Saving Oral Histories...

What's the easiest way to share your oral histories with others?  There are truly several options that are user friendly.  First with the availability of free blog sites, it's easy to set up a blog.  Type up the oral histories of your parents and grandparents and post to the blog.  Many of the blog sites with also work with Facebook accounts.  This allows all of your friends and family members to see when you've updated with more stories.

Another option is that with the explosion of ebook readers such as the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook, it is possible to create e-books from PDF files.  Font size can be changed on all the e-readers and the Kindle will even read the newly created ebook with the text to speech option.  Graphs and charts do not always convert well, but if all you want to do is share the stories of your ancestors with others it's a great program.  There is an incredible program called Calibre (calibre-ebook.com) that will convert most documents to any format that you need.  Once converted it can even be emailed directly to the Kindle(s).

We are truly blessed to live in a time that sharing information is so simple.  There are so many options from blogs to e-readers that there is an option for everyone.  Files are simple to back up on an SD card, Flash Drive, or CD without hundreds and thousands of pages of papers that are difficult to keep organized.

G.M.

Need a jumping off point, a place to start?

Are you just starting to realize how cool your grandparents or great grandparents really were?  Ready to start on a little family history but not really sure how to start?  Start by finding a treasured possession of one of your grandparents?  Does your grandfather have a bomber jacket from World War II?  Has Grandma always had the exact same quilt on her bed?  Take that one item and ask them about it.  Where did it come from?  Where has it been?  What do you think about when you see it?

You'll be amazed at how one story immediately follows the first.  You may learn that the bomber jacket was worn in 12 bombing missions over Germany  and that the plane he was in was named for your grandmother.  And that quilt your grandmother loves so much could have been a wedding gift from the other young ladies in her church or school.  Once the memories start flowing just keep a tape player going and take a trip through the ages.

Start small.  Don't look at the whole possibly overwhelming project from the beginning.  Take small pieces that really inspire you and work from there.

Floyd Alvin Olga Oliver Cline

For a while now you have had the pleasure :) of viewing the picture of my mother's father, Floyd Cline. So I thought I would give you a brief review of what we know of Grandpa Floyd.

Grandpa Floyd worked hard all his life for other people. When he was 21 he went to work for Great Grandpa Christensen and married Grandma Mary when she turned 21. Grandma Mary was stricken with Tuberculosis and died at 39 leaving Grandpa Floyd with three girls to raise.

I can't imagine how difficult it was to raise three girls while working 11 hour days on a country Farm, but he did his best had depended on neighbors to watch over them while he was gone.

Grandpa Floyd remarried a few years later and eventually moved to Oregon to work on the Columbia Gorge Dam.

What do you know about your grandpa? Is he still alive? Then don't you think you should find out while he is still here to ask? Be patient, make a list of questions and take a pocket recorder! You will be amazed at the wealth of information he is!

What does your name mean?

Have you ever wondered what you name means? My maiden name means two different things; it is either the nickname for a white haired person in Germany or an ornamental word in Hebrew. Does it matter? Maybe not, but if you can't find where your ancestors came from or who they were before the records writers misspelled it when they disembarked from the ship, sometimes it helps to know what it meant.

For myself the explanation of my name caused some families to be called White and others to become Snow! Quite a difference, don't you think?

Having fun yet?

If you aren't having fun searching for your ancestors then you are doing something wrong! Sure the work is serious, but it's not just a quest to get the most names, it is a time of discovery. Take time to find out what life was like the year your great grandparents married. Look at the clothing styles, the newspaper headlines, life in the area they lived.

Where did they come from? Sweden? England? What was life like in their homeland? Were they Quakers, Presbyterians or agnostics? Learn about who they were so you can know more about who you are!

Valentine's Day is Gone, now get to work!

February is half over and your excuses for putting off working on your family history is gone! So, get out your Personal Ancestry File (PAF) and decide who you want to work on finding in February.

Do you know it is Waitangi Day, and Black History Month? Did you know that the 1910 US Fed Census is now available for all 50 states? There are records available from New Zealand or about any country in the world; so where did your family line originate? One of mine was from Copenhagen another from Holland.

What do you know about the countries where your family came from or what the conditions were that caused them to give up their homelands, language, close family ties and hope for a letter once or twice a year? Many times it was the lack of land, or religious persecution; what caused your family's patriarch to look beyond the borders of his own country? Isn't it about time you found out?

What are some topics to use when asking for personal history?

As many of you will find out, asking our elders for their personal history can be a bit awkward. They don't see that they have done anything worth talking about usually, but if you can get someone to say nice things about their husband, sister, brother, etc you will find out a lot more!

When my grandmother was visiting with her siblings just a few years before her death I learned more about her than all my years of taking care of her put together! So, group settings work well if you can get one of them to start with a "remember when?"

This is how I found out that my Baptist Preacher Uncle once took his little brother and hung him by his suspenders from a fence post! Then he forgot all about the little guy until he got home and his mom asked where his little brother was. His mom said he lost all his color and went running across the pasture to rescue him!

Imagine what is in your history you will never hear about, unless you ask!

Family Names

Family names, as I'm sure you have discovered, changed sometimes a little and sometimes into something unrecognizable. If you can't find your family try using a sound index or spell it as it sounds. My maiden name was Schnee but here in the US it is often found as Snow, Russell may have once been Ruschli, it usually happened when the recorders when to write down the names for people who couldn't read or write. Or when people wanted to fit into an area and seem less foreign. You will soon turn into a free-lance detective and if you work with genealogy sites such as Ancestry.com you may find out even more. So, keep searching!

Trailblazers

Who are the trailblazers in your family? Who were the ones to leave their family, friends and homeland to come to America, the Land of the Free? Those courageous men and women who read about the free land in California and Oregon and made the trek across the barren plains to get there.

Were your ancestors brought here as indentured servants because they were Protestant in faith or as slaves in the belly of a ship? Did the trailblazers in your family fight for right, become business men and women, create a dynasty?


Trailblazers are leaders, pioneers; they look at 2,000 mile walks and 3 month ocean voyages as challenges to be met on their way to their goal, whatever that may be. I'm sure you have many in your family, in fact the United States of America is well known for it's Trailblazers!

Tonight! Who do you think you are; season 2

Hello everyone, just a reminder, the acclaimed series that follows Vanessa Williams and Tim McGraw as they discover who their ancestors were and why they did what they did! It is so exciting to find that your Great Grandfather was in the Civil War, or when your people came to this country back in 1850...

My Mother's family came from Copenhagen while my Dad's Dutch ancestors arrived in Pennsylvania! Where in the world do you come from? Most of us have ancestors who arrived in the 1800s when there was a mass exodus to the Land of Milk and Honey. Here everyone who wanted it badly enough could own their own land, something unheard of in most countries!

We were the land of opportunity, and contrary to popular news today, we still are!