Where Do You Get Your Stories?

When I first started blogging, I was blogging just to record my Hero's stories about his early years that he had shared for many years, but had never written down. As time has gone on, I had most of his stories written down, his siblings have added a few, and I turned to other members of the family for stories.
I have been blogging for 9 years now and have found I haven't stopped learning. The other day I was repeating something my son told me to a friend, and had to take a mental pause when I realized I had a story that bore writing down and sharing with future progeny.
I will share, for it is a funny...
My son was visiting with my 88 year old mother. She has dementia that is somewhat controlled by medication (meaning she still remembers things, but can't stay in the positive world long enough to act on what she remembers). The son likes to banter with her, so he asked her if she was going to live to be 90.  She looked at him quite manner of fact and said "of course".  He pushed it... "well will you live to be 100?"  She looked at him incredulously and said "why would anyone want to do that?" The laughter the response brought brightened the whole visit and those who were nearby in the common room of the assisted living my mom lives at. He came home chuckling and sharing what she said. This is a great story for recording.

My mom with my grandson and myself.

When this understanding sunk in, I realized I am missing many things I should be recording other than my personal  journal and the scouring for ancestor's stories. Okay, I hear you now... Duh, Fran you are the family historian. You should be recording even funnies. I know, I know, I need to keep my mind open to all possibilities. This has become so very important to me. I really don't want someone sitting and looking at my picture and saying I wish she could tell me about herself, like I have done over my grandmothers.

You might wonder why I would spend a blog post on my own ponderings. I suppose I have a feeling of grandeur that maybe my thoughts just might reach out to at least one person and they too will begin to write down even the small daily actions and funnies that might give a feeling of closeness and fun to those that follow. Joy in the ordinary.

See ya'all next month from your Texas genealogist. 😊

Do You Record Your Thoughts?

.

This month I am writing to you from near Weatherford Texas.  Man and I worked hard for 3 days packing up and made our escape from SE Michigan and ran south as fast as we could get here.  Sadly, we did not out run the polar vortex.  It is cold here too. And, it just might snow here in the next 24 hours.  As long a we don’t run out of propane we can stay comfortable in our beloved Tana.

As Man and I run hard from the current polar vortex affecting just about all of the USA, I wonder, do you ever record where you were, what you were doing, how you felt etc., during these historic events?  

For example:  Where were you when the twin towers came down?  Where were you when J.F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas Texas?  How did you feel when a female was voted into political office, or the first female became a Supreme Court Judge.

Here is what I recorded in my data base about the resignation of President Nixon, you may note, snicker,  we were camping at the time.

"Resignation of President Nixon, August 9, 1974: We were camping in Harrison, Michigan in a Michigan State Park, tent camping.  We met some people in the campground that were "locals", and when we heard the reports that Nixon would be resigning, they went home and brought back a small black and white television.  In 1974, tent camping, we took only necessities, and televisions were not considered a necessity.  We plugged the television in with a few extension cords and sat in our lawn chairs and watched him make his resignation speech and walk to the helicopter, turn and wave good bye."

Have you recorded where you were and how you felt about events that were not necessarily historical in quite the same way?  For example, what was your first cell phone like, when did you get it, and what did you pay for it?  How about your first black and white television, your first color television, your first computer?  How about simply recording what you paid for your current techy toys, your tablet, your cell phone, your computer, you current flat screen television.

Record your social media posts?  There’s an app for that.  SocialSafe, now digi.me,  allows you to down load many of your posts and threads from Facebook and other social media to your hard drive.  Even photos you may have posted will be saved with your threads.  I have not done so, but you can create PDF’s with their software, that means printable.  (As a side note, I personally had some issues with the software, and I have to say, the staff at SS, now, digi.me, were delightful to work with.  Some of what they asked me to do to help them gave me fits, but, they stuck with me and worked me to the solution.  Also note, that at this time we were dealing with the death of a family member, so, let’s be honest, I was not fully functional, eh?)

