GeneaBabble

I was in Fairfax, VA, for Christmas and didn’t get a chance to wish everyone a happy holiday.  I’m back home and just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year while I’m still coherent enough to type!  So Happy New Year!  If you don’t hear from me for a couple of days it’s because I’m still “recovering.”

I found this video about the Obama/Cheney family tree while fooling around on StumbleUpon.  I offer no opinion of the contents.

I was just reading the Genealogy Blog which referenced an article on 10 Reasons Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library and it had me thinking (scary, I know).  I have found a lot of useful information on the internet and it’s always nice to have easy access to things like census records.  When I think about it, though, I have solved more genealogical problems and roadblocks from some obscure books and maps I’ve found in my library’s small genealogy collection than I could ever hope to solve with the internet alone.  Sure, there’s plenty of scanned books available online, but it’s highly doubtful you’re going to find Uncle Bob’s 1893 History of Yankeedoodle County online.

A good example is the 16 volume Mercer County Cemetery Inscriptions books.  Our library has a set (some volumes bound with duct tape) and I was able to find the resting place of my gggg-grandparents.  It even had a hand-drawn map showing how to get there!  There’s all sorts of things like that which you won’t find online.

On the other hand, I’ll never give up the internet, either!

Stealing from babies is bad enough, but stealing from dead babies?

Thirty-two-year-old Kevin Osbourne, and three others, used the birth certificates of 10 dead babies to create fake driver licences, open banks accounts and get loans worth nearly $30,000.

The police do not know how the men actually decided which identities they would steal. The men posed as authors conducting genealogy research when they applied to district courts around the country for new birth certificates. [Read more]

I never thought genealogy could be so lucrative!  Sure beats dealing with clients…

So, I just moved a few blocks away from my old house and I have decided that moving is one of the ultimate evils of mankind.  If I ever have to move again I will simply leave everything where it is and buy new stuff for the new location.  Among the usual muscle aches and general frustration I managed to smash my head into a doorway while carrying a box upstairs.  I believe it has caused some brain damage, but you would never be able to tell anyway…

The only good thing about moving is the great stuff you find!  I’ve found old photos of my ancestors that I never knew I had.  Many of them are from the early 20th c. and fortunately someone had the foresight to write names and dates on the backs of some of them.  Some, however, are unidentified.  I don’t know how to identify them since anyone who knows who they are is probably dead!

Also, I have many letters written back and forth between my dad and his parents.  It’s really neat to have both sides of a correspondence for once.  I hope to find some time soon to put them in chronological order and learn more about my dad’s life.

One thing about moving is getting rid of all the junk you’ve collected over the years.  The only problem is I kept finding myself saying, “Would my grandchildren want to see this for their genealogical research?”  I love all the strange tidbits I have, like my grandparents report cards.  In the end, though, I threw most of the junk away.  Unless I smash my head into something again, fall down the stairs, or get hit by a rampaging elephant I should have plenty of time to collect new junk for the grandkids to ponder.