Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission: Impossible! music!):
(1) Think about the answers to these questions about your thankfulness for genealogy:
a. Which ancestor are you most thankful for and why?
b. Which author (book, periodical, Web site, etc.) are you most thankful for and why?
c. Which historical record set (paper or Web site) are you most thankful for and why?
(2) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook post. Please leave a link in Comments to your own blog post or Facebook post.
Okay, here are mine:
a. The ancestor for whom I am most thankful is my maternal grandmother, Lillyan E. (Gordon) Meckler (1919–2006). Not only did she spark my initial interest in family history because she (along with my mother) related stories about family members all the time while I was growing up, she had four big boxes of photographs along with many more photos that were displayed in her home. I convinced her to identify all the photos and allow me to label them, luckily before she had a stroke and was functionally blind, and she could no longer see the photos to tell me who was in them.
b. The author for whom I am most thankful is David L. Gauntt, who wrote Peter Gaunt 1610–1680 and Some of His Descendants, a very well documented 583-page book about the Gaunt/Gauntt family, beginning with Peter Gauntt in Lancashire, England. This is my paternal grandmother's family and has wonderful information about so many generations.
c. The historical record set for which I am most thanksful is FamilySearch.org, which provides all of its information for free for everyone to use. The records cover the basics used in genealogy — censuses and birth/marriage/death and related records— along with military records, pension records, land records, family histories, and so much more.
How wonderful to have a well written book about your family. Kudos to familysearch, too!
ReplyDeleteI feel very lucky to have a cousin who put such a great book together. The only negative is that he didn't include my father and grandfather in it, I think because my grandparents weren't married. At least my grandmother is in there with her marriage prior to my grandfather!
DeleteMost of us seem to have included close family members in the ancestors for whom we are most thankful. Like you, I also am thankful for FamilySearch. Happy Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteGreat minds do think alike, don't they? And happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
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