Keep a journal?  Maybe you are not into social media.  Do you keep a journal, or do you record such feelings and reactions and visions on your family data base? My favorite go to place, is my data base, of course.  I keep photos there, documents there, and memories there.  Not just stories of my ancestors, but, stories like where was I during the Nixon resignation, or poems someone wrote, or special birthday/anniversary cards.  I view it this way, if I would be interested in what my ancestor did or had or said or thought, then, I hope, that maybe, my descendants will be interested in what I did, or thought.  So, I record it.

Do you Blog?  Yes, a Blog can be a wonderful place to record your reactions to events, and you may be doing so without even realizing it.  Review your posts, if there are some that are special, consider saving them as PDF files, or word processing files, and attaching them to your data base.

Did you know you can print a book from your Blog?  There are several online companies that can accomplish a printed version of whatever blog posts you want to include in a hard copy.  



There are many methods of saving your thoughts on history and events. But, first you must write them down, somehow, somewhere - - Are you??





* I am in no way affiliated with SocialSafe, aka digi.me.  They have not asked me to review their services, have not offered me any special services or deals if I do so.  I use the product and have been happy with them.  This should not be considered an endorsement, just a suggested site for you to investigate.  For further disclaimers, please visit Reflection's page, Disclaim THAT! Beholden to - -, for further info on this.

** Graphics courtesy of Dan's Clipart Library and Free Clip Art Now, clker.com and other online web sites.

.

The Little Things Matter

Most of the time we are so focused on our specialized genealogy (one-name studies and one-place studies), our volunteer projects, or our educational pursuits (webinars, hangouts, seminars and conferences) that we forget to take a step back and focus on those living family members who can fill in the blanks, tell us the stories, or describe in detail the ancestors for whom we only have the basic facts.

Over the past year, I have had two great experiences to "chat up the living" and I suggest that you make a point to chat up the living too!

Our Family Reunion
Last summer we had our family reunion (held every five years) and being an A-type, I came up with a few games for our reunion. I should mention that we are a petty competitive bunch and we will do anything for a prize so it seemed like a good idea to get family members to interact a bit more and have some fun.

Friday evening was devoted to getting your name tag and finding your team members for the Saturday games. We separated family groups and age groups (how I love RSVPs and Excel worksheets) so there was a family elder, and a person from each generation on each team and no one was on a team with someone from their immediate family. We used containers of treats and had people guess the amount (skittles, pretzels, m&ms, goldfish) or the length (twizzlers). People had fun guessing and even more fun winning - luckily the winners shared their haul with everyone.  It helped to meet your teammates on Friday night because the games started bright and early on Saturday morning.

Warming up with the puzzles & mazes

Saturday morning, after coffee and breakfast, we started with word jumbles and an Ireland to USA maze (a children's edition and an over-10 edition). We used our teams for a scavenger hunt and a 20 questions game. The first game was to get extended relatives to work as a team and the second game was to help them learn a bit about our family history. The scavenger hunt was timed and it was amazing to see how the team members interacted and the ideas they came up with to find the items. The 20 questions game (since we are over-achievers there were 50 questions, some easy and some hard) was a four hour event and each team could get 5 minutes with an elder of their choice and one other person to "pick their brains" for the tough questions. The one caveat was that the person could lie. It was up to you to give their answers some serious consideration.

Working together on the Scavenger Hunt

We awarded a variety of prizes -  from gift cards to kitchen or home items, and chocolates to bottles of wine. We had a prize table and the winners got to select the prize they wanted. I can't tell you how thrilled I was, when with all the choices on the prize table, my 6 year old second cousin choose a Barnes & Noble gift card because he could buy some books!!

The 20 Questions game was so much fun because it was interesting to see what people knew or thought they knew and, more importantly, what they did not know. My cousins all went to my father (one of the family elders) to get him to answer questions - the only thing they didn't know was that my father was more than willing to (and did) lie because he wanted his team to win! (And they did!)

