Episode 173 - Inspiring Ideas

Genealogy Gems Podcast
Episode 173 with Lisa Louise Cooke

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We all need a little inspiration now and then, and in this episode I hope to bring you some through good books, inspiring comments from other listeners, and some new ideas to try.

Once I got past the organization of my new office, what I've really enjoyed doing is devoting time to display family photos and artifacts, and just decorating the room. It may seem frivolous, but I don't this it is. We spend a lot of time in our offices, and you may have a home office, or corner of a room where you work on your genealogy. Considering the importance of the work and the time you spend doing it, I think it's time and effort well spent to put effort in to inspiring decorations and displays.

(Lisa's new office display)

Europeana for Genealogy: WWI Digital Archive and More

MORE German Genealogy Records at Ancestry.com

Indiana Genealogy Records to be Digitized by Ancestry.com

1865 New York State Census Now on FamilySearch

MAILBOX:

Feedback on the Lizzie interview from AlvieI am thoroughly enjoying the podcasts and videos. Recently I drove to South Florida and listened to the episode about Lizzie Milligan. It sure brought back lots of memories. Many years before I got heavy into genealogy a co-worker of mine gave me a large box of post cards which was passed to him by his grandmother. These cards were mailed during the digging of the Panama Canal and these were cards sent to his grandmother by her future husband from Panama.

They were so very interesting reading but I had no use for them so I turned them over to our local museum in Lakeland, FL. I don't know what became of them.

Kay loves MyHeritage too

"Loved this podcast today - I listened while I walked my 3-mile loop. Just want to share a MyHeritage story. I had uploaded a small GEDCOM at least a couple of years ago and never done much with it. They had no record matching to speak of in the beginning and all the family matches were to persons who had much less information about the families than I did. However, at RootsTech last winter, I talked to one of their reps - told him I would probably just let my subscription run out. He convince me to try uploading a larger file, get the data subscription, and in fact offered me a free three months to try again - so I really couldn't say no. Now a bit of background. I lived in Alabama for several years - and probably about 15 years ago the newspaper had published an extended article about the Sultanadisaster, the steamboat that exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis on 27 Apr 1865 with the loss of some 1600 lives - the Cahaba prison where so many of those unfortunate men on the Sultana had come from was only about 50 miles from us. At that point I'd never heard of it but I became quite fascinated and interested in the story and read everything I could find - I discovered that most of the released Union prisoners who died on the Sultana were from Indiana, Illinois & Ohio and knew that I had family in Indiana during that War, but didn't think there was any personal connection. After I began to work with MyHeritage again, up popped a Kokomo Daily Tribunenewspaper obituary of the brother-in-law of one of my paternal great-grandfathers, who had died in 1925 in Howard County, IN. And there it was - he had been on theSultana and had suffered serious burns the result of which remained problematic for the rest of his long life. It was thought that infection from the old burn wounds were the ultimate cause of his death. In fact, he had been reported as dead to his family, because of the unbelievable chaos that surrounded the rescues. What joy there must have been when he did return home! I always wonder when this sort of serendipity happens. Was I always fascinated by this saga because I knew that somehow there was a family story involved? Anyway, I, too have become a believer in MyHeritage! The brother-in-law never applied for a pension, or otherwise mentioned his service and I had the information about where he was buried. As a collateral relative, he wasn't really a person I spent much research time on. I probably never would have done a thorough newspaper search. But there it was - nicely found for me and connecting to another bit of history!"

GEM: BOOK CLUB conversation with Sunny Morton

When [your] parent dies your relationship with their history changes almost overnight. It suddenly becomes much more relevant to you because you feel like you are the only one left who is in a position to remember it. So having never wanted to know anything about my mother's life, suddenly after her death it seemed imperative to me to find out absolutely...