I have been thinking quite a bit the last few days about the importance of involving the whole family in our love for family history. There are some fun ways to do this.
As you share stories about your parents, grandparents, cousins etc. the children in the family will learn to love these people in your family. I remember hearing about various family members while I was growing up, some who I had never met. Yet because of learning about their lives, hardships etc. I developed a great love for them.
Historical societies are always looking for groups as well as individuals to transcribe cemeteries and some will even offer grants for such a project. The Utah Historical Society is one that does offer these grants.
On a couple of occassions I took a couple of my nieces and nephews to help me transcribe some head stones and to take pictures of the grave stones. They were old enough at the time they had a great time learning about some of these people and it gave me the chance to teach them how to recognize names in the Greek language. So not only were they giving service they were also learning at the same time. Then afterwards we would go to lunch and talk about our experience that day.
An interesting thing happened. Immediate bonding! They were then asking when they could go and do this activity again.
Following these efforts we then took the pictures and placed them on the website findagrave.com
There are also activities specifically geared towards children learning about their families on several sites. On Familysearch there are lessons geared towards all ages.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
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.
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