Offering insight and perspectives on Family History, photography, family fun, and more. Each guest blogger has a unique message to help inspire you.
In November 2008, I was recovering from rotator cuff surgery, and trying to come up with Christmas gifts for family members. At the time, I was hearing a lot about MyCanvas in various press releases on genealogy blogs. MyCanvas is an online program in which you can create personalized items like family history books, recipe books…
“Mommy, where did you get that?”
Hmmm… where did I get that? Did it belong to my grandmother? Or was it my mother’s? Wait… if it was my mother’s, where did she get it? And how did I end up with it? With the everyday busy-ness of life, work, and family, I have found it increasingly difficult to remember my own name some days, much less where I got that antique candy dish.
Today, people are living longer than they did a generation ago. The family landscape has changed dramatically as well. Yet, no matter how long we live, how often we change addresses, the one thing that will always exist is your family’s heritage; that which is passed from one generation to the next that tells about a way of life, traditions and culture.
A family history book seems an impossible feat at times.
How does one convert years of research into some semblance of stories and organize those stories along with pictures and documents into a book?
Many years ago, in the very early dawn of the internet, a complete stranger sent me an e-mail from Israel about his genealogical research into the family of Ludwig Bodenheimer. Ludwig was my great grandfather’s brother. I’d only recently discovered that he even had a brother, and that we had living Bodenheimer relatives here in the US.
Family Friday is something that I like to promote to help strengthen family bonds and get families involved in genealogy & family history. From one family historian to another, I’m sure you can relate to sometimes feeling like you’re on a genealogy island alone when relatives don’t always seem to share the same enthusiasm as you do. Sometimes they don’t know they’re enthused until you get them enthused (smile)! That’s where these Family Friday activities come in!
Genealogy has been a passion of mind since childhood. It is hard to believe it has been four decades since I first asked my grandmother about a tintype photo of her father. From her stories I was hooked into the exciting world of family history. I became the nosey nephew at family gatherings, always asking questions and seeking old photographs or documents. Many relatives would get bored with my questions, however a handful of my older cousins encouraged my research. By the time I was twelve years old I had already typed my first thirteen page genealogy book (on file at NEHGS).
MyCanvas is pleased to announce our second Guest Blog Series. We’ve asked fifteen guests from near and far to share inspirational stories relating to families, genealogy, and preserving memories. This series will begin…
I have always loved family history research. My maternal grandmother was the family historian and shared stories of our ancestry with me. There’s no doubt that those stories influenced my work as a genealogist. But, while family history has been an interest of mine since I was a child, I’ve also conducted historical and psychological research as…
“Not another cemetery…!” is a familiar chorus in our family whenever we head out on a road trip, whether it is a family holiday, an overseas trip, or even just a Sunday drive in the country. A genealogist in the mix is always going to result in a travel adventure…