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Showing posts from 2008

New Year's Resolutions?

Christmas is over. Families have gone home. The house is quiet and bare. What a wonderful week we had! Spending time with family is very special. The last few Christmas's have really opened me up to realizing just how important it is to my family. With comments like, "I will never miss another Christmas at home," "mom always gets great gifts," "you are going to set up all of your decorations this year, aren't you?" and "the tree is beautiful," how can I NOT give it my all during this time of year? I never realized the traditions that my immediate family has started, until this year. I believe blogging pointed this out to me. Because of this, my site has been quiet, but oh what fun I have had! My grandson, who just turned two was an exceptional part of Christmas. Such a joy, and oh what patience he had in opening his gifts. Tear a tiny piece of paper and hand it to the closest person, tear a tiny piece more and hand it to the closest perso

The Proximidade Award

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Kathryn at Looking for Ancestors @ http://looking4ancestors.blogspot.com/ nominated Heritage Happens for the Proximidade Award! How kind of you Kathryn, I thank you very much! "These blogs invest and believe in PROXIMITY-nearness in space, time, and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming! These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends! They are not interested in prizes or self -aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award." The eight bloggers I have chosen for this award are: 1. Steve's Genealogy@ http://stephendanko.com/blog/ 2. The Chart Chick @ http://thechartchick.blogspot.com/ 3. The Family Curator @ http://familycurator.blogspot.com/ 4. Find your Folks @ http://findyourfolks.blogspot.com/ 5. Apple's Tree @ h

Merry Christmas Everyone!

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The countdown is here! I have a few moments and I have to say, as busy as I have been, I have really missed blogging! Family has started arriving from out of state. Plans for the week are quite busy. I can actually say that as of tonight I am as ready as I will ever be and look forward to enjoying the rest of the season! The best part of Christmas is spending time with family and friends. I am really looking foward to spending time with family, making memories, and taking pictures of those memories! Enjoy your family and friends and don't forget the photos! Have a very, very MERRY CHRISTMAS! May Santa grant all of your dreams and wishes! Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts! Msteri

That time of year!

Some people have been wondering where I have been! I can't seem to answer all my emails, let alone post to my blog right now. I hope you are all following the carnivals! I wanted to participate in the Christmas ones, but time just wouldn't allow for me to do that. I haven't even been able to read any of the carnivals myself. :-( I look forward to catching up on these and all the blog posts I have been missing just as soon as possible! I have attended several Christmas parties and or dinners lately, been trying to get my shopping accomplished along with all of the other activities that go on this time of year. My daughter and I did make cookies together, the first time ever, on Sunday. We spent a good 8 hours doing this, I have no idea how many dozens of cookies we made! Every night this week I have had something going on, but it is all fun and I love it! I hope I can post some pictures before Christmas comes. I still have shopping to do, and three quarters of my tree has bu

A New Hohimer Cousin!

Exciting news to share! A cousin has found me through my blog! What a wonderful surprise when I found his email in my inbox! We have sent a few emails back and forth and he has been so very kind to share some of the most wonderful and new information with me! One of the most exciting things is, he shared with me a copy of a patent our mutual ancestor had! It is the first and only patent I have and I never even knew the relative had a patent! This cousin also shared a handwritten genealogy from our relative and other information. We are getting caught up on how we are related, it is so exciting! I sent him one picture so far of our relative, and if I remember correctly, I don't believe he had any pictures of him, so he was happy to have the picture. I need to take some time and go through other pictures and see if I have more to send to him. I have the pictures (I hope) and he has the documents, this is so much fun! A couple of the documents I have read over a few times, it will be

40 Things About Me Meme

Apple over at Apple's Tree tagged me and when she did I originally thought it was for the same one I just completed a couple days ago. I found out it wasn't, so here is my participation! (The problem I have is that I can't use my copy and past functions for some reason on this laptop so have to retype each one!) 1. Do you like blue cheese? It is ok. 2. Have you ever done something you regretted? More than once! 3. Do you own a gun ? No 4. What flavor Kool Aid was your favorite? Cherry 5. Do you get nervous before Dr. appointments? Generally no, however lately more so. 6. What do you think of hot dogs? My favorite is Casper's with a"C", otherwise they are no big deal. 7. Favorite Christmas movie? There are many, as stated before I have enjoyed new ones on the Hallmark Channel. 8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee, coffee, coffee! 9. Can you do push ups? No way! 10. Favorite hobby? To many.....crocheting, genealogy, reading, scrapbooking, crafts

