Land Records and British History

Google Images

Have you ever wondered about The Royalty of England and what the Lords and Dukes and Knights and Earls actually are? Or what Feudalism is or the definition of a Serf.  I think I learned about that in some dull and dreary history class before I was an adult.  But that has been more than a few decades ago now.  As James Tanner suggests you may not have given it much thought until you got hooked on Downton Abbey.  

On his recently released YouTube video on Land Records James suggests that if you don't understand English Law about the land ownership and the ancient language used in that law you will have a difficult time understanding United States Land Records.

I listening to this webinar presentation this morning and it was really fascinating.  If you have English ancestry and if even if you don't,  you may want to investigate the land laws of England because our land laws are the same.  Just add the US Government in place of the King.

Anyway check it out.  It is very informative.  See it here:

https://youtu.be/afk2oCQNztw

The Family History Guide Webinars

I was excited this week to find a notice that The Family History Guide is now on YouTube with a wonderful webinar by the creator Bob Taylor. We just never know when we will get some church members that are intent on learning FS and doing their family history.  Of course the FHGuide is for everyone, not just for members, but it is particularity helpful for members because of the partner site availability to the members and other church related topics regarding Family History like ordinances.

If you are using the FHG then you are ahead of the game.  If you have meant to check it out but didn't just want to read about the sight, then this tutorial is for you.  This one only covers part of the program and the next Webinar is being recorded on June 8, 2016 at the BYU Family History Library in Provo, Utah.  I'll be sure to give you the link once it is on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/oehBzaa3hd8

The FHG is being used at the Flagship Family History Library near Temple Square in Salt lake City and in the BYU Family History Library and several other big Libraries and meeting with wonderful success.  Family Search is fully on board as well.  We might all want to give this a second look it could be very helpful to our patrons.

How To Organize Your Boxes Of Photos

Day Trip to SF This Past Week

Land's End

How many of us have boxes and boxes of photos that we plan to organize "someday"?  This morning I ran across an article on the FS blog  that has some great ideas.  It was written by a Guest Blogger.  Here is a small section of the article in the link below.

"Photo organizers use a simple acronym called the “ABCS” to help clients sort their printed photos. Use this acronym for yourself (see step four), and you will make quick progress! Here are the ABCS:

• “A” photos are the most important photos and should be digitized and placed in an album.
• 
  
• “B” photos are the photos that support family stories but don’t necessarily belong in the “A” pile. These are photos you can’t bring yourself to toss out, and they stay in the box.
• 
  
• “C” stands for “Yes, you CAN throw out your photos.” Toss out the doubles, blurry photos, and excessive landscape photos. How many sunset photos do you really need? Make sure you have large garbage bags for all the “C” photos you are discarding.
• 
  
• Last, but most important of all, is “S.” Does the photo tell a story? Sometimes a poorly composed photo of your grandmother with a silly smile is an “A” photo because you know it represents her unique personality."
• 
  

http://tinyurl.com/h9b2s4s

I found "C" very liberating.  It's like when I was studying design and came across articles on decorating bookcases and we were encouraged to discard the dust jackets of all of our books.  You only need a dust jacket if you want to sell a collector's version of a book to the highest bidder.  I went home and removed every dust jacket from all of our entire library.  It looked so much nicer and felt so much better.  I envision the same experience ridding our collection of photos of the unessential pictures.

Just think how much easier it will be to scan once you have done this organizing process.  Let's face it, the generations below us will never deal with a boatload of snapshots in boxes.  Which bring up a topic for another time.  How do we organize our electronic photos?

Stern Grove~SF

Last Friday

Obituaries on Family Search

Did you know that you can find some obituaries on Family Search that can be very helpful to your researching.  John Jex shared  this today and I wanted to give you the links so you can check it out.

familysearch.org/campaign/myancestorsobituaries

 familysearch.org/joseph-smith-papers#1 

I had a few minutes to search these and found this one.  Then I used the irfanview to copy it and save it on the desktop.  Went to the relative's details page and clicked on Memories.  Then just drag it into the green box and it will download.

