Search Results for: blog personal histories the interview

Ellis Island Oral Histories: Now Available On Ancestry.com

If you do genealogical research on the internet, you have probably realized that the amount of historical information that is available online increases each day. Today I heard about a wonderful new addition to the Ancestry.com website. As the result of a joint effort of the National Park Service and Ancestry.com, the oral histories of about 1,700 people that passed through Ellis Island beginning in the late 1890’s can now be accessed for free in the “Immigration” section of the Ancestry.com web site. The National Park Service began conducting the interviews some time during the 1970’s and they were available … Continue reading →

Author Interview – Leigh Bale (part one) How It All Began

Our featured author today is Leigh Bale, a multiple award-winning author of inspirational romance. Leigh, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start at the beginning of your impressive career – how did you become interested in writing? I’ve been creating stories all my life. As a child, I made up plays and acted them out with friends. We advertised and charged .05 cents for admission. My mom popped corn, so we had concessions to sell. She was a really good sport. When I got older, I wrote some short stories. I’ve always been a romantic. I believe in happily ever … Continue reading →

Bring Your Research To Life With A Geneaolgy Project

If you enjoy doing genealogy research but you wonder what kinds of things you can do with the information that you have diligently been digging up, you may want to put your research on hold for a bit and try doing a genealogy-related project. Creating a family tree to display in your home or give as a gift is a popular genealogy project, as are genealogy scrapbooks and written family histories. There are plenty of products that are available to help you get started on any of these three projects. There is a huge selection of beautiful family tree templates … Continue reading →

Happy Grandparents’ Day!

Grandparents’ Day is tomorrow, and I would like to wish my son’s grandparents and all of you other grandparents out there a happy Grandparents’ Day. I am grateful that all four of my son’s grandparents are alive and well. They are all wonderful people and each of them contributes something very special to my son’s life – and mine too, for that matter. I am sure that as he grows, he will appreciate each of them for their unique qualities and the special times that they will share. I had wonderful grandparents when I was younger. Okay, let me rephrase … Continue reading →

Medical Family History

If you are completing your recent family history or genealogy it may be a good idea to track the health histories of the family. This is personal information, and not the type of stuff that you would want to post on the Internet, however it is important information and can help future generations. This type of record can be obtained by interviewing the oldest members of your family. You can ask them about the health of the people in the family and conditions that they struggled with. You can record instances of Alzheimer’s, dementia, heart disease and cancer. This can … Continue reading →

Three Steps to Writing a Family History

Writing a family history is a big project. If you are working on your own personal history a history that spans generations there are basic steps that you can take to make the project a success. It is important to begin working with a plan in mind. The first step in writing a family history is to begin with the research. You should look at old family journal and letters. This can help you begin to fill in the details of your family’s daily life generations ago. As you add these details you bring your family history to life. The … Continue reading →

Family Genealogy Newsletter

Once you have had a family reunion that has focused on genealogy you may want to create a newsletter to help the people interested in doing the genealogy work on the family in touch. This can allow you to share what you have found, and to learn more about the family in the process. Depending on the interest of the group you could have several sections in the newsletter. You could also print it out and mail it or email it to people. One section should be an update of work done, or a place where people can share where … Continue reading →

Keeping Your Family History

When it comes to family history, I usually think about finding lost lines of ancestors, and filling out a pedigree chart. But there is another important aspect to completing your family history. It is just as important that you record the events in your family’s life as well. Here are five easy ways to do that. 1) You may want to create an online blog or journal. This is a great way to keep distance family updated. If you save your entries on your computer as well you can easily burn your entries onto DVD to archive them. Families.com has … Continue reading →

Does Your Child Feel Important?

I watched a fantastic documentary last night called “The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy.” It uses computer animation to recreate the assassination with pinpoint accuracy never seen before. The point of the documentary is to argue that only Lee Harvey Oswald was behind the murder of President Kennedy and that there was no conspiracy. This is the greatest documentary on this topic that I’ve ever seen. A Desperate Need to Feel Important The documentary also reveals details about Lee Harvey Oswald’s life of which most people are probably unaware. This misfit Oswald had an overwhelming desire to be important. From the … Continue reading →