Monday 28 March 2016

Understanding personal loss


How did our ancestors do it?
Without the Internet.
Without "cheerful" memes or tweets from sympathetic friends?
Without advice from numerous websites about overcoming grief and "getting on with your life" ?

How did our ancestors cope with the loss of loved ones? A parent, a child, a grandchild?

Did they have the means to erect a tombstone - of stone, to withstand the weather for generations?
Or was the memorial, of necessity, a few initials scratched on a rudimentary wooden cross?

Most certainly there were private memorials, etched in the heart.

To this I can relate.

Were there annual trips to the family cemetery with flowers lovingly placed?

We do this as a matter of course each Memorial Day. On Veterans Day, we decorate our servicemen and women's graves honoring their service.

Having experienced the loss of a child years ago, my parents in 2006 and 2007, and then this year the passing of a grandson and a month later a grandfather in our extended family - I know it is TOUGH. And I have all the modern conveniences, all the access to modern tutorials on grief management.

As a mother, I didn't lose three to typhoid or one to scarlet fever. We have modern medicine to thank for this. But how did our ancestors handle the grief?

One thing I share with my ancestors is the remembrance of simple times shared with beloved family members now gone. I understand the grief.

Of times not shared.

Of voices no longer heard.

No more hugs, silly storytelling or trips to Orcas Island.

Taking the younger generation to the old haunts is bittersweet.

We think of the things that might have been.

We think of things we wish we'd said.

Image: Licensed by Adobe Stock.

Were my ancestors comforted by family and friends?

Did the minister come to call?

My father could hardly speak of his beloved mother, without choking back tears. How they loved playing checkers...


IMAGE: Siblings Jack Player, Glen S. Player and Beverly (Player) Muir
at the graves of their parents Shirl Player and Myrtle (Weiser) Player Severinson,
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Seattle, Washington, June 2007,
from the author's private collection.

In the case of the death of my maternal grandmother's father, I know nothing more than what I gleaned from on site research in Emporia, Kansas. We followed directions to the Ivy Cemetery in Admire, Kansas, along a paved 2-lane road, to a gravel road, and finally to a deeply rutted dirt road. Wish I'd had a ladder and some black paint to freshen up the sign at the entrance.

IMAGE: The Ivy Cemetery, Admire, Kansas, 2012,
from the author's private collection.
There was no church or cemetery office offering a map of graves, so Mr. Myrt and I walked the cemetery. He went to the left, I went to the right, and very shortly reached my goal. 

IMAGE: Charles H. Goering tombstone, Ivy Cemetery,
Admire, Kansas, 2012, from the author's personal collection.
It was hot, so I sat down in the parched grass, and gently traced the letters of Charles H[enry] Goering's stone. His known birth and death dates were clearly visible. I looked across and saw the stone of his second wife, Elizabeth Shafer Goering. Shafer was her maiden name, and many other Shafers were buried there. This was her family's cemetery. This is why she didn't bury him in the cemeteries in Emporia, Kansas where they lived. She buried him where she planned to be buried, though even now, the road isn't paved. (Her tombstone didn't reflect her first marriage.

I mentioned I sat down near Charles' grave stone, about where the red box is in this photo: 



IMAGE: Elizabeth Shafer Goering and Charles H. Goering tombstones,
Ivy Cemetery, Admire, Kansas, from the author's personal collection.

My feet noticed a lump in the grass, and when I straightened it up, and removed some weeds, I found a broken stone with the letters "FATHER" still visible. Apparently this foot stone is my grandmother's expression of personal loss at the death of her father. (Although the stone seems off center, it wasn't when sitting there.)

That reminded me that my grandmother, an only child, said she loved her father dearly, particularly after the loss of her mother Estelle Mae Phillips. There was resentment when Charles later married again, and it was said my grandmother never got along with her step-mother Elizabeth.


Sitting, I wondered how my grandmother managed to pay for this stone. I know her daughter, my mother, was a mere toddler of about 3 years of age at the time Charles passed away. My grandmother and her husband and child are found up in Washington state in the 1930 US federal population schedule the year before.

