Archive for October, 2010
When Witches Said neither “Trick” nor “Treat”
Sunday, October 31st, 2010Now that my Star Wars and Harry Potter characters have gathered their last preHalloween harvest of candy corn and caramels and are fast asleep, I find my mind turning to a time when ghosts, goblins and witches were a much more serious business than my children’s Halloween costumes or a snaggletoothed grin on a jack-o-lantern. [...]
Pushmi-Pullyu
Monday, October 25th, 2010I’ve been looking at a lot of immigrants over the last week and I do mean a lot. So, I’ve just become interested in pushmi-pullyus for the first time since I was about 8. Sometimes circumstances push people from one country to another. Sometimes circumstances pull people to a new country. Exactly what those circumstances [...]
Three Steps to a Better (Ancestral) Life
Sunday, October 17th, 2010Anything that isn’t sufficiently complex to look at from many different angles probably won’t hold a person’s attention for very long. There are certainly many ways to look at genealogy and the process of genealogical research. Genealogy, I’ve noticed, has been known to hold the attention of a researcher or two. One rather basic way [...]
Eleventh Hour Ethics
Sunday, October 10th, 2010This week I’m writing about something a little different, a genealogical occurrence but nothing to do with research techniques, wandering cemeteries or interesting records. I wrote this awhile back as something of an act of catharsis. In the end, I think I did what was right. Yet, it still bothers me the way that any [...]
You Never Know Who Is Hiding in those Details
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010Yesterday, I was looking at a roll of microfilm. All I was trying to do was locate a will and get a list of grandchildren that I thought I would find there. This will I knew would be buried in the minutes of town council meetings. Eventually, after stumbling upon a few useful tidbits in [...]