Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
WHY PUT YOUR FAMILY TREE ONLINE
Over the years of doing genealogy research, I have met different types of genealogists. Some are willing to share their information while others are not. At all times, we want to respectful of both views.
That being said, I am always grateful to those who are willing to share. Because of this, unknown distant relatives have been located. We have come to know one another, documents have been accessed which I have been unable to locate before. I have even met people who are willing to help translate where needed. The best benefit of all is getting to know others.
When doing this type of work, this world becomes very small. There are many places online to put your information. Of course, you can put it online at paid sites such as Ancestry.com, but there are also free sites as well.
One of my favorite places is Tribal pages and I have included a link to my page on their site to show some things that can be done. Of course, you can upgrade to a paying site, but I have not found this necessary.
There are other sites as well, such as Rootsweb, My Heritage, etc. If you need information as to where else a family tree can be posted, feel free to contact me.
If you are looking for an additional site I would strongly recommend www.familysearch.org as they now have an option for personal family trees as well as community trees.
That being said, I am always grateful to those who are willing to share. Because of this, unknown distant relatives have been located. We have come to know one another, documents have been accessed which I have been unable to locate before. I have even met people who are willing to help translate where needed. The best benefit of all is getting to know others.
When doing this type of work, this world becomes very small. There are many places online to put your information. Of course, you can put it online at paid sites such as Ancestry.com, but there are also free sites as well.
One of my favorite places is Tribal pages and I have included a link to my page on their site to show some things that can be done. Of course, you can upgrade to a paying site, but I have not found this necessary.
There are other sites as well, such as Rootsweb, My Heritage, etc. If you need information as to where else a family tree can be posted, feel free to contact me.
If you are looking for an additional site I would strongly recommend www.familysearch.org as they now have an option for personal family trees as well as community trees.
A LABOR OF LOVE
During the 1990's there were a lot of changes for our family. My sister got married, my father and mother both passed away. I received a kidney transplant;
When my mother passed away six weeks right before Christmas, I decided to write a short biography of my mothers life for my sisters for Christmas as a gift.
This short project turned into a full-blown history which took about ten years to write. It extended to her siblings, parents, some cousins, etc. I gathered newspaper articles, birth and death certificates as well as baptismal and marriage records.
Also were included pictures with descriptions of who the people were in the pictures and where the pictures were taken. Using a genealogy program, I also added notes about their lives that could be formated into a book.
I took it to the copy shop where I saw Brad. Brad runs the copy shop, is a chef and his wife has family from Greece. This always seems to come up in our conversations. He loves all things Greek. He offered to copy the book for me and you would have thought it was his family! It was good for me to see a non-family member so excited about such a project. I just hope family members who see this after I am no longer around will enjoy the work. But the greatest satisfaction comes from knowing that this will help preserve memories of the Spetsas (AKA Thymaras) family for a long time to come.
It was amazing to me to see how deep your love for these people deepens as you preserve their history. A copy of this writing has been placed in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The title of the work is "From Greece to North America-a history of the Spetsas-Thymaras family."
When my mother passed away six weeks right before Christmas, I decided to write a short biography of my mothers life for my sisters for Christmas as a gift.
This short project turned into a full-blown history which took about ten years to write. It extended to her siblings, parents, some cousins, etc. I gathered newspaper articles, birth and death certificates as well as baptismal and marriage records.
Also were included pictures with descriptions of who the people were in the pictures and where the pictures were taken. Using a genealogy program, I also added notes about their lives that could be formated into a book.
I took it to the copy shop where I saw Brad. Brad runs the copy shop, is a chef and his wife has family from Greece. This always seems to come up in our conversations. He loves all things Greek. He offered to copy the book for me and you would have thought it was his family! It was good for me to see a non-family member so excited about such a project. I just hope family members who see this after I am no longer around will enjoy the work. But the greatest satisfaction comes from knowing that this will help preserve memories of the Spetsas (AKA Thymaras) family for a long time to come.
It was amazing to me to see how deep your love for these people deepens as you preserve their history. A copy of this writing has been placed in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The title of the work is "From Greece to North America-a history of the Spetsas-Thymaras family."
Saturday, March 12, 2011
New competion for genealogy companies
A valuable resource is now coming online. Google is starting to digitize records. See Gus's blog for more details.http://gusmarsh.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-partners-with-yad-vashem-to.html
Friday, February 18, 2011
LOVE CONTACT FROM FAMILY
Bill Spetsas with cousins Matina and Peter Petropoulos. Picture taken in Salt Lake City, Utah.They have helped me to learn more about my heritage, learning more about living as well as deceased family members. We had a great talk.
Peter had asked me to help him find some of his relatives, I love this! It seems we always get the chance to help someone else regarding the most important thing in our lives. That is family!
I've noticed that people who are bitten by the genealogy bug, are always willing to help one another in their search for family.
WHAT TO ADD TO A PERSONAL HISTORY
When working on the written history of my mothers family, I like to add additional items besides the genealogy. People often have events in their lives that document things they accomplished or even items that others have provided in respect to them.
There was a family friend and neighbor who had never written a song before, but he woke feeling impressed to write this song about my mother. So he got out of bed, sat down and wrote the song. The original song was titled. "Athena's song" a very nice song, but I later learned more details about the song.
He had felt impressed the write the song on the early morning of Nov 27, 1997. He finished it about 11:45 a.m., My mother passed away at 11:50 that very same morning. It also happened to be Thanksgiving Day which was always her favorite holiday.
I now keep the song in a frame hanging on my wall as a reminder of the good she did in her life and the people she influenced.
There was a family friend and neighbor who had never written a song before, but he woke feeling impressed to write this song about my mother. So he got out of bed, sat down and wrote the song. The original song was titled. "Athena's song" a very nice song, but I later learned more details about the song.
He had felt impressed the write the song on the early morning of Nov 27, 1997. He finished it about 11:45 a.m., My mother passed away at 11:50 that very same morning. It also happened to be Thanksgiving Day which was always her favorite holiday.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW
What got me to thinking about this is that today would have been my first born nieces birthday. She was only 29 years old at the time she died. She had suffered with many trials in her life including spine cancer. When she was a child she spent much of her time living with us, sometimes weeks and months at a time.
While she was ill, I had asked her to write about her life which she did.
In this sweet letter she had told me "I wish you or Gran had been my mother." How heart breaking for a child to have such a wish. But the good thing was that she knew who to go to when she needed help and comfort.
Kathleen Athena had such a kind heart. She was just a little princess, she would hold up one corner of her dress as she would walk up the stairs. As a toddler, my mother told her, "Kathy, you are the grandest of all!" She then gave my mother Athena, the nick name of "Granner" which stuck and my mother was never known as Yia Yia or Grandma or any of those names of endearment. Instead all of the grandchildren and great grandchildren referred to her as "Granner." How precious memories are as we reflect upon them.
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