Christmas Meme

Lori Thorton at Smokey Mountain Family History, http://familyhistorian.blogspot.com , posted a meme involving Christmas and I thought I would go ahead a play along! 1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Always wrapping paper, half of the fun is ripping the paper open! 2. Real Tree or Artificial? Artificial, I can decorate the tree better and not worry about it drying out, watering it or catching fire. There are many ways to add "smell" to the house. 3. When do you put up the tree? For many years it had been the day after Thanksgiving, but the older I get I seem to have more activities, so if it gets up the weekend after Thanksgiving I am happy. 4. When do you take the tree down? Used to take it down right after New Years, but again these days are so active, I prefer to have it down before New Years. 5. Do you like eggnog? Yes I do, especially with "spirits" added to it! 6. Favorite gift received as a child? Would have to be the real puppy I received one year. 7. Hardest

Organizing And Subscribing To Blogs

I have been asked a few times about RSS Feeds and how to organize the blogs you may subscribe to. As you probably know there are well over a couple hundred genealogy related blogs out there that you may want to subscribe to. I know many people, especially newbies, get overwhelmed with so many blogs and trying to keep up. When people first subscribe to blogs they tend to have the blog updates sent to their personal email. At least I know that is how I started and have spoken with several others who started the same way. Then RSS Feeds came about and it tends to intimidate some people. RSS means "Really Simple Syndication". And believe me, it is really simple! First you need to download a RSS Reader. The reader will check all of your favorite blogs and let you know when any of them are updated. The program I personally downloaded is at this link~ http://www.rssreader.com/ . Here are the basic directions of how to get and install this particular reader. You must have Windows 200

Isn't The Internet Wonderful?

Early on in my genealogy research I came across a web site which turned out to be a distant cousins genealogy website. My was that a find! We made contact and I was blessed to be given information on that side of the family. I was unable to be of much help to her though, as it was so early on in my research. She sent pictures to see if I could identify anyone in them, but unfortunately I wasn't able to help. I was able to give her a few added names and dates she didn't have, but not very many. This all came about because I put a surname in the google search engine! Ok, I thought all of my research was going to be this easy! I was on cloud nine! As you can well imagine, not much has come that easy to me since. I made a connection with another cousin who verified information on another family line and gave me an excellent resource for that information. This was really important information as it has to do with one of my toughest, if not the toughest lines. I am trying to remember

Midwestern Genealogy Center

This information was sent by a member from my local genealogy society. It was forwarded to her from a friend, and now I am forwarding this information to you! Now that is how information gets around! ;-) You may have heard about this before but for those who haven't, and I was one of them, the Midwestern Genealogy Center is fairly new and has a great website to check out. I enjoyed taking the tour. There are several databases apparently that can be accessed online. The $8 million Midwestern Genealogy Center is located in Independence, Mo. Their holdings include passenger lists, plantation records, American Indian records, black family history records and Civil War histories. I believe they are offering classes now and have foreign language experts. Also, there is some sort of small food service available and even lockers! Here is the website, enjoy! Check out the floor plans! It would be wonderful to live close to this, but keep in mind if you are planning any traveling in the area

Wordless Wednesday

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Cahuita. Date April 24 2008. Place Costa Rica Central America. Digital Image by Msteri. Privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008

Tombstone Tuesday ~ James P Watson

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James P. Watson Headstone. Date October 27, 2007. Location Rowlands, Pennsylvania. Digital Image. Privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008. My grand uncle in law, married to Linda Harding. They had seven children, all girls! This headstone was an added pleasant surprise on the trip to the cemetery in Rowlands. Until this point and time I didn't know he had service in the Navy either. Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts! Msteri

Antique Airplane Restaurant ~ Dutch Colony Inn

I thought I would give a link so you could read about the business my first cousin once removed and his wife used to own. His name is Breity Breithaupt. The article gives the date range and history of the restaurant and Inn and shows the plane hung in the restaurant. In 1997 the property was sold to a daugther and son in law. http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=65788 Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts! Msteri

Who's number 1000?

