The 7th in a Series on my Family Tree … Volume II Prompt: Outcast ~*~ What happens when people withdraw from the family? Could they be considered outcasts by choice? My maternal grandmother, Alice (Gordon) McDonall (1916-1994), comes up quite often in these family tree posts, as well she might. Granny Alice was an extraordinary … More The Need for Self-Preservation
The 6th in a Series on my Family Tree … Volume II Prompt: Social Media ~*~ Where would we be today if not for the internet and social media? I’m old enough to remember the time before life was seemingly overtaken by technology. Everything was slower. Genealogy research, for instance, involved a lot of letter … More Social Media the Old-fashioned Way
The 5th in a Series … Volume II Prompt: Oops! ~*~ The climb up the family tree is just one misplaced footfall away from an inconvenient “Oops!” An incorrect date can throw off an entire lineage. A misspelled name or wrong location can yield a labyrinth of erroneous information or plummet us into an endless … More The Perils of Careless Recordkeeping
The 4th in a Series on my Family Tree Prompt: Education ~*~ Education can take a variety of forms. Not everyone is designed to learn in the same way. Put a dreamer in a classroom with a more linear thinker and try to teach each according to the learning style of the other and frustration, … More University of Life; School of Hard Knocks
The 3rd in a Series ~ Volume II Prompt: Out of Place ~*~ The challenge with focusing on one side of the family tree is that the same names keep coming up. This is due in part to the many broken branches we’re continuously working to repair. The Scottish/northern England ancestors are proving most elusive, … More Laundry Day on the GNRP
The 2nd in a Series … Volume II Prompt: Favourite Photo ~*~ Playing favourites is not really my style. I prefer different things for different reasons. When it comes to the old family photos I love them all simply because they exist and offer a snapshot in time I wouldn’t know otherwise. While sifting through … More Henry Belton’s New House
The 1st in a Series ~ Volume II Prompt: I’d Like to Meet ~*~ My first thought while considering who from my thousands of ancestors I’d like to meet was “I have to pick just one?” A seemingly impossible task for I want to meet them all. Still, for the purposes of this exercise I … More We’ll Meet Again
The 52nd in a 52 Week Series Prompt: Looking Ahead ~*~ While contemplating what’s next on the genealogical journey I was reminded of how I started clambering up this ancestral tree in the first place. A chance conversation with a neighbour in September 2021. That was it. I mentioned that I’d just finished re-reading an … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: One Branch at a Time
The 51st in a Series Prompt: Perseverance ~*~ Perseverance: to continue, carry on, go on, keep on, keep going, not give up, struggle on, hammer away, be persistent, be determined, see/follow something through, keep at it, show determination, press on/ahead, stay with something, not take no for an answer, be tenacious, be pertinacious, be patient, … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: Keep On Keeping On
The 50th in a Series Prompt: Tradition ~*~ Traditions can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand they offer a thread of connection from one generation to the next that links at least a small part of the family narrative, while on the other traditions can trap us into believing there is no other … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: The Ancestral Thread
Shedding Light on the Family Tree 