Friday, March 28, 2008
Back Again!
After a several month long hiatus due to some pressing projects, I'm glad to be blogging again! It may take me a bit to get back in the swing of things, but I've been keeping a list of topics to discuss, so I shouldn't be at a loss for words for very long!
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Cousins' Weekend
I have 13 first cousins on my Donley side of the family. And while the saying goes "you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family" -- these are people that I would happily choose!
In 1986, many of "The Cousins" had started to reach adulthood -- they'd finished high school, were either in college or had finished it, and a few had gotten married. The rest were teenagers, just finishing their high school years. One of the places that our extended family had always enjoyed was the Lake of the Ozarks, in mid-Missouri. My parents were renting a condo on The Lake that summer, and thought it would be fun to invite all the cousins for a weekend of water fun. Invitations were sent, and the first "Cousins Weekend" was underway!
We had a small turnout that year, but the word spread of how much fun the ones who did attend had, and the next year the event grew. Over the years our families grew too, as more of us married and started having children of our own.
This last weekend (from Thursday to Sunday), we had the "22nd Annual Donley Cousins' Weekend." One condo doesn't hold us all now! There are ten families who frequently attend, although the number fluctuates from year to year as bigger families mean more people's schedules to work around.
Lots of people have family reunions -- what's so different about "Cousins' Weekend?" I think the difference is the time. Our Donley family is good about getting together as a whole: we have single day "holiday gatherings" about three times a year. And it's nice to see everyone then, but with the big, multi-generational crowds and a couple of hours centered around a meal, you don't have time to do anything but some fairly superficial visiting. During Cousins Weekend at the Lake, we have four days to relax and talk, play and eat together! Over and again, I hear from my cousins that the time is what makes the difference.
The original intent of Cousins' Weekend was to help keep my generation of "first cousin-friends" together. I have to say that my favorite part over the years has been watching the friendships develop between our children (2nd cousins), many of whom are teenagers now. Some of them live close together, and go to school together, but about half have spread out to other cities and states, and this is the only time of the year that they really get to spend any length of time together.
I encourage you to think about planning a Cousins' Weekend for your own family. Find a destination within a day's drive of as many of your group as possible, that has recreation opportunities for you to build a weekend around. For us, it's boating/water activities at the Lake of the Ozarks, but there are great recreational areas in every state in this country! Sharing the living space in condos helps cut the costs for families, but still gives you the privacy of your own room.
The best part is that my children are learning that "family" means more than just the four of us that live in our home....and more than just the eight of us that gather at my parent's house. They have a bigger family that is very real, and is out there....that they are looking forward to seeing again soon!
In 1986, many of "The Cousins" had started to reach adulthood -- they'd finished high school, were either in college or had finished it, and a few had gotten married. The rest were teenagers, just finishing their high school years. One of the places that our extended family had always enjoyed was the Lake of the Ozarks, in mid-Missouri. My parents were renting a condo on The Lake that summer, and thought it would be fun to invite all the cousins for a weekend of water fun. Invitations were sent, and the first "Cousins Weekend" was underway!
We had a small turnout that year, but the word spread of how much fun the ones who did attend had, and the next year the event grew. Over the years our families grew too, as more of us married and started having children of our own.
This last weekend (from Thursday to Sunday), we had the "22nd Annual Donley Cousins' Weekend." One condo doesn't hold us all now! There are ten families who frequently attend, although the number fluctuates from year to year as bigger families mean more people's schedules to work around.
Lots of people have family reunions -- what's so different about "Cousins' Weekend?" I think the difference is the time. Our Donley family is good about getting together as a whole: we have single day "holiday gatherings" about three times a year. And it's nice to see everyone then, but with the big, multi-generational crowds and a couple of hours centered around a meal, you don't have time to do anything but some fairly superficial visiting. During Cousins Weekend at the Lake, we have four days to relax and talk, play and eat together! Over and again, I hear from my cousins that the time is what makes the difference.
The original intent of Cousins' Weekend was to help keep my generation of "first cousin-friends" together. I have to say that my favorite part over the years has been watching the friendships develop between our children (2nd cousins), many of whom are teenagers now. Some of them live close together, and go to school together, but about half have spread out to other cities and states, and this is the only time of the year that they really get to spend any length of time together.
I encourage you to think about planning a Cousins' Weekend for your own family. Find a destination within a day's drive of as many of your group as possible, that has recreation opportunities for you to build a weekend around. For us, it's boating/water activities at the Lake of the Ozarks, but there are great recreational areas in every state in this country! Sharing the living space in condos helps cut the costs for families, but still gives you the privacy of your own room.
