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 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 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 44th in a series on my family tree Prompt: Shadow ~*~ Every family has its shadow characters. People whose misery casts a pall wherever it lands and upon whomever it entangles. In previous posts reference has already been made to family members who created emotional havoc for their immediate circle and, indeed, for ensuing … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: The Shadow of War
The 37th in a series on my family tree Prompt: High and Low Life, by its very nature, is filled with highs and lows. It is the vessel that holds the contrast between our heartfelt dreams and the harsh reality of attaining them. We dream the dreams (the highs) and then get schooled in what’s … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: Sweet Dreams
The 35th of a series on my family tree Prompt: Free Space ~*~ For this post a bit of license as I share an excerpt from the novel I’m writing based on the life of my Scottish grandmother, Alice Isabel Gordon. It’s a story of redemption and more than that I cannot say. This novel … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: Playing Dead
The 34th in a series on my family tree Prompt: Timeline ~*~ “There are more questions than answersAnd the more I find out the less I know.”Johnny Nash ~*~ What a fun idea, I thought, to explore an ancestor’s life through their timeline. And so I went for a look-see up through the family tree … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: Who’s son is he anyway?
The 33rd in a series on my family tree Prompt: Service ~*~ Unforeseen circumstances threw me into full-time service in our horse barn this week, and so this will be short and, perhaps, a little philosophical. The heart of service is a willingness and desire to help others. Interestingly enough, this desire begins in the … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: The Heart of Service
The 31st in a series on my family tree Prompt: Help ~*~ There was no official cry for help that day. A dark, smokey plume on the horizon was the only evidence to local farmers that something was terribly amiss. “Drop tools!” This instinctive rallying cry rippled in a seeming psychic wave through farmyards across … More Shedding Light on the Family Tree: We’ll Never Know
Shedding Light on the Family Tree 