When we think of time traveling, especially as genealogists, we tend to think of traveling back in time, to the past. This was discussed in a post a couple of weeks ago,  “Where- and When- Will Your Family History Research Take You?” at https://heritageramblings.net/2013/12/10/time-travel-tu…earch-take-you/

Of course, there are also those who look to the future- space travel and life on distant planets intrigues them. Making memories today for those to have in the future is an important part of life, too. As we have children and grandchildren, even great-grandchildren if we are lucky to be here with them, we think about making the time count more and more.

Have you ever thought about making memories for others you don’t even know? How about providing them with the means to have memories that will be cherished throughout their future, and a way they can time travel to the early 21st century when they are old and living in a space station revolving around the Earth? The way that I love to do this is by making handmade greeting cards that get sent to our troops overseas. Since there are no Hallmark stores in the mountains of Afghanistan and other remote places our troops serve, these handmade cards are for many occasions- birthday, anniversary, thinking of you, thanks, Christmas, etc. The cards are decorated on the front and are blank or have a sentiment inside, so that our troops can write home to their families on special occasions- or just any day of the week that ends in “y.” 😀  It is a great way for families to keep in touch, but more importantly, a way for them to keep those memories throughout the years- something that cannot easily be done with our electronic communications today. Deployed troops and their family members have written notes to the various organizations and said how much they treasure a love letter from a spouse in these cards, and how fun it is to send a Halloween, Way to Go, Birthday, etc. card to their children back home. (Click the links below to read heartfelt thank yous from our troops.)

There are a number of groups that collect cards from cardmakers, package them up in boxes with no duplicates and for a variety of occasions, and then send cases overseas to military units around the globe. The cards can be found by our troops in Chaplain’s offices, chow halls, etc.- anyplace they can gather and write a note. One Chaplain even carried them in the many pockets of his fatigues, to hand out to servicemembers he met out in the field. Our troops are able to mail the cards home for free- no stamps needed. Some units even use the cards to give to those deployed on their birthdays!

Probably the biggest group that sends cards to our troops is Operation Write Home (OWH). They have sent over 2.5 million cards since 2007. They also send “AnyHero Mail”- these are cards made or purchased, a note, or even a coloring page by kids, with a ‘thank you’ note written in by folks here at home. “AnyHero Mail” goes to any service member- they are given out to troops who may not receive much mail, or those who need a lift, or just someone passing by who would appreciate a note of thanks for their hard, dangerous, work. “AnyHero Mail” is a great project for schools, companies, church groups, and Scouts. (Our BSA troop really enjoyed it, and some of the boys really got into writing a note to a service member thanking him or her for such unselfish service.)

My favorite group, though, is smaller but still sends a lot of boxes of cards to our military: From Our Hearts in Jefferson City, Missouri. They had sent 380,000 cards overseas by Nov. 4, 2013. They also collect supplies and have a big ‘garage sale’ for crafters, with the proceeds going to pay for mailing supplies, postage, etc.

Please make sure that if you choose to make cards, that you follow the guidelines for each group- it is very important to not use glitter on any mail sent to our troops, because if it gets on their uniforms, the enemy may be able to see them at night. Additionally, strong adhesives are needed because of the heat in the desert,  deadlines must be followed to allow time for the cards to get to the troops and then mailed home before a holiday, no parts of commercial cards may be used, etc.

If you don’t want to make cards but want to help make memories, any of these groups would be very grateful for donations, even very small ones- you know how much postal rates and supplies have increased!

Please visit one of the links below, or find a local group that makes cards to send to our troops. Being old enough to remember the horrible way our Vietnam Veterans were treated when they returned to the US, I am so happy to be a part of something that helps to honor our troops and their families, and the sacrifices they all make to protect our precious freedoms and those of people around the world. It is wonderful to be able to time travel into the future, knowing that a card I made with love was sent with love by a service member to family or friend. That card may be stashed in a box of treasured items that will always be held close to heart, for many years, and many generations, to come.

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Operation Write Home: https://operationwritehome.org

2) From Our Hearts: https://www.fromourhearts.info

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Copyright 2013 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Find it.
Scan it.
Label it.
Organize it.
Write about it.

FSLOW.

That’s my New Year’s Resolution.

We won’t talk about all the things the acronym could mean.

‘Nuff said. Off to FSLOW.

Challenge, anyone???

[Edited to add: Oops! If you already received this post in your email as a subscriber, I apologize for the repeat. I was trying to schedule it for January 1, 2014- when I entered the date to publish, I forgot about changing that last digit for the New Year. So it published itself on Jan. 1, 2013, thus appearing in your mailbox today. Oh well, my first New Year since starting the blog- hopefully I’ll remember next year to change to 201..- oh, I just can’t bear to think about how quickly that number will appear on our calendars.]

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Copyright 2013 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Thomas MacEntee has a great post for December 30, 2013, entitled “2014: Putting the “Gee” Back in Genealogy,” at https://geneabloggers.com/2014-putting-gee-genealogy/. In this post with a great leading image, Thomas shares his genealogy goals for 2014, and talks about “Reclaiming the Wonder of Genealogy.” I like how he talks about a kinder, gentler genealogy community too, sort of like in the good ‘ole pre-computer days of a SASE with every query. The article is a good read and provides some food for thought, as do so many of Thomas’ posts. I am definitely a follower of his blogs and always enjoy and learn from his webinars.

