Family History Tips and Tricks

The Letter A This kind of reminds me of  Sesame Street , when they would say "and the letter today is" and "brought to you by the letter..." then they would have all kinds of things that began with that letter--it was fun as a child thinking about all the things that day that began with that letter. It also reminds me of a game that I made up when I was taking a trip up to Toronto to get tickets for Phantom of the Opera with a friend of mine---he wanted to be more than friends and I felt a bit uncomfortable on the drive back home so I made up the game I called The Alphabet game. Every one (if you have more than 2 people in the vehicle it makes it fun) in the car in turn has to say one word that begins with the beginning letter, which we all know is A, none of the words can be the same, and when some one can't think of a word they loss the round and need to move on to the next letter---you keep on playing until the last letter. It's a great distraction and t...

I ran into a great idea from the blogger at Genealogy and History News. That blogger suggested the idea way back in May 2012---let the challenge begin. The challenge was to use every letter in the alphabet some how every week about family history. Resources Image:   http://tinyurl.com/7h7ov5b

"Your story should be written now while it is fresh and while the true details are available. Your private journal should record the way you face up to challenges that beset you. Do not suppose life changes so much that your experiences will not be interesting to your posterity. Experiences of work, relations with people, and an awareness of the rightness and wrongness of actions will always be relevant. Your journal, like most others, will tell of problems as old as the world and how you dealt with them." "Begin today...and write... your goings and your comings, your deeper thoughts, your achievements, and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies." "People often use the excuse that their lives are uneventful and nobody would be interested in what they have done. But I promise you that if you will keep your journals and records, they will indeed be a source of great inspiration to your families, to your childre...

I was in 2nd grade when I grew a little wiser and my world turned upside down.  This year would be a tough one because this is the year when we became homeless. Different people from church or the community when they heard about our plight took us into their homes---sometimes it was for one night, a couple of days, weeks…etc. Eventually one of my mother’s friends who lived way out in the country allowed us to stay with them until we could be self-sufficient. My mom’s friend had a lot of kids and they barely could afford food and basic necessary items for their own children and yet they took us in, 2 more mouths to feed, how grateful we were. The house was always a bevy of activity with kids running in, out, around all of the time, so when my mother had to have a private conversation with me she would bring to the bathroom where we had privacy and sat me on the toilet covered seat. This particular time she called me into her private office, will forever be seared into my m...