Saturday, March 3, 2012

Abundant Genealogy - Or Why I've Neglected My Blogs

Has it really been this long since I've posted on this blog?  I'm surprised because I've been so happily busy working on my genealogy I didn't realize it had been at least a six-week lapse.

Excuse number 1:  On January 19 I spoke to our local genealogy group about getting ready for the 1940 census and needed time to prepare my slide presentation and handout.  I recommend the following websites for information:
  1. NARA
  2. 1940census.net
  3. stevemorse.org 
Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter has had lots of information as I am certain Thomas MacEntee's  webinar on March 7 will.  I certainly plan to watch it.


Excuse number 2:  On Thursday, January 27 my husband asked if I still wanted to go back to Natchez, MS.  The answer was an enthusiastic "YES!"  He then asked if I wanted to go on Sunday.  Was I going to say no because I had other things to do?  Ha!  He told me this trip was for me, so plan where I wanted to go and we would do it.  I took care of things like laundry and packing and we headed to Shreveport on Sunday for a "free" night's stay at the El Dorado where I enjoyed free reflexology foot massage at La Spa.

Monday we went through Jonesboro, Louisiana and stopped at the cemetery to locate his paternal grandparents' graves.  We took pictures of their grave markers and found one for his grandmother's brother as well.  (I really like findagrave.com so I took several more pictures I've since added to that site.)



From there we went to Vidalia, Louisiana and stayed at the Comfort Suites on the banks of the Mississippi River.  We had a large window in the room with an awesome view of the River, bridge, and Natchez.  We took photos at Greenlawn Memorial Park of the markers for Virginia Hunter Andrews Fisher, her first husband, Wilson, and her mother, Myrtis Calcote Hunter, and fulfilled a few photo requests for others.
 The map they have made it difficult to find the graves we wanted to locate.  They do have a beautiful pond with ducks swimming on it behind the office that Find A Grave declined to include and a cage with several peacocks.
We took photos of family graves at the Natchez City Cemetery  we couldn't locate on our last visit and filled some photo requests with the help of Danny Brown, the Cemetery Director.  Our visit there was so enjoyable.  I wish we lived closer so I could spend more time there.  It's a 100 acre cemetery with some amazing monuments and stories.  We took many photos in the Fields section and some in the Hospital section that I still need to finish uploading to Find A Grave.
 Unfortunately we did not have time to visit Aunt Cile again or go to the Roxie Cemetery so I could finish photographing it.  Last week I finished adding the pictures I took on our trip there in October.

On our way back to Shreveport, we detoured to find the Buckner Cemetery where I had hoped to find the grave of some of the Strother and Farley names I've been researching.  Unfortunatley the Strother grave was unmarked, but I took photos of all the markers in the cemetery that I added to Find a Grave along with the coordinates for a map of the cemetery to be displayed.  We spent another night at the El Dorado where I had an awesome free facial by Jennifer at La Spa the next morning before heading home.  I won't assign excuse numbers to things like doing laundry, getting groceries, watching the Super Bowl, and having our new microwave and oven delivered and installed (that's a long story) after we returned.  Did I mention one of the book clubs I'm in met at my house in February?

Excuse number 3 is working on proofs through my Taylor family line to become a member of DAR.  I'm so excited!  I'll be blogging about this on my other genealogy blog, A Nested Family of Robbins.

Excuse number 4: This is not genealogy related, but I just had to add it.  On January 10 we headed to Oklahoma to the Winstar Casino for a 3-day weekend.  The trip was to see Alabama perform.  In spite of Randy having problems with his throat, he sounded great to us.  "Play me some mountain music, like grandma and grandpa used to play..."

Excuse number 5:  I'll only use one excuse to describe going to a genealogy meeting, assisting with a DRT workshop helping people with genealogy, getting to see my great niece, the Marine, who stopped in Texas while on her way to California, helping a neighbor learn how to burn CDs, helping a friend get her pictures to show up in Legacy and figuring out her problems with backups and her Find A Grave account, attending a local meeting about DNA for genealogy, and learning about Google Earth for Genealogy by watching a DVD by Lise Louise Cooke with a friend.

Enough with the excuses, but you now know I've been spending a lot of time on genealogy related activities - just not my two genealogy blogs and I have really missed that.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you. I feel much better now. At least most of your reasons were genealogy-based.

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  2. So that's why we haven't had time for lunch! Sounds like great times. Thanks for the tips on the 1940 census.

    ReplyDelete