The best part is that my children are learning that "family" means more than just the four of us that live in our home....and more than just the eight of us that gather at my parent's house. They have a bigger family that is very real, and is out there....that they are looking forward to seeing again soon!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
50 Years of Memories
It's been more than a month since I've written here. Between the usual end of the school year hubbub and some extra responsibilities due to a family member's injury, I've had my hands full. But "doing" for family, and actively participating in taking care of each other is is infinitely more important than writing about it! (She writes with a smile).
Mixed in with all of May's reasons to celebrate (end of year banquets, school award ceremonies, Mother's Day, birthdays, etc.) was a very special anniversary this year: my parents' Golden Anniversary. With all of the headlines and news blips talking about divorce rates, it's especially gratifying to celebrate a marriage that has not just lasted, but thrived for fifty years!
Mom and Dad requested not to have a big reception this year, so we celebrated with a special family dinner out at a nice restaurant, with the happy couple surrounded by their children and grandchildren.
Trying to come up with some lasting keepsake to give them, my brother and I came up with the idea of putting together a coffee table photo book for them. Since there are lots of different companies that will publish a photo book for you, researched several of them, and settled on "My Publisher."
With "My Publisher," I could download their software to my computer, and then work with their templates to choose a style of book, and from there, style of page that I wanted to use. My brother and I combined all of our photos on one computer, and then sat down together to work on the project.
As each page came up, we could look at the photos in front of us, and decide how many to put on the page, and then choose the layout that best fit the photos. Some of the photos warranted their own page, and others we put in groups of two to four. We chose never to use more than four on a page, although the software allowed for more. In my opinion, more than four pics on a page made it start to look more like a yearbook, and the individual photos harder to see. There was also room to add captions if we so desired.
The project took Mike and I several hours (okay, make that all day) to complete. However, if we were just working on one vacation's worth of photos, instead of working our way through a lifetime of memories, it would have gone much faster. No matter how you look at it, it was truly a labor of love, and we had a great time doing it.
Since Mike has high speed Internet access, he took the finished project home on his computer, and uploaded it to "My Publisher" from there. This was on a Monday. "My Publisher's" information states that they will have the book ready to ship in four days or less. We paid for overnight shipping, and received the finished product on Friday afternoon, four days later.
In case you are thinking about doing a similar project, here are my thoughts about this company.
Ease of Use: Great! Very intuitive.
Customization: Pretty good. You can choose from three basic styles of books (paperback, hardbound, or deluxe), and there are a couple more options to be decided once you make this first choice.
Finished Product: Beautiful! We paid a few extra dollars to have a dust jacket, and it was well worth it -- it looks very professional. We also chose to use a black background to the pages, and it gives it a very "artsy" look, and makes the photos stand out. Since we were heavy on the photos and light on words, this worked for us.
Price: Not Bad. There is a base price for the first 20 pages, and then you pay so much per page beyond that. We incurred extra charges for the dust jacket and for shipping, which was all well spelled out.
Downside? We only ran into two "hitches." One was the fact that although the project can be saved on your computer, it doesn't actually save the photos again, it just saves their locations on your computer. Because of this, we were unable to save the project as a whole onto a disk or thumb drive, so we could transfer it to another computer. That was a bit limiting for our purposes, but we worked with it. The second "hitch" that we ran into was when portions of the "My Publisher" website were down on the day we were trying to upload the project to them. Their website clearly states that the only way to contact them is via e-mail....they are not available by phone. Several hours later they did have the problem fixed, and our project was able to be uploaded to them, but it did cause us some momentary concern.
The last caveat that I would mention is that the overnight shipping option we chose required a signature. I did not realize that at the time (although it may have been spelled out, I'm not sure)....and thankfully, I was there to sign for it. I would have been very disappointed to have missed the delivery, since it arrived ON their anniversary! (Yes, we should have started this project a couple weeks earlier!).
Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad. You two are a great example of a couple who has not only stayed married, you've stayed friends! We love you!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Conflicting Sources
For whatever reason, happily I have had several researchers contact me this spring, wanting to compare notes and share information. Sometimes six months will go by without any new contacts, and then all of a sudden, things start to pick up! No complaints here....it's definitely a good thing.
Yesterday I was pleased to see a message in my inbox from a fellow BENNETT researcher. This is one of my husband's lines. One of his great-grandmothers was a BENNETT, and I've followed her family line from either Virginia or North Carolina (depending on the source) through Kentucky and finally to Boone County, Missouri. The researcher I heard from said this migration pattern looked familiar, and wondered if I wanted to compare notes.
In preparation for this, I took a harder look at my BENNETT file. Over the last couple of years, I've been moving my census data from the "General Notes" section of each individual's page to "Events" section. This works well with Legacy, and I like the way it prints out in my reports. While looking at my BENNETT file, I saw that I still had the censuses in the "Notes" area, and I proceeded to "clean up" the file, and put everything where it belonged. I have also obtained some new source material since I last worked on the BENNETTs -- books on Boone County MO marriages and cemetery records, as well as the Missouri Archives website with death certificates online. So it seemed like a good time to see if I could fill in some blanks. That's when I found a major conflict.
