Looking Back

All the Christmas cards have been blogged about.  I think my grandfather would have been proud.  Eight of the cards were originally grouped together and put in a frame.  This picture was taken about ten years ago.

One of the most enjoyable postings I did was about my DAR job and I was looking forward in sharing it with my fellow DAR co-worker and friend who shared the love of genealogy with me, she is the one I wrote about at the end of the first paragraph.  Prior to Christmas I wrote her an email, and never heard back, so I contacted another former DAR employee to see if she knew anything.  This person began wondering about our friend, and called her house.  She soon wrote me telling me that Bonnie died on November 27th.  Her obituary stated, "She was passionate about genealogy."  Yes, that is my friend, she was passionate about genealogy. I had a little smile along with my very sad feelings on the inside.  Bonnie, I will always treasure our time together, and you will be missed.

Les Larrabee whose blog is A Bit of the Pieces went back to the West Plainfield Cemetery in Plainfield, Connecticut and took more photos for me.  Per my blog I Did Everything Right, but Couldn't Take a Photo! I failed in the picture taking department.  He sent me new tombstone photos on December 7th.  The most startling thing was, I saw that the Bishop names were on two sides of the monument, and not as I had them listed, all on one side.  He was smart enough to take the photo at an angle, showing both sides with the names.  I learned a lesson here, always include an angle shot.

A trip to the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) on Dec. 29th for research accomplished what I wanted, that is finding several sources.  In addition, I made a side trip to the Boston Public Library for some information, which will be used in an upcoming blog article.
 After my post of December 8th regarding Anne Dudley Bradstreet, I realized I hadn't entered sources for her in my genealogy software.  Fortunately, I discovered the source copies in a pile of her file papers.  So, 10 years later, I am doing now what I should have done a decade ago.  Writing about my ancestors is giving me a second chance to see what I am missing in regards to sources, see if I should add anything else, and also make any corrections.  It is pretty embarrassing because my entire file is on http://www.rootsweb.com/ and I do not want to appear as one of those individuals who doesn't use sources.

The month of December was filled with wonderful blogs about Christmas traditions.  Although, I didn't participate much, I sure enjoyed being on the receiving end and I will remember many posts for years to come.

On Dec. 29th, I noticed that http://www.findagrave.com/ hit 40 million entries.  The day before, it was at 39 million, I sure would have loved seeing the number change.