As an aside, I really like his title because it suggests the ‘proper’ way, i.e., the way I think,  “genealogy” should be pronounced. All those phonics lessons in a midwestern Catholic school would require that first “e” in “genealogy” to be a long vowel- if a short vowel, it would be spelled “gennealogy.” Additionally, since the first syllable is “ge-,” again, Sister Mary Phyllis would insist that “e” be long. It seems these days that the short-vowel “gennealogists” are now out-numbering the long-vowel “genealogists,” and now dictionaries include both pronunciations. (Long “e” first though in all I checked.) So I guess I just need to move on and direct my energies to finding the parents of Wiley Anderson Murrell (1806-1885, see https://heritageramblings.net/2013/12/09/mystery-monday-the-murrells-of-virginia-and-iowa/), rather than worrying about pronunciation of my favorite hobby.

Happy 2014 to all!

This photo was found in with pictures and papers of the George Anthony Roberts and Ella Viola Daniel family who lived in Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa. We don’t know who any of the people are in the photo, but the boy who is the third from left in the front row may possibly be their son, George Anthony Roberts, (Jr.) born 1889 in Iowa. That child also looks similar to George Sr., who was born in 1861 in Illinois. Would be very interested in learning more about this photograph and the people in it.

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Copyright 2013 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Telling the family stories is a wonderful legacy to pass on to your children.

But I can’t find ANYTHING about my ancestor ANYWHERE…

Don’t know much about the actual stories of the lives of your ancestors? There are many resources available, both online and at specific places that can help you piece together a life and/or a family. If you are not lucky enough to have many family stories, you can learn more about your ancestors to help put their lives in context.

Newspapers

Newspapers are a great resource for learning the stories of ancestors, or the places and times in which they lived. Newspapers of 50+ years ago included who was visiting where, long or one-line obituaries, detailed political and voter information, etc. The obituary of Jefferson Springsteen (1820-1909) tells of him running away to join the circus as a boy- how could he then be upset when his son Abram Springsteen ran away to join the Union Army as a drummer boy at age 12? There is a story there… A short note about Miss Edith Roberts (1899-1982) taking first place in the Declamatory Contest as well as “the Dramatic’ is on the same page as the notice of  the “Death of Grandma Roberts” (her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts, 1835-1917). What mixed emotions Edith must have felt that day! Such information from newspapers allows us to realize and then understand the challenges and triumphs of those who have gone before, and help us tell the stories of our ancestor’s lives.

Genealogy Bank is my favorite newspaper website for ease of use and breadth of papers held, though it is a for-pay website. Ancestry.com also has newspapers, as do a few other for-pay websites. Some favorite free websites are chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc for California newspapers, and https://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html for New York state and other newspapers, postcards, etc.

If you can’t find articles about your own family, read through the headlines, ads, and social columns of the newspaper from where they lived and during that time period- it will help to put your ancestors into the context of their times.

Books

There are many books that can be found in the history section of the bookstore or library that can help you to piece together more information about your ancestor’s probable daily life. (Jane Austen’s England by Roy Adkins is on my list to read- it tells about everyday life in the late 18th and early 19th century England.) Used or out-of-print books may be found at abebooks.com, alibris.com, or a local used bookseller can do a search for you. Many other family or social history sources can be found on Google Books (books.google.com), such as county histories. Although your ancestor may not have had the money or inclination to buy a writeup in a county history (AKA “Mug Books” since they sometimes required a payment to be included), just reading about the area in the first part of the history can give an idea of the topography, religion, economics, goods and services provided, social groups, etc. Google Books may give you a snippet of information from a book so that you can determine if you would like to buy it, or it may provide an ebook for free to download. The Internet Archive (https://archive.org) has millions of pages of books, videos, etc. available for free. (Sadly, some of them are OCR’d images and may be hard to read, but may still be useful.) They also offer “The  Way Back Machine” to help you find old web pages from now-defunct websites. Another good free online book source is hathitrust.org.

WorldCat (https://www.worldcat.org) is a great place to find a book, and then your library may be able to get it on interlibrary loan for you if it can’t be found locally. College libraries that include manuscript or special collections and dissertations may provide wonderful information. Some may be dry and/or scholarly, but you may be able to find information that can help you enhance the date and place information you already know about your family.

Here are some social history questions to ask, and research, about your ancestor’s time, place, and life:

What events were going on locally, nationally?

What was the economy like? Boom time or bust, or just a long struggle like in the 1890s?

What were prevailing religious views?

What were political leanings and issues of those in the area where your ancestor lived?

What provided income to your ancestor, and how common was that occupation?

Some of the answers can help provide family stories. We inherited some strange tools- they were very old and it was hard to tell what they were used for. They belonged to descendants of George Lee (1821-aft 1880) who lived in Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire, England, which was a large shoe-making center. George and his sons all came to America, and at least one son, Josiah, was a shoemaker. With the knowledge that shoemaking was important in their hometown in England, and then the US Federal Census that listed shoemaking as an occupation for Josiah, some online research for shoemaking tools helped us identify the purpose of the artifacts. The tools we have were probably Josiah’s, and now we can add shoemakers to the family stories.

When telling your family stories, whether in print, electronic form, or oral stories, it is important to ALWAYS differentiate general facts from those known specifically about your family. Also, document sources with proper citations, so that you or others may revisit those sources to verify or  disprove ideas and ‘facts.’

Adding social history to your research can give a deeper understanding of the lives of our ancestors, and enrich the family stories we leave as a legacy to our descendants.

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Newspaper clippings are from the Prairie City News, around 02 Feb 1917.

2) I have no affiliation with any of the websites listed, and do not receive any benefits from them financially or in product. (FTC Disclosure.)

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Copyright 2013 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

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