Well Randy Seaver came up with this little tidbit for us to play. We are to go into our family tree and look up who is the 1000th person that was entered. I figured I wanted to play! So off I went earlier this evening, thinking this would be fun and easy information to find out, and half an hour later I gave up. I waste so much time on things I can't figure out! I have Family Tree Maker 2009. I went to Edit, Find Individual, entered Reference ID in the first box and 1000 and clicked on find. Guess what I got, nothing! Ok, so then I went and tried it for 100 and guess what I got? Nothing. Same thnig when I tried ten. So then I went to help and tried to figure out why they weren't coming up. It shows in my index how many people I have in my tree, so why doesn't it come up when I search this way for them? Ok, I poked around and around and finally said oh well. Seems I come across so many things that should be so simple to do or figure out and it never works out that way for me

Traditions or Not?

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CHRISTMAS THEN~ As a child I believe my family made it's own traditions. I really don't know of any that were truly passed down. Christmas Eve was always spent at my maternal grandfather's house. They had an artificial flocked tree that they never took down! Each season when Christmas was over they moved the tree into a spare bedroom and threw a sheet over it. Then the following Christmas out it came and the sheet disappeared. My grandmother did most of the shopping and my grandfather wrapped all of the presents. I actually have a package of bows that my grandfather wrote on that has never been opened. He passed away in 1979. Usually there would be my family, my aunt and her family and my grandparents for Christmas Eve. Maybe between eight to thirteen of us. I always was very excited about going there, they got us the best presents! Grandpa played Santa and enjoyed handing out the presents. After gifts were opened we normally had a ham dinner. Grandma cooked so much food an

Show and Surprise!

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As promised I wanted to show off my new paint job on my baby, the Harley. I received the bike back with the new paint, seat, motor and diamond cuts about two weeks ago. Spent a good five hours the following day spit shining. I enjoy cleaning the bike, I tend to be meticulous and love seeing the shine when I am finished. I waited for a day when the sun was out a bit to take a few pictures, however the pictures do not do justice to the bike. Without the sun actually beating on the paint and getting a close up shot, it is difficult to really see what it does. Anyway, here is an all around shot. The paint looks so subtle, but you can see the chrome fairly well. The new seat is slicker and flows with the bike. My rims I bought a few years ago, and after the spit shining, they were shining nicely. Here is a close up where you can see the color a bit and the style of the paint. The basic colors are purple and green, however the colored paint is cameleon paint, which changes colors in the su

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Julie Cahill Tarr at Gen Blog, http://genblogjulie.blogspot.com/ , started a meme naming two things you are thankful for. I am late in getting this done for her time table, for this I apologise! However, I still would like to participate. It is the season to be grateful, and I think Julie had a wonderful idea! Because I am late in my posting, (by one day I believe) I won't be tagging another, but feel free if you haven't already done so, to post your own thanks! First, I want to say I am very grateful for "all" of my family. The family I have spent my life with and all the "new" family members I have met or been re-acquainted with. The last couple of years my family has really grown! The support, love and affection I receive from each and every one of them makes my life complete! Second, I would like to thank all of my friends, online friends and geneabloggers who have supported me in all aspects of my life. Again, the support is unbelievable! What would we

Tombstone Tuesday~Paul and Dagny Harding

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Paul and Dagny Harding Tombstone. Date October 27, 2007. Location Rowlands, Pennsylvania. Digital Image. Privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008 My trip to Pennsylvania last year was primarily to see the house and area where my ancestors settled in this country. Paul and Dagny were both born in Norway. They came to this country at different times in their lives, met here, married and had 8 children. Paul's birth name was Paul Hardin Gustavsen. When he came to this country he dropped the Gustavsen and went by Paul Harding. I have heard that he wasn't happy in his homeland as there was a blended marriage and lots of children in a small house. Dagny Dulin on the other hand supposedly came from a family of wealth and therefore makes it more intriguing to me to find out why she left her home in Norway. Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts! Msteri

Tagged Again!