Taking names and giving away prizes - what's not to love!

Bottom line is that all the games were fun, they got family members to talk with others they might not have talked with, and did I mention prizes? Even better, some of the extended family members wanted to learn more about our family and share more about their families (I am always happy to expand that family circle). We got lots of comments - "best family reunion ever," "it was amazing to see my husband chatting with Aunt Peggy, he has never really spent time with her before, "and "let's not wait 5 years for the next reunion, let's start planning it for 2 years."

 Asking Questions & Letting Them Tell Their Stories
I have made a point of getting together with my parents on a regular basis and asking them questions. More importantly, I am trying my best to listen and let them tell their stories. It helps that I am recording our conversations on my smartphone and then listening and annotating the conversations soon after the meet-up. It helps to have some documents or photographs to share with them and nudge their memories. The journey we take during these short (30 minutes) conversations is amazing.

During one get together I showed each of them the 1940 US Census from their neighborhood. It was fun to nudge their memories of the neighbors (and then they wanted to look for extended relatives). My mother took a look at the farm community where her grandfather and aunts and uncles lived and had some great stories from her very early childhood. My father simply wanted to find his early childhood friends.

To help you get started, find a list of questions or areas you want to learn more about and then break those topics into manageable conversations. Whether you meet up in person, hangout via Google+, or get together via the telephone, chat family members up and get those recordings now. What would you give if you had recordings with the voices or images of family members who are no longer with you? Do it today, the chance might be lost to you tomorrow.

Get Everyone Talking!
image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net ID-100203880

Spend some time with your living family members. You might be quite surprised to learn that they can be as fascinating as all those dead family members. How do you get family interested in talking about their family history and how do you preserve their stories?

Howdy, From Texas... This Month

Hi, I am Fran Langley Ellsworth, also known as the Hummer.  It fits, as I “flit” from state to state visiting and loving on my children and grandchildren.

I was born an Okie (means I am from Oklahoma) but found my heart lies in my ancestor’s state of Texas, where I live now. Hmm, that means I must be from the United States.  I was married 39 years to my Hero. He was the reason I started blogging. I wanted to write his stories, and now it has branched out to our (his and my) ancestors.  Stop by and visit at the garden gate on Branching Out Through the Years to find out about the Hero stories, and my genealogy progress. I also have a blog about the joys of my life, Joyous Tomorrows. The Hero and I had 6 children, 4 girls and 2 boys.  Now, I have 23 grandchildren with one on the way. Life is so interesting. 

My six loves with the Hero.

You will find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. I never started out to be a Social Media butterfly, I mean Hummer J, but after the hero died in 2008, I joined the ranks of the FamilySearch Genealogy support missionaries. I have worked in support in FamilySearch Indexing, in FamilySearch Wiki, in FamilySearch product support, and on Facebook Genealogy Research pages, I am struggling at present, as many are, to master the FamilySearch Family Tree, and, in general, social media support for FamilySearch. It has been wonderful and so many I have met this way have mentored my growth in blogging. I love the genealogy community and their loving support. 

Blogging about Indexing.

I love the sleuthing it takes to find an ancestor. It is better than putting a 1000 little pieces of a puzzle together, which my mother-in-law did as a hobby.  The Hero’s mom was from a Southern heritage, while his dad’s side of the family came from England and Ireland to Canada to the United States. Well, with one exception, his great grandmother’s parents were from Germany. Their story has been fun to tell. My family on the other hand, came to the United States on the Mayflower, my mom’s side and my dad’s, or so early I haven’t found my way back across the pond.  I have my hopes.  I have also entered the world of Autosomal DNA genealogy trying to prove some of my paper trails.  DNA is a new learning curve. I am now looking forward to the journey on the Worldwide Genealogy Collaboration  Project. 

The hardest part is staying focused. 

So that is pretty much me, I may be in California pinning my blog or in Idaho, maybe Oklahoma, but mostly in rural Texas with my birds, trees, and woodland critters keeping me company.