According to one source ("Tombstone Records of Boone County, Missouri, by Mrs. E.E. Evans and Mrs. J. F. Thompson), Page and Matilda BENNETT both died in 1867. According to Evans and Thompson, Matilda died in January of that year, and Page in June. However, this seems unlikely, since I have census images of them appearing in the 1870 U.S. Census, in Cedar Township, Boone County, Missouri! My guess is that their headstones were hard to read, and that Mrs. Evans or Mrs. Thompson misread the stone. I tried to find their stone (or stones) in the Nashville Baptist Church Cemetery, but didn't have any luck -- I'll try again another day.
Meanwhile, I'm making a list of other sources I could use to try to find accurate dates of death for this couple. I don't believe Boone County, Missouri has death certificates for that time period, but I will check on that. I believe they do have probate records, so that's one avenue to try. Another option will be to search the Newspaper Library for obituaries -- it's possible that the month and date information are correct, but just not the year. Either way, it looks like I've got another mystery to solve!
Yesterday I was pleased to see a message in my inbox from a fellow BENNETT researcher. This is one of my husband's lines. One of his great-grandmothers was a BENNETT, and I've followed her family line from either Virginia or North Carolina (depending on the source) through Kentucky and finally to Boone County, Missouri. The researcher I heard from said this migration pattern looked familiar, and wondered if I wanted to compare notes.
In preparation for this, I took a harder look at my BENNETT file. Over the last couple of years, I've been moving my census data from the "General Notes" section of each individual's page to "Events" section. This works well with Legacy, and I like the way it prints out in my reports. While looking at my BENNETT file, I saw that I still had the censuses in the "Notes" area, and I proceeded to "clean up" the file, and put everything where it belonged. I have also obtained some new source material since I last worked on the BENNETTs -- books on Boone County MO marriages and cemetery records, as well as the Missouri Archives website with death certificates online. So it seemed like a good time to see if I could fill in some blanks. That's when I found a major conflict.
According to one source ("Tombstone Records of Boone County, Missouri, by Mrs. E.E. Evans and Mrs. J. F. Thompson), Page and Matilda BENNETT both died in 1867. According to Evans and Thompson, Matilda died in January of that year, and Page in June. However, this seems unlikely, since I have census images of them appearing in the 1870 U.S. Census, in Cedar Township, Boone County, Missouri! My guess is that their headstones were hard to read, and that Mrs. Evans or Mrs. Thompson misread the stone. I tried to find their stone (or stones) in the Nashville Baptist Church Cemetery, but didn't have any luck -- I'll try again another day.
Meanwhile, I'm making a list of other sources I could use to try to find accurate dates of death for this couple. I don't believe Boone County, Missouri has death certificates for that time period, but I will check on that. I believe they do have probate records, so that's one avenue to try. Another option will be to search the Newspaper Library for obituaries -- it's possible that the month and date information are correct, but just not the year. Either way, it looks like I've got another mystery to solve!
Monday, April 16, 2007
To Keep or Not to Keep...(what was the question?)
Don't we all love photos? I have albums full of photos, and a trunk in my house full of photo envelopes containing the prints of all the pictures that didn't qualify for album status. The vast majority of those photos were taken with a 35MM camera -- and I've always subscribed to the theory that you have to take a whole lot of pictures if you want to get a few that are "keepers." So why do I have so much trouble getting rid of the ones that aren't?
To be fair, many of these pictures aren't bad -- they just weren't the cream of the crop. It's easy to pitch the blurry ones, or the ones with someone's head cut off -- but it's harder for me to cull out the rest of the prints: the "also rans."
This box is also the place that I store all the photo Christmas cards that my family members have sent me over the years. Someday I may pull those out and create an album just for them. It would be fun to look through the album and compare how these family photos have changed over the years.
Sally Jacobs has a great blog called The Practical Archivist. I like the advice she offers and the no-nonsense way she presents it. Recently she's posted a couple articles on the value of printing our photos, as opposed to storing them only on our computers or other digital media. As wonderful as this digital age is...it's changing so fast! A few short years from now we may not be able to count on being able to access the information that we have stored on CDs or DVDs. Properly stored, paper will last for many many years...and is the safest way we currently have of making sure that future generations can view the photos that we hold precious today.
I love my old Minolta 35MM camera -- it feels great in my hand, and the photos it takes are top-notch. But my Nikon coolpix digital camera is working great for me too. And the luxury of being able to tell right away if I have something worth keeping is one of the best parts of digital photography. Thanks to Sally's articles, I'm going to be more diligent about printing out my "keepers" though -- they are too special to risk losing!