Looks as if a new game of tag has been going around and I have been tagged, twice. Once from Sheri at Family Twigs and again by Linda from Lancaster at From Axer to Ziegler. So here we go! Rules~ *Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. *Write a blog post about these eight things and post these rules. *At the end of the blog post, list eight people to get tagged. *Leave a comment on their blogs telling them they have been tagged. Eight things about me~ 1. I do not like to shop. Never have, never will. The only shopping I enjoy is Christmas shopping/and or buying for other people. My husband loves that I hate to shop, saves money that way! 2. I do not watch TV. I do not find there is much that interests me on TV. If there is something on rare occasion I do want to watch, I am usually doing something else as I am watching/listening. 3. I enjoy working Soduko puzzles. They are relaxing to me. 4. I use to do scrap booking and would love to start doing it online.

Numerous Names, States, and Dates

Brick Walls. Seems I have been hearing a lot about them this week. Many have been fortunate and been able to break through those brick walls recently. I congratulate you if you are one of those who are so fortunate! I can't say I have a brick wall at this point. I have a relative who is making me work hard, but not a brick wall, at least not yet. I haven't been able to find a birth certificate for this relative. Where she was born and when, happened to be around the time it wasn't mandatory to keep birth records. It is possible there is a delayed birth certificate, which I haven't tried for as of yet. Of course, this being a female only makes researching slightly more difficult. The real confusion is that she has been married at least four times and possibly five. I have found and know of four of these marriages. I do not have the actual marriage or divorce dates. I know there are two children, their names and their fathers names. I know she lived in at least 5 states,

Wordless Wednesday ~ I don't think it's a Relative

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White Faced Monkey. Date April 2008. Location Jungle in Costa Rica. Digital Image by Msteri. Privately held by Msteri [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008

What A Wild Week!

I have been a little side tracked this past week. Some new adventures and some old. The old is an ongoing illness I have had for quite some time that I can't seem to shake (it has been a couple years) but I am working hard as possible to clear this up. One of the new adventures, I attended was an event by Sylvia Browne. I was invited by a friend. Fifteen of us went in three cars. We had a great amount of fun! The speaker before Sylvia Browne was Colette Baron-Reid, with whom I had connections! As far as psychics go, I had never had any personal affiliation with one, but I know they have been helpful on cold cases and such. I also went to my first ever meditation class. I didn't get to the point of total relaxation as I know you should, but I enjoyed the meditation time non the less. My daughter asked me to join her as she has been taking yoga and meditation for awhile now and believes it would all be good for me too. My hesitation is the monthly fee. My husband and I did a PGR

Wordless Wednesday ~ Mono Lake

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Mono Lake. Date 2006. Location California. Digital Image by Msteri. Privately held by Msteri [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008

Tombstone Tuesday ~ George Harding

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George Milton Harding. Date June 2006. Location Oakmont Memorial Park, Lafayette, California. Digital Image by Msteri. Privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008 My last post was of my grandfather as an infant. Here is his final resting place. B.1912 D.1979. Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts! Msteri

Oh, Baby!

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George Clarence Milton Harding. Date 1913. Location Rowland, Pike, Pennsylvania. Scanned copy. Original privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008 This is my maternal grandfather I believe a little over a year of age. He was the seventh born of eight children, and was the second of two sons. I found this photo in my mother's photo album. The lower right corner apparently had been ripped, you can see the tape if you look closely. The first born child was a son and then there were five daughters, my grandfather and then another daughter. I am very happy to have this photo in my collection and just love the outfit! Submitted for the 7th edition of "Smile for the Camera" carnival. Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts! Msteri

Final Class in this Series

This final class was on Immigration and Naturalization records. It covered how to do your homework to help find immigration records and the types of records that may give you clues. There was a bit of history given on Naturalization Records. Naturalization Records are divided into two categories because of the Steerage Act of 1819. The Steerage Act stated that all passenger lists of all arriving vessels to the United States were required to be given to the local Collector of Customs. The categories are divided as prior 1820 and after 1820. Each category was discussed regarding searching for these records, what you can expect, and what information you will find. Points of interest include~ Passage of the first Naturalization Law was in 1790. The Naturalization Service was created in 1906. Ideas of places to search~ Filby's index Visa Files Passports Alien Registration Records Certificates of Registry As a bonus we received information on "Genealogy in the 21st Century" whi