 

 

Wiki Face Lift

James Tanner Blog

Did you know the Wiki has a new face lift?  It is still the same great place to research information about localities and genealogical 
83,000 such helpful tools in the FamilySearch Wiki. 

James Tanner says it is the best genealogical research tool on the Internet.  He should know as he is one of the volunteers  on the Wiki Research Team and serves as a moderator for it for Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. The moderators check the articles submitted for authenticity and accuracy.  Thus assuring that the content is of value to the rest of us.  As Kim Miller said in our Boot Camp Training, "When you don't know what to do, Think Wiki!" YOu'll also be happy to know that the "Big Blue Button"  that says Records Online Kim taught us about is still there!

I am glad they have improve the design and usability of the Wiki but it is still always a little period of adjustment that is needed when you have to relearn things.  That is just part of this game.  Changes...constantly.  We can handle that...it's what we do. 

 I maintain that it is easier to learn a new aspect of something you are already familiar with than to think you should just wait until the changes are complete and then learn it.  The secret within that statement is that they will never be done.

James has done 4 blog posts on The Wiki's new look.  You should definitely read them.  Did you know you can "Watch" the articles you are interested in for updates and changes?  Did you know they have a Talk section for each article so you can pose questions or converse with others?  You can even write articles on your area of expertise but you need to review the policies and rules for that first. You can find links to all of these things in the four articles James has done.

One of the things I like so much about James Tanner is that he is clear in his thinking and instruction.  The link below is the fourth installment of his series on the Wiki and at the bottom it contains the other three links for the full series.  It is OK to read #4 first as it has a great overview.

One of the things I really like is that from the start page of the Wiki you can look for links and find the contents by categories. Just like the Home Page of FamilySearch there is a lot of help on how find what you need if it is there.  It is the portal to the entire Wiki. According to James Tanner you can get everywhere from the start page to progress in your own research (or to help a patron).  So Wiki Wiki (Quick Quick) check it out to find the help you need. Learn more about the Wiki by going to the Search tab on the tool bar at FamilySearch.org and clicking on the dropdown menu! It is the last link on the menu.  Dive in!

http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2016/05/exploring-new-look-of-familysearch.htm

Stories, Capturing And Sharing Them In The Cloud! Family Search

A few Sundays ago I saw this beautiful sight in our church parking lot.  I thought about capturing it to share sometime about The Cloud. When we talk about saving something to the cloud we are essentially saying that we are going to keep something off site. In other words some place in addition to our own hard drive on our home computer.

Some examples of "the cloud" are things like your email account, your Evernote account, your family tree on Ancestry, your orders from Amazon Prime Account, etc.  

Of course FamilySearch is also a cloud based program.  It stores our information for us. When it come to family history this is a wonderful thing for many reasons.  I am not saying that this is the only place you should store things but is one of the many places you can and should do it.

There are many advantages to writing and preserving your family stories on Family Search in the Memories section of the Family Tree.

You may spend a lot of time writing memories in a small journal by your bedside but how much good will that do you if you are the only one who ever sees it?  When you die will someone find it and see its value and preserve it?   Many things like this get hastily tossed in the trash by well-meaning people that don't even know the person whose memory you have preserved in your book.

Stories can be written easily and quickly in Family Tree.  These are not editable by anyone else.  They don't have to be masterpieces. They are jewels to others seeking to know your common ancestors and relatives.  Your stories are your own and protected in FS from anyone changing your story unlike the Life Sketch section of the Family Tree.  Remember this as a very safe place.

To honor your mother this week please write a little tribute to her on FS/FT.  If you need some ideas check out this blog I have on little stories on various people in our family.

http://onceuponanothertime.blogspot.com 

Check out this post on Meridian Magazine by Joy Lundberg: A Letter To My Mother http://ldsmag.com/overdue-praise-for-my-mother-and-maybe-yours/

Remember to include pictures!  

The little girl with the doll is my mom!

To me this picture is worth a thousand words.

Older Twins-William and Wilma Reese

Younger Twins Joseph and Josephine Reese

About 1923-24.

