.

The first page in the binder shows the numbers 3-2 written above the couple.

Then you line that up with the 3-2 in the family tree. Now there is a bit of confusion because the Webb and Taylor sections both have 3-2s. I don’t know how that happened but the Webb line fizzles out very quickly in the tree. It’s very obvious this tree was done from the Taylor perspective. I don’t know if it’s legible from the picture but Mollie Jane Webb married George Thomas Taylor. So that’s where the lines connect. Not much is known beyond Mollie’s generation on the Webb side. After consulting the tree, the couple in the first picture is Marshall Howard Taylor and his wife Lula Applegate. I faintly remember Grandma telling me that this picture might have been from their wedding day.

The picture book goes all the way through the descendants. My grandmother gathered pictures of as many Taylors as possible. Here’s the page dedicated to my Mom and her kids. That’s me in the red shirt there at the bottom. My family is used to me posting their pictures all over creation. For the sake of my other family members privacy, I won’t show you the others.

What’s also great is there are little mementos among the pages. There are articles of newspapers, obituaries, birth announcements.

I love both books. I’m so happy that they eventually found their way to me. I like to take them out and look through the pictures every once and awhile. It’s fun to match the names and faces.

Fearless Females: What’s in a Name?

Posted on by Kathleen

March 3 — Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern. If not, then list the most unique or unusual female first name you’ve come across in your family tree.

Have I mentioned yet how much I love writing prompts. I wouldn’t be lying to say I excelled at essay questions in school. Give me a question and a blank piece of paper and I’m ready! Of course, I’m not sure my teachers needed a full page on some of those subjects, but that’s what I gave them none the less.

So to start off, I was not named after anyone in my family. Partly to blame is the fact that I was born before there were “spoilers” in the birthing room. So my Momma was completely positive I was going to be a boy. Thanks for that Mom. ha. Being that she was so sure that I was going to be a boy, she had a name picked out for me. I was going to be Matthew Thorward. Since I’m not Matthew, my Mom and Dad had to scramble for a name. The doctor who delivered me suggested a good irish name of Kathleen and my mom chose my middle name. That my friends is the story of my name and how it came to be.

When I started doing my research, I ran into a lot of Marys, Elizabeths, Jennifers and Janes. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with those names but then I came across names like Llewellyn, Emogene, and Hazel. Once I started researching back further in the Kentucky side of my family tree, some other interesting names came up. These names were interesting to me, but they weren’t unique to the area at the time. These names taught how even back in the 1800s, there were changes in name popularities. Names like Arminda, Clarazene, Dulcena, and Effie were all very popular in the rural Kentucky area that I was researching. Maybe they are all linked to my family in some way, maybe not. These names were all a little different though.  Now if I could only figure out the 100% real name of Zeroah Black-West on my Mom’s side of the tree, I might get somewhere on that side of the family research!

Note: Yes, I added the picture of the unknown baby photo because I backed out of posting my own baby picture. While I was unable to post my own baby picture, I have no conscience when it comes to posting other peoples.