Laura Fleming (nee Hohimer) ~ Wordless Wednesday

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Laura Fleming (nee Hohimer). Date Unknown. Location Oklahoma. Digital Copy. Privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008

Special People, Special Jobs

Today we attended the funeral of my friend's father. It was a nice service, as nice as a service can be. It was interesting for me though as the service was held at a mortuary I had never attended before. It just so happened to be the mortuary my ex-husband worked at maybe 40 years ago. He was actually married to one of owners daughters when he worked there. I can remember him talking about it, but darn if I remember much. I remember him saying it was an emotionally tough job and he wasn't cut out for it. He did the embalming. I never could picture him doing this job. Being at this mortuary though made my mind jump back to the past to try to imagine what my ex must have gone through with a job such as this. He had told me when we were first married that he still had "the kit" and I told him I never wanted to see it. The stories he has, I wish I could remember, but maybe that was my way of not dealing with what his job in the past had been. He didn't work at this j

Update CD's and DVD backups!

Backing up your genealogy as we all know is extremely important. The first of the month has been what seems to be the reminder to make sure you are on top of this! It is the beginning of a new month, so as others say, time to back up! I wanted to suggest another thought to this. I have been working on organizing photos on my laptop and need to make backups of these also, along with my other work. Upon doing this, I pulled out my DVD case and noticed that several of my copies are hitting or have hit the five year mark of having been made. Now is the time also to think about updating any of those CD's or DVD's that may have been made several years ago. The information, documents and pictures I have backed up on these I would sure hate to loose due to a CD or DVD having gone bad. I have heard that after 5 years the quality starts to deteriorate. I am not sure if this is still holds true, but I think I will be safe and make sure mine are updated! Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you

Organizing, Again

Seems to me I spend to much time organizing. Every time I think I am done and ready to move on I find something else that needs organizing. The toughest thing for me to keep up with is photographs. I seem to always be taking photos. I download them, and sometimes when I download them I get lazy and you never know where you will find the latest download. Having my paperwork all filed and organized is great, the scanning I have done this year is all in the folders they belong in. My digital pictures for the last three years have only been downloaded, never labeled or organized. I have organized the two oldest years and they make sense now, one more year to go. (This does include personal pictures, along with my genealogical shots) I have improved my download process to help simplify my organizing process. But really, who has time to label every picture you take? I have been working for a long time on getting everything in order, and have accomplished so much. I am happy about that. But w

Wordless Wednesday ~ Happy Halloween

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Grandson's first pumpkin. Date October 26, 2008. Location Livermore, California. Digital Image. Photo by Msteri. Privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Dolores Howard

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This is the sign outside of the Downieville Cemetery. Downieville is a very small town in the mountains on the way to Sierra City in Califonia. My husbands family lived there when he was a child. His parents owned the motel, his uncle owned the gas station, still the only one in town. Every year we make an official Harley run to Downieville. My husband leads the run and we have several bike take the ride with us. We have been doing this for about eight years, if I remember correctly. We have the "old faithfuls" who make the trip each year. Some of riders from the chapter don't make any other chapter runs during the year, but they won't miss this one! Originally this run was a one night, overnighter. People loved Downieville so much, it has now become a two night trip, which I believe we having been doing for about six years. We average approximately 25 to 30 bikes each year, with a total of 40-50 people attending. We take over the whole town! My husband has family bu

Graveyard Rabbit

If you haven't heard yet, there is a new association that has developed called the "Graveyard Rabbits". Terry Thorton is the founder. Many Genea-bloggers have chosen to be charter members by starting a Graveyard Rabbit blog of their own! These members each represent an area and will be blogging on the cemeteries of that area. The blogs are for this purpose only, to cover any and every bit of information they choose regarding cemeteries! From what I can see so far it looks like there are at least 29 Rabbits! Graveyard Rabbit of British Columbia - http://graveyardrabbitbc.blogspot.com/ Graveyard Rabbit of South Alameda County- http://graveyardrabbitofsouthalamedaco.blogspot.com/ San Diego County Graveyard Rabbit - http://ssdcgraveyardrabbit.blogspot.com/ Central Florida Graveyard Rabbit - http://cflagraveyardrabbit.blogspot.com/ Graveyard Rabbit of Moultrie Creek - http://moultriecreek.us/rabbit/ Untangled Family Roots - http://untangledfamilyroots.blogspot.com/ Graveyard R

