Saturday, October 4, 2014

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Genealogy Good Luck

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 
 It's Saturday Night again - 
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music):

1)  
When have you had a dose of good genealogy luck? What document or resource did you find just by happenstance or chance? By being in the right place at the right time? By finding a family history treasure in your family's attic or basement? By finding a helpful document or reference without even looking for it? 

2) Tell us about it in Comments to this post, in Comments on Facebook or Google Plus, or in a blog post of your own.

Here's mine:

Read Treasures in the Closet for my extreme good luck after I thought that all family treasures had been found. This was certainly a case of being in the right place at the right time. 

I'm still working my way through all of these items! I wonder where I put some of them? Hmmm, probably the file cabinet! I need to scan them and get them archived somewhere.

John Milton originally said "luck is the residue of design" (and Branch Rickey is often credited with the saying). However, the definition of "luck" is "the chance happening of fortunate or adverse events."

Here's another bit of good luck:  Somehow I fell into this blogging gig eight years ago, and because of good fortune I've managed to be involved in Geneabloggers where there are hundreds of interesting, smart and fun genealogy writers sharing their family history and their experiences with readers.  Then I started going to conferences and on genealogy cruises and meeting many of my readers, and also the VIPs in the genea-world.  That expanded my horizons a bit, and I enjoy the camaraderie when I'm on the road.  Blogging has sort of taken over my genealogy life for some reason - and I feel very lucky!



Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


3 comments:

TK said...

My little stroke of good luck happened when I stopped to research in Baker, Montana, where my great-aunt Emma Krintz McArthur homesteaded in the early 1900s. Looking up a record for me, a clerk found that Emma and Peter had never picked up their original marriage document, so she gave it to me!

Michael F Harris said...

http://mfharrisfamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-genealogy.html

clairz said...

I made a Facebook page for cousins I'd been discovering through my family history research and asked for help finding my cousin, Tim, who I had lost contact with for over 50 years. Within the hour a librarian friend of the extended family sent me several links to try making contact with some possibilities. By the next morning, I found a message in my inbox "I'm him, and I'm so glad you found me!" His mom had taken him and his sister away after her divorce, and his own father never found him before he died at age 42. Tim thought our family had forgotten him, but we had never stopped wondering what had happened to him. Now we send messages back and forth all the time, he is a loyal reader of my family history blog, and we are planning a reunion. I've learned that it never hurts to ask a question!