SACRIFICES MADE BY OUR ANCESTORS

It seems as we look back in our family lines, many have made sacrifices to improve their lives or the lives of their families.  For those who immigrated from Greece to America, its hard to imagine what people must have felt, especially those who the decision was made for them.

One such example is women who were sent as brides.  View this video to hear a song about their experiences and view some historical pictures of the events.

This song relates the pain of leaving for America on the request of the parents who thought that giving their daughter a new life by marrying her off to an american was for the good of the daughter and of the family. This song is the lament of the daughter to her plight. Written in the 1930s it was recorded in 1935 by Rita abatzis.http://youtu.be/EWYu1rZwoR4

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR FAMILY THROUGH LETTERS

Lately I have been involved in a new project in trying to preserve some family memories.

I have been transcribing old family letters written to people in the family.  I thought it would be easy to just scan the letters and input them into my document.  But then I thought better of that.  Now that many schools will no longer be teaching cursive, in just a few years we will have people who will not be able to read these old letters because of  this change in the schools.

The fun part of preserving letters is that you get to know the personalities of the letter writer, you learn about their likes, dislikes and concerns.  You also get to know some about history.

While living in Pennsylvania, I wrote to my family how gas for the car was now 85 cents a gallon.  Can you imagine having to pay that?  Now we expect to pay between $3.00-5.00 a gallon.  And then cottage cheese was a whole $1.50, just outrageous.  How our perception changes in just a few short years.

When completed I will save these to https://familysearch.org/photos/  under memories so they will be available to others in the future.


Excerpt from letter  to Debbie Stevens from Dawna Stevens April 1978

"I’m sitting here waiting for the bus.  It cost 35 cents one way and ten cents a transfer.  I quit buying cottage cheese, $1.50 can you believe that?  The news from the East is that by winter, beef will be  $1.99 a pound and gas 85 cents a gallon."

 

 

Letter sent from 790 Market Street #7

Kingston, PA  18704

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF SCANNING DOCUMENTS AND PICTURES

Many family history participants are able to help themselves as well as others by scanning photos and documents for preservation.

What's great about scanning these items is that they can be scanned, preserved and shared with others by placing them online.

I am offering a service of scanning items for just $1.00 per page.  From there they can be put online or I can send you a DVD with your scanned items.

If interested, contact me directly.

THE VALUE OF FORMS

When doing research it is always helpful to keep a record of where you have been and what you learned.  There are many forms to use.  Some are census, marriages, graveyards etc.

Many are free for the downloading.  Family Search website and Family Tree Magazine are good resources.  Right now Family Tree is offering some free down loads, or you have the option of creating your own.

The key is to simplify your research in a way that it is organized and easy to retrieve which will prevent you from doing duplicate work.

MY FAVORITE LINKS

Several years ago I worked for an Internet Company as the Genealogy Specialist.  Over the recent years since that time I have seen so much more information come online to help people research their families history.  A whole new world has opened up!

Listed below are some of my favorite links and I hope others will find them helpful in their research.

westernhellenicancestry.com/
this is an ongoing project which is free and the genealogy of Hellenic people who settled in the Western United States.  New histories are welcome!

www.ancestry.com
an international site to search for original records

findagrave.com
this is a place to locate burials as well as a place a memory to your own family

www.familysearch.org
 a free site to locate newly indexed records as well as a place to have a family tree, post pictures as well as family stories

www.rootsweb.com
 the free side of Ancestry.com

www.ellisislandrecords.org
 immigration and ship records to the United States

www.archives.com

 a subscription to American historical newspapers

www.cgwc.org
war grave site for military heroes

http://hellenicgenealogygeek.blogspot.com/2012/03/greek-state-archives-digital.html

a great blog on Hellenic  genealogy and a source for purchasing Greek documents translated into English for a minimal cost

THE GOOD SAMARITANS OF GENEALOGY

One thing I absolutely love about people who do genealogy research is that in most cases they seem to be willing to help one another or keep their eyes open for those sir names that others are researching.

Yesterday I received an email from Sarah, who I had only met once, but we have a similar interest in Greek research.  She remembered that I was researching the Haramis line.  Her mother had asked her to go through some papers of a family member who had recently passed away.

There she found some pedigree charts from the Haramis family that she shared with me as well as a couple of other people.  I was so delighted to receive the charts!

Besides the great satisfaction one gets from researching their own families, it is also a gentle reminder of some of the wonderful people in this world who work for the common good of remembering those who came before us.

Thank You to all those who help to share in this work.  No matter if it is sharing reports, documents, pictures,stories etc, it all comes together.

Its interesting to observe how when we help someone else, it always comes full circle!

LYKOURGOS-3000 |

LYKOURGOS-3000 |

A world wide call for volunteers has been issued by Peter Adamis for a huge project. This will include anyone associated with Laconia. There will be pictures, documents, histories etc. Please check out his information at the link.