To be fair, many of these pictures aren't bad -- they just weren't the cream of the crop. It's easy to pitch the blurry ones, or the ones with someone's head cut off -- but it's harder for me to cull out the rest of the prints: the "also rans."
This box is also the place that I store all the photo Christmas cards that my family members have sent me over the years. Someday I may pull those out and create an album just for them. It would be fun to look through the album and compare how these family photos have changed over the years.
Sally Jacobs has a great blog called The Practical Archivist. I like the advice she offers and the no-nonsense way she presents it. Recently she's posted a couple articles on the value of printing our photos, as opposed to storing them only on our computers or other digital media. As wonderful as this digital age is...it's changing so fast! A few short years from now we may not be able to count on being able to access the information that we have stored on CDs or DVDs. Properly stored, paper will last for many many years...and is the safest way we currently have of making sure that future generations can view the photos that we hold precious today.
I love my old Minolta 35MM camera -- it feels great in my hand, and the photos it takes are top-notch. But my Nikon coolpix digital camera is working great for me too. And the luxury of being able to tell right away if I have something worth keeping is one of the best parts of digital photography. Thanks to Sally's articles, I'm going to be more diligent about printing out my "keepers" though -- they are too special to risk losing!
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Unexpected Benefit
Over the years I've put my family trees "out there" on various websites...mostly on Rootsweb, but I have a Family Tree Maker website, and I think some of my information is available on Genealogy.com's World Family Trees. I've also been pretty diligent about putting queries on as many county and surname message boards as I can -- trying to reach lots of potential connections.
I'm a big fan of this type of networking -- I really believe that it pays off, and my own experience is that it does. The shortest time that I ever heard from another researcher/cousin was 30 minutes after I posted (WOW!), but often it's been months, and sometimes years until I hear from someone.
Over the last two weeks, I've been fortunate to hear from three "new" cousins, researching some of the same family lines that I am. I'm always excited to hear from anyone who is looking for the same ancestors I am...to hear from three is pretty unbelievable.
After we exchange "how do you dos," we usually agree to share information. Inevitably, as I look over my information, I find that I have gaps that need filling: census data that needs to be added or information from my files that never was inputted. While I'm taking care of this "clean up," I usually do a search on Heritage Quest Online to see if any "new" data is available on this family line -- and if so, I get that information added as well. Pretty soon, the family file in question is as complete as I have sources for, and I'm ready to create a report to share.
It's not unusual for some of the new information (or maybe just my fresh eyes looking at it) to reveal a new clue to be followed, and that's always exciting. Meeting a new cousin and getting a new "research buddy" is great -- the unexpected benefit is that it gives me a good reason to get an old family file back in "new and improved" shape!
I'm a big fan of this type of networking -- I really believe that it pays off, and my own experience is that it does. The shortest time that I ever heard from another researcher/cousin was 30 minutes after I posted (WOW!), but often it's been months, and sometimes years until I hear from someone.
Over the last two weeks, I've been fortunate to hear from three "new" cousins, researching some of the same family lines that I am. I'm always excited to hear from anyone who is looking for the same ancestors I am...to hear from three is pretty unbelievable.
After we exchange "how do you dos," we usually agree to share information. Inevitably, as I look over my information, I find that I have gaps that need filling: census data that needs to be added or information from my files that never was inputted. While I'm taking care of this "clean up," I usually do a search on Heritage Quest Online to see if any "new" data is available on this family line -- and if so, I get that information added as well. Pretty soon, the family file in question is as complete as I have sources for, and I'm ready to create a report to share.
It's not unusual for some of the new information (or maybe just my fresh eyes looking at it) to reveal a new clue to be followed, and that's always exciting. Meeting a new cousin and getting a new "research buddy" is great -- the unexpected benefit is that it gives me a good reason to get an old family file back in "new and improved" shape!
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Easter Calculator
With Easter coming up this Sunday, it seems like a good time to mention this web page: Holidays On the Net. This site has dates and lots of fun information about all the different holidays throughout the year. But the feature I like best is it's Easter Calculator. You plug in the year, and it responds with the date that Easter fell on that year.
This is handy when trying to figure out the date of old photos, or references to Easter in newspaper clippings, church newsletters, etc. I was given a snapshot of my husband as a child, lined up with his sisters on what was obviously Easter morning -- they were decked out in the Easter finest. The photo developing company had stamped 1965 on the bottom of the print...but the Easter calculator gave me the actual date: April 18, 1965.
As I mentioned before, they have fun information and activities for holidays all throughout the year -- so browse for a while, and enjoy. I hope the Easter calculator is as useful for you as it was for me!
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