Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Thanksgiving Edition

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Hey genea-philes ... it's SATURDAY NIGHT again - time for more GENEALOGY FUN!!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Think about the answers to these questions:

a.  Which ancestor are you most thankful for, and why?

b.  Which author (book, periodical, website, etc.) are you most thankful for, and why?

c.  Which historical record set (paper or website) are you most thankful for, and why?

2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own; in a comment to this blog post; in a Facebook status line or a Google Plus stream post.

Here's mine:

a.  The ancestor that I'm most thankful for my great-grandmother, Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944) because she saved all of the Smith and Carringer papers and photographs for several generations, including her own scrapbook with wonderful playbills, articles, calling cards, etc.  My grandfather, Lyle L. Carringer, and my mother, Betty (Carringer) Seaver, kept them also, but Della is the one who created many of them and kept them through travels across the country to San Diego.

b.  The author that I'm most thankful for is Elizabeth Shown Mills, who has not only written and edited "Bibles" and periodicals of the genealogy industry, makes wonderful presentations, and  encourages and educates many researchers through email and mailing lists. 

c.  The historical record set that I am most thankful for is the Revolutionary War Pension Files (National Archives files, images on Fold3.com) because they provide significant detail about several ancestral families and the soldier's service; many of the facts would not be known without these files.