Another Class ~ Land Records

I have to admit, I wasn't to enthused about this class, probably because I haven't gotten to the point of delving into land records. At one point I thought I would have to miss this class. We had so many plans for the day, between my husband and I. Originally we were supposed to have house guests for the weekend and with everything else we had going on, it was almost a blessing they cancelled. My morning was busy as I had so much to get together for the day, phone calls to make prior to leaving for my class, and making sure my grandson was taken care of, as I usually babysit him on Saturdays. My husband agreed to watch him so I could take these classes, but on this day he also had a major commitment. My daughter got it worked out which was good as I was feeling guilty. I am generally early to everything, and hate being late. I gathered everything I could remember that I needed for the day and jammed out the door, running late. First obstacle, the garage door wouldn't close!

Family Photographs

I finally made my purchase of Maureen Taylor's "Uncovering Your Ancestry through Family Photographs." I have been wanting to get this book for some time. After doing the post regarding our top ten books in our genealogy library, I was even more adamant to make this purchase. I have read almost half of the book and am finding it extremely interesting. I wish I had some of the old daguerreotypes and tin types of my family members, however at this point all I can do is keep wishing one may fall in my lap unexpectedly. Learning to date and place family photos is a science. What type of paper was used for the photo, how it may be encased, clothing, hairstyles, and possible photographers imprints are all clues to help you uncover the information you are looking for. There are many clues in this book to assist you with your photograph. The history of photography is related in this book, including when color photography came into play. The photos alone in the book are amazing. I

Pennsylvania Genealogical Cause

Here is a link to a web site that is promoting more and better access to death certificates in Pennsylvania. Online indexes currently aren't available. This site gives all the information how you can help promote updated information on the web and where write to in order to help all genealogy researchers involved with the state of Pennsylvania, I happen to be one of them. Death certificates are tough to get in this state. Please if you haven't done so already, check out his site and write in, support this cause for all genealogists! Thanks you. http://users.rcn.com/timarg/PaHR-Access.htm Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts! Msteri

Halloween Hauntings ~ Was my Story Fact or Fiction?

Time to unveil whether the post I did for the COG's 58th edition was Fact or Fiction! In case you missed this post, you can read it here: http://heritagehappens.blogspot.com/2008/10/halloween-hauntings-fact-or-fiction.html Almost all of you who left comments were exactly correct in guessing the post was fact. I needed to stop the story when I did or I would have given to much away! Besides I decided leaving a "cliff hanger" gave something more to ponder. These two women lived together in their younger years as well as in the later years of their lives. They were mother and daughter! The daughter took care of her mother during her final years of life. The mother developed Alzheimers Disease and was a tough patient for her daughter. The daughter spent many sleepless nights as she was always on the watch to make sure her mother was ok. Her mother would try to leave the house in the middle of the night and do many other off the wall things. This mother was the victim of a ter

Wordless Wednesday ~ Cake

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Baby Shower and New Home Cake. Date October 2006. Location Alameda County, California. Digital Image. Privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Heredia, Costa Rica

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Heredia Cemetery. Date April 30, 2008. Location Heredia, Costa Rica, Central America. Digital Image. Privately held by Msteri, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] California. 2008 This is a view of the only cemetery located in Heredia, Costa Rica. I was amazed to see all of the burial sites elevated on top of the ground. I am used to seeing headstones and the burials under ground, although I remember when we were back in Pennsylvania we saw graves elevated same as these. This Californian had her eyes opened in the last year with cemeteries. The graves are all nicely finished, some in cement and many with tile. Some are plain and some are rather elaborate. Many have several family members in one plot. My family spent a bit of time there, but this genealogist would have loved to spend more time there than we actually did. I was fortunate to even get to the cemetery as my family just doesn't see the "vacation" in doing this. Some of the family didn't even come along. The entrance

