Sandi and Leah

Sandi and Leah
A day at the State Fair

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

What a week

Kicked off a new term in school this week and out of the gate was blown away with the amount of homework.  So this will be a rough term which is ok, just have to fit work in as well.

I not sure about blogging, it not really my thing but I have a hobby that I could talk to all day long. Genealogy is my passion so I am going with that to blog about that.  I have been researching my family for a little over 10 years, and I have learned the good, the bad and the weird about my family.  I love the mystery of it, even the brick walls; I have found and made friends with cousins and second cousins I did not know I had.  I was able to provide pictures to a cousin who had never seen her dad, so there are a lot of good things that come with finding out that you are it gives you a different perspective on yourself and your family. Now with all the class work research will be on hold till after this term.

4 comments:

  1. Sandi - how did you get started? How do you do the research - via the Internet?

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  2. It is a story; my mother’s father had a farm in Arkansas where he lived his whole life. All of the grandkids and great grandkids would fly in for the summer for 2 or 3 weeks at a time to assist in the harvesting and while we were there my grandparents would tell us all the stories of our past relatives. At least once a week Poppy would take us to the cemeteries his side and my grandmother side as they are family cemeteries “to see the relatives” while we walked around and cleared the stones he would tell us more stories and then go back to the house and have homemade ice cream and he would tell grandma who we saw that day and that would bring on more stories.
    When I got older I went to visit with my daughter and for some reason was smart enough to write everything down that they told me and walk the cemeteries with a note book with poppy and wrote all that down. I spent the week writing everything they said, I carried this around with me for a while and then one day on a book store I found a software program that would allow me to key in the notebooks. It was shortly after that I became a member of Ancestry.com and have continued my research, my father did not know much about his family but I was able to find them and found tons of stories of them to share with him. He said I gave him history and I liked that, because he has given me so much over the years it was nice to give him something back and something that he had tried to do himself (pre internet days). Now he knows that he is related to Thomas Jefferson and that Thomas was an uncle as we descend from the brother line.
    He know that is it well sourced and that I can prove it, he loves the stories of his family sailing from Wales to St Kitts and building a sugar factory.
    So that is how I got started it was because my poppy (grandfather) always said every time we walked the cemetery and I mean every time, “you cannot know what you are made of if you don’t know the stalks you came from, you have to know how strong the stalk is, know that it can stand the storms, you have to know your past and teach your children the past so that they know how strong their stalks are.” It stuck I know how strong my stalks are and that as a family we can stand the test of time, I think is because of those walks that my family is so strong and close.

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  3. Hi Sandi,
    How are you and what a interesting story you have told us. I loved it. Isn't it great to hear all the stories from grandparents.It is so wonderful to know where you come from.
    I know when I was a kid I used to love hearing all kinds of stories my grandmother would tell us before bed and I still miss those moments.
    Great job:)
    Fariha

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  4. Moving into Unit 3, This has been a rough few weeks getting up and going, I am usually the first one to post and just think that I am overwhelmed with the amount of work out of the gate. Now I am going to let that go and move ahead with the finish line in site and get myself back on track. I think part of this I have not had anytime for myself and that has more to due with life interfering with school.

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