On December 10th, I blogged about being chosen for the Ancestors Approved award by Cheri Daniels. I said in the post that I was going to highlight my chosen 10 as Follow Friday posts after the holidays. The first winner is here!

Tonia Kendrick at Tonia’s Roots! Tonia was one of the first genealogy blogging buddies I made. She commented on my blog asking a question about the software we both use (The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding).  She’s very active on twitter and is always quick to offer congratulations or help to others.

Her blog is very fun to read. Adding a little personality are the scrapbook-like images she makes for her entries. It just adds a little pop to the factual information she’s posting. My favorite features are her vital records analysis and the reviews of her recent experience at the Atlanta Family History Expo.

Some of my favorite posts of hers are:

• Using Evernote for Genealogy
• All of her To-Do Lists – Very fun to keep up with her progress!
• Martin O’Neal and Mary Jane Baxter Were Married
• Evaluating a Family Tradition
• Evaluating Research Data
• Genealogical Proof Standard in Action
• Don’t miss the Timelines! Those are a lot of fun too!

So if you have a few extra minutes, check out her blog!

Tonia’s Roots

Follow Friday is a Daily Blogging Topic used by GeneaBloggers worldwide.

This year I’ll be participating in the weekly series, 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History. It’s a joint effort between GeneaBloggers and Amy Coffin at the We Tree blog. Every week there will be a new topic for me to write about my own past and family history.

Week 1: Did your family have any New Year’s traditions? How was the New Year celebrated during your childhood? Have you kept these traditions in the present day?!

For as long as I can remember, we’ve always done movie marathons on New Years Eve. In fact, that’s our family activity. When we were little, Dad would take us to the video store and we’d have to agree on one movie and then he’d get a “grownup” movie. It would be all of us, and then as we got older it was just me and my sister. We would actually stay up and watch whatever marathon was on TV whether it be a Corey Haim/Corey Feldman marathon on TNT or it was the top 100 music videos on MTV. We weren’t real formal about it.

This tradition has evolved from a marathon night to a family movie night. Now we usually just watch one movie (this year Inception), and we make snacks and drink sparkling cider. I know it’s tame but it’s our little tradition and I can’t see us ending it anytime soon! One day I’m definitely going to instill this tradition in my own family. My best memories growing up are the family movie nights. Whether it be New Years, Halloween, Christmas, and of course birthdays!

The above image is a free clipart image from the Microsoft Office website. I do not own it and am not using it to make money. I am just incapable of having an image free entry.

I hope everyone reading this had a very, merry Christmas! I’ve been enjoying a few new gadgets. The first gadget I got was a slide viewer that I mentioned earlier this month. I found a few slides that I really wish I could get prints of. They were of my Aunt Diane and some of their family photos. The problem was, I didn’t know what to do. So I went to Google and it brought me up a few options. One of them didn’t cost me a penny!

It turned out that my mother’s scanner has a slide scanner template built into the top. All I had to do was slide the placeholder off and slide my slides in. Then hit the button for film scan. This method will also work for negatives! So if you have a scanner, take a second to study the inside of it’s lid. You might have this feature too! Pressing the film scan button brought up the software that came with the scanner where I could choose between a negative or positive/slide.

Now I can share these photos with my family on Facebook, and I can print them out and frame them for individuals!

I really can’t wait to dig in and see what other treasures I find. It’s really difficult to find pictures of my aunts and dad when they were younger. It’s even more difficult to find pictures of their brother Stevie, who is no longer with us.

By the way, for my regular readers, the house Dad’s family is posing in is in fact the Park Avenue house. There are a bunch of inside shots among the slides!

One of the places that I often think about is the house on Park Avenue. Anytime we have a family get together, this house always comes up. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family has memories of this house. Whether it be the layout of the house, the renovations done, or the way the porch was screened in during the winter. Unfortunately, I don’t have any memories of the house. So I soak up any information that people give to me about the house. Now I just have to remember to type it all up and keep it in my files for later.

Park Avenue house, October 2010.

We even drove by the house when we were in Caldwell in October for my cousin’s wedding. Though it looks different, I can recognize much of the original house just by looking at it. (Thanks to my sister for getting the picture!)

Park Avenue house.

Even when people contact me about the family tree, they ask me about this house. I don’t think people love this house because of it’s floor plan or windows. I think people loved the people who lived in this house.

Park Avenue house.

The more I research William and Llewellyn, the more I see that they were well loved by everyone around them. When I first started researching genealogy, I was just soaking up the facts and collecting dates. It’s different now. Now I’m learning about the people. I’m seeing the full scope of things. I’m learning why I am the way I am. Not only that, but I’m learning why my ancestors where the way they were.

July 1931, Park Avenue house.

I have a lot of pictures and documents that pertain to this house. Including all the documents from when William and Llewellyn bought the house. I’ll share those with you another day though.

Park Avenue house.

Would it be weird to knock on the door and ask to come in for a looksie?

Those Places Thursday is a blogging theme being used by GeneaBloggers, it was originally started by Cheryl Palmer at Heritage Happens!

Mays Family Tombstone. Bethel, Ohio.

There are a few reasons that I chose to highlight this tombstone. In all my hijinks into my family history, I have stumbled onto learning how to do certain things. One of the first things I realized is that even official records can be wrong. I’ve also learned that spelling doesn’t matter in the early and late 1800s.

An important thing to remember about tombstones is that they aren’t always accurate. Take the example above. The names are mostly right, spelling mistakes aside. I also need to state that the death years are all correct (hard to get that wrong, right?)

1. Ralph (1924-1952): Everything here is correct.
2. John (1853-1927):  His death certificate states his birth year as 1842. Since John is living in the 1850 census and listed as age 5, either date could be wrong but 1853 is more wrong then 1842.
3. Cecilia (1842-1914):  I’ve only seen her referred to as Celia or Cela. That could be a shortened nickname but I might never know unless I find her birth record. Her death record also lists her birth date differently. I have 1840 and her age in censuses always matches that.
4. Harmon (1872-1952): Everything here is correct too!
5. Ivah (1897-1949): Iva’s name has been spelled a million different ways and that’s not including her maiden name (Moyer/Meyer/Myers). Once again I have her death certificate and her birth date is listed as 1894 and not 1897. The 1900 census actually gives her birth date as Sep 1894 too, which is spot on with her death certificate!

So basically what I’m saying is don’t always trust the tombstone. You never know who was giving the information at the time of your ancestor’s burial. In fact, it’s usually the same person giving the information for the death certificate. That’s why I’m so surprised the death certificates and tombstone varies so much here.

Florence Redford-Moore's tombstone. July 2010

In fact, even newer tombstones can be a bit wrong. This is my grandmother’s tombstone inscription. Everything is spot on except the fact that she was actually born on April 13 and not April 15. Oops! Be sure your family knows that they can come to you for correct dates!

Tombstone Tuesday is a blogging theme used by many GeneaBloggers.