She lived on the prairie in South Dakota one of 9 children.  Here mother died within a year of the photo being taken at 40 years old. Life was tough and made much worse by losing her mother at 5. No shoes, not a tree in sight or a flower.  It was a brown dusty world for them and frozen solid with white snow in the winter. Those were such different times from today. That doll was probably her only earthly possession at the time, if it was even hers.  I don't know.

The beauty of stories and photos is they capture the person in small memories.  It doesn't have to be a life history to be valuable or to honor a person.  Just a short story.  Have fun memorializing your own sweet mom this week!

About About My Mom

With Mother's Day coming up I have been thinking a lot about my precious Mom.  My Mom was the Queen of Apple Pie baking.  She was well-known for her scrumptious apple pies.  Seriously, nearly famous.  I have never tasted an apple pie that even came close.  I don't know what was so magical about her pies but they just seemed to say "I love you!"  They were simply unforgettable.

She was a beauty inside and out!
Don't you think?

These were her beautician days when

Finger waves were all the rage...

I looked at a lot of images to find a pie that 

looked like Mom's but none were exactly like hers.

Mom and Dad always made the pies together with the help of us kids.  They bought a huge sub-zero freezer for the garage and many years we would get lugs of apples and over the weekend we'd make 52 pies.  One for each week of the year.  There were apple peelings all over the place and everything was sticky as we all peeled and generally made a giant mess in the process. I can still remember the apple juice running down my arms and trying to pare the peeling off in one long strip.  I didn't mind the slicing but I didn't love the coring.  But a good bath at the end of the long hot sticky days and the satisfaction of seeing those pies frozen one layer at a time, and stacked in the freezer was amazing.

Mama would always wear a pretty apron even when she was doing this kind of work, she was lovely and such a classy lady to the end. And the fact that Daddy helped her was a heart print for me and a really cool memory now.  I can still see him in his white grampa t-shirt and his suspenders on those hot days in Sacramento working in the kitchen.  It made me want to marry a man just like him.  And I did.

 Working together as a family was very strengthening to us.  Mom gave away a lot of those pies so there really wasn't one for every week and that was fine.  It was a great learning experience in so many ways.  I am definitely going to try this again and get good at it.  It is about so much more than the pie.

This week I have been scanning old papers, documents, photos and even a few recipes.  I was pretty good at saving things like this when I was a young woman, never fully realizing what they would mean to me now.

Mom's recipe in her own handwriting~
priceless to me now!

I found another card written in my handwriting and
 thought maybe someday our posterity might
 like to see it in my writing.
Mom was not kidding on hers
when she said,
"All generous measurements!"

The Apples are Pippins

Or Gravensteins
Tart crispy green apples are the best for pies.

After assembling all the ingredients...

On top of the bottom crust, add a large, heaping,

 round mound of apples and 
sugar mixture and butter.

Add the top crust and pinch closed around the edges.
Poke the top with a fork for air vents.
Sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon on the top crust.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then turn 
down the oven to 350 for 55 minutes.
Cool and enjoy!

Thin slices promote even baking

For the Crust:

Flour, Crisco, Salt and Water

Although some people do,

Mom did not use any butter in her crust~

Just Crisco for a light and flaky texture.

The butter went into the pie filling.

For the Pie Filling:

Here's Everything you need!
Apples, Flour, Sugar, Cinnamon,
Salt, Nutmeg, Butter and of course 
a little Water.

So as you can see there was nothing extraordinary about the ingredients or the way the pies were made.  This is just a little slice of life with my Mom.  I think the magic in the pies was simply my Mom's touch.  Or maybe it was that old beat up 1/4 cup tin measurer that did it.  I have it around here someplace I'll have to dig it up and see it if helps!  But neither my Mom nor I were ever very good at exact measurements.  You can tell that by the slight variation in her measurements between her original recipe and the one she dictated to me as she was making a pie years later.  She varied the recipe until it was pure perfection. She just have a sense for how much to use, I guess.  The most important ingredient is the love. And a lot of it.  That I know for sure.