Saturday, October 16, 2010

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Who's to Blame?

Hey geneaphiles - it's Saturday Night, time for more Genealogy Fun for all Genea-Musing readers.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (and we need more of you to do this, otherwise it may end...), is to:

1)  Read Brenda Joyce Jerome's post Who or What Do You Blame? on the Western Kentucky Genealogy blog.  She asks these questions:

*  Can you identify person or event that started you on this search for family information?

*  Did you pick up researching where a relative had left off?

*  Did your interest stem from your child's school project on genealogy?

*  If you have been researching many years, it may be hard to pinpoint one reason for this journey.

2)  Write your responses on your own blog, in a comment to this blog post, or in a note or comment on Facebook. 
 
Here's mine:
 
*  My first reaction to the first question was Alex Haley, the author of Roots.  I read the book in the early 1980s and thought that genealogy research was something that I could do well because of my aerospace engineering and fluid dynamics research background. 
 
In 1982, my father wanted to go back to his home town of Leominster, Massachusetts (he left in 1940) to see it one last time, but he came down with cancer and could not make the trip.  Linda and I took the kids back to New England and had a wonderful time with family and friends.  I made a one-hour tape recording with my uncle Ed Seaver about the family, and his life, which was funny, poignant and informational.
 
It wasn't until 1988 that I started doing serious research, and I've been working on it ever since.
 
*  My father's oldest sister, Marion, was a schoolteacher, and for her typing class she had the students type sections from a local history book.  For her part, she typed out the Seaver family genealogy from the Westminster, Massachusetts history book and passed it to the family members in the 1940s.  It provided an excellent starting point for my research, although it was really only one surname.
 
*  There was no child's project on genealogy that I recall.
 
*  Thank you, Alex Haley for stimulating interest in genealogy throughout the USA, and to my Smith/Auble/Carringer ancestors that saved four generations of photographs and documents that lead back to English, French, German and Dutch ancestry; and to my father for having such an interesting New England, and English ancestry.  It keeps me going day-in and day-out - I feel like the Energizer Genea-Bunny sometimes.
 
Thank you, Brenda, for providing the idea for this week's SNGF!

21 comments:

Brenda Joyce Jerome said...

Thanks for the mention, Randy.

Liz Haigney Lynch said...

Irresistible prompt! I cannot lie. It's all the Webelos' fault:

http://bit.ly/9ibSLx

Deb Ruth said...

My first SNF! Thanks for posting.

http://tiny.cc/pq5ft

Carol said...

Can't wait to read the other entries

here is min

http://www.reflectionsfromthefence.com/2010/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-whos-to.html

Brian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brian said...

Posted up my response. Love the topic. http://goo.gl/Sd1G

Life Goes On said...

Fun Saturday night Off to read the other postings. Thanks Randy

http://myfamilyrootsrundeep.blogspot.com/2010/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-whos-to.html

Becky Higgins said...

This was fun one, Randy. Here's my response: http://bit.ly/9Ea6OC.

Anonymous said...

I blame it all on my g-grandfather. Or rather his portrait. Grandma had the portrait on her living room wall forever. He was her father-in-law, and the large, framed, 1880 era picture was part of a set that Grandpa had had. For some reason, the other 3 g-grandmother & g-g-grandparents on Grandpa's side.)had been given to one of the uncles, who moved out of state and then had a house fire, where they burned.

I was 10 yrs old when I started trying to find out more about him. That was almost 50 yrs ago. I go through times where I really don't do much, then get the bug again & away I go!

Greta Koehl said...

Thanks for a great topic. Mine's at http://gretabog.blogspot.com/2010/10/sngf-whos-to-blame.html.

Deb said...

1977 I watched the mini-series based on Alex Haley's ROOTS. I tell all my classes that this was the reason I started my genealogy search.

my Heritage Happens said...

Fun SNGF! And, I have time to play along! Here is my post:

http://heritagehappens.blogspot.com/2010/10/saturday-night-fun-whose-to-blame.html

Everyone who posted added to the fun tonight. I enjoyed everyone's posts!

Sue Edminster said...

Hi Randy and Everyone,
This was fun and being a lazy lout at times I simply looked back at my entry titled "How I Became Addicted to Genealogy" written way back in 2008.
URL is "http://susaned1.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/how-i-became-addicted-to-genealogy/" in case you want to have a look-see.
Sue Edminster

M. Diane Rogers said...

Here's my post, Randy. Good topic!
Who To Blame? CanadaGenealogy

QuiltinLibraryLady said...

When I was in about the 7th or 8th grade (1964-65) I read a book called "The House of Golden Windows" about a young woman whose elderly aunt sent her to Scotland or England (I forget exactly which) to do family research for her. After that I found some obits my grandmother had saved between the pages of her bible & constructed a short family tree. That was it for quite a while. Then in 2002, when work was called off for a snowstorm, I was doing idle Google searches on my maiden name and found my father's name (he died in 1977). He was a pallbearer at my great-grandmother's funeralin 1953. Hit the "home" button at the bottom of that web page and discovered someone had done massive research on the island off the German coast where quite a few of my ancestors came from. I emailed the site owner, giving him what information I had. The next morning he had emailed me back with a file that printed out to 174 pages, giving me three lines of my family history going back to the mid-1300's. The rest, as they say, is history. I was hooked.

Linda McCauley said...

A little late but still fun - http://tiny.cc/5kf4y

Anonymous said...

Thanks Brenda, for the great idea, and thanks Randy, for alerting me - I've done a wee post, albeit a bit late for Saturday Night Fun :-)

Mel said...

A little late, but here is my post about whose to blame for started me on my family tree.
http://www.researchjournal.yourislandroutes.com/2010/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-who-do-you-blame/

Brenda Joyce Jerome said...

Love the responses - y'all are good entertainment! Thanks, Randy!

Terri O'Connell said...

finally finished my post, http://wp.me/pugQZ-js

Darlene said...

This was a great SNGF topic Randy.

See my contribution at My Colored Roots. Mine will also have a Part II. Give me a couple of hours.