Seventeen Years Ago Today

Seventeen years ago today I had my family over to celebrate my mother's birthday. It was a great day with my family, and we were enjoying each others company. Mother had opened her gifts and we were getting ready to have a nice meal. The television was on and for some reason we all caught wind of the flash alert across the screen. It seems there was a hugh fire going on in the Oakland Hills. The newscasters were talking about mandatory evacuations, and all of a sudden my family's hearts sunk. It was like the world came to a sudden stop. We listened eagerly, trying to hear exactly where the evacuations were. You see, my grandparents lived up in the Oakland Hills and we were all very concerned about them. Suddenly my phone was a hot line. Calls were going out and coming out. My husband, even though it was out of his district, immediately was called to go to work, and he left to head for the hills! My father was trying to find my grandfather. We were all in shock..........and I ca

Getting Serious Class-Probate Records

Pop Question - Can you explain what the term "orphan" referred to? My class yesterday was another real eye opener! Any of our ancestors affiliations with the government would have taken place at the county courthouse. So, the coverage of the class involved county courthouse records, primarily probate records. Our fabulous instructor covered the who, why, and wherefore's of probate. The purposes of probate, the probate process and the many records that could be available for us to research. Again, I was impressed and amazed at the records involved. Here are some records possibly available when a probate is involved: Petition to Administer the Estate Hearing on the Petition Bonds posted by the Executor Letters Testamentary Letters of Administration Inventory of property Creditor's claims Interim accounts Sales of property Determination of widows rights Guardians for minors Bond changes Resignations Revocations Final settlement What a lot of information there is to be fo

Feelings on Friday

Having not felt well this week, I took a couple days off from work sick, a difficult thing for me to do, but probably this best thing I did. I haven't had much ambition to "think" very hard about anything. So at this point I can offer to share some feelings I have had the last few days, they tend to come easy when I am ill. With just under a couple months from starting this blog, I feel I have been blessed. I have been able to participate in a meme, a few carnivals and a couple of challenges. They have been so much fun! These events put you in a position to focus on whatever the subject is. I'd find myself wondering, before I was blogger, if I would have ever written stories on my own. Probably not. In fact, 100% probably not. Many articles I used to read said to me, "you can write about that" and I would add it to my list of things to write about. Did I do it? No. Writing for these events has given me written information I would never have written on my

Pier 39 ~ Wordless Wednesday

The picture I posted yesterday is one of my favorites taken a couple weeks ago when our daughter was here for a visit from Tennessee. She brought a little girl with her who is six. This little girl has been a BIG part of our daughter's life since this child was born. She had never been to California, so it was our duty to entertain her as much as possible for the short time they were here. We chose to take the family to "The City" the day after their arrival. Once in San Francisco, we took a cable car to get down to the wharf. I found out later that this was the first time my daughters had ever been on a cable car! Oh, did we parents get blamed for that one! One of the highlights for this little girl was to see the bay, and another was most definitely the sea lions! She loved hem, especially when they were "barking" away. This picture happens to show where we were and in the background you can see bits of the Golden Gate Bridge. Also in the background you can se

Would You Care To Comment?

I accepted the challenge from Kathryn at Looking4Ancestors! Her blog is @ http://looking4ancestors.blogspot.com/ She has challenged us to leave at least 10 comments on the blogs we read. Such a great idea! I am guilty in that there are many blogs I read and most of the time I have not left comments like I should have. This has changed me forever though! I love getting comments and I know other bloggers do also. This challenge will help the genealogy blogging community get better acquainted and we can show support to our fellow bloggers. I believe I have left many more than 10 comments this week so far, but here 10 I have chosen to share with you! 1. Looking4ancestors, "Would you Care to comment?" @ http://looking4ancestors.blogspot.com/2008/10/fun-friday-would-you-care-to-comment.html 2. Creative Gene, "Who's Dog's Rule? These do!" @ http://creativegene.blogspot.com/2008/10/whos-dogs-rule-these-do.html 3. Janet the Researcher, "Thanksgiving Ca