I remember how hard it was for me when my father passed away. The memorial service was very difficult.

Was my grandmother financially able to attend her father's funeral?

Did she travel by train with a cranky, inquisitive, bouncy 3-year old in tow, while her husband held down the fort at home? The concept of "family leave" wasn't around until late in the 20th century.

Or was my grandmother only able to order the "FATHER" stone, now the tangible evidence of her feelings for her beloved Poppa?



With two close family funerals within a month of each other, I've found life is in sort of a muddle.

We leave the grave site, thankful for the life, perhaps cut all too short. We are thankful the elderly are no longer suffering. And then we pick up the little strands that make up our life.

Initially just going through the motions.

First we do what needs to be done with travel and laundry.

Though we have a calendar, we seem to move from each "must do" appointment to the next, almost thoughtlessly.

Was this how my grandmother felt when her mother died? Was this how she felt when her father died?

Or was she comforted by the cute things my mother as a young child might say and do each day? Was my grandmother going through the motions, caring for my mother then, until the pain subsided? Until she could almost get through a sentence without choking up, like my father? Like me?

Earlier today, I found myself looking out the window at the spring snow's lacy pattern in the blossoms of my apricot tree. I was lost in thought recalling my grandmother's admonition - "This is apricot preserves, not apricot jam." I think of traditions handed down.

I think of questions I never thought to ask.

I remember the good times.

It's the circle of life, but it's sometimes hard to understand personal loss.


Sunday 27 March 2016

Easter Traditions and Family Memories


Easter Lily with Cross   mentoringmoments.org    easter lily with cros


Growing up in America, a descendant of Irish and Italian Catholics, and Scottish, German, English and French Protestants, I was taught that Easter was one of the holiest days of the year. Easter celebrated Jesus rising from the dead to save us from our sins. We were thus given, by God’s Grace,  eternal life with God.

It is actually pretty amazing to me that my Catholic and Protestant families joined their celebrations and traditions and were kind, loving, and respectful enough to each other that we children of 1950’s America didn’t realize the differences! That certainly hadn’t happened in the home/ancestral countries of Ireland, Scotland, Germany and Italy!

My mother left her Irish Catholic Church upon marrying my Methodist father at his promise to attend church faithfully and to raise his children there. (He was more strongly willed than she was--the Catholic Church taught her to follow.) So we were raised in the Methodist traditions with a touch of Catholicism thrown in.

Starting with Lent, Ash Wednesday, we visited my Mother’s family’s church,  St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Richmond, Virginia and got the sign of the cross made on our foreheads.
From http://www.catholic.org/clife/lent/ashwed.php


According to an article featured in “Catholic Online” at
http://www.catholic.org/clife/lent/ashwed.php

“Ash Wednesday is one of the most popular and important holy days in the liturgical calendar. Ash Wednesday opens Lent, a season of fasting and prayer.
Ash Wednesday takes place 46 days before Easter Sunday, and is chiefly observed by Catholics, although many other Christians observe it too.
Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance and fasting. The practice includes the wearing of ashes on the head. The ashes symbolize the dust from which God made us. As the priest applies the ashes to a person's forehead, he speaks the words: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." ‘

We always “gave something up” for Lent--something we loved, like chocolate for instance. We also got little boxes from our Methodist Church into which we put pennies or more everyday, returning them to Church on Easter to help feed the hungry.


The week before Easter, called Holy Week by Catholics and Protestants, was treated that way by my parents and our Church. Everyday was something special, but on “Maundy Thursday” night we always attended the somber, special communion at church where we came forward and sat around a table of twelve in the chancel of the sanctuary. An author by the name of James Cooper explains this tradition in his online article which can be found at: http://www.whyeaster.com/customs/maundythursday.shtml


“Maundy Thursday is the Thursday of Holy Week. It represents the day that the Jewish Passover was celebrated in the Bible Story of Easter.
On that day, Jesus had his last meal with his friends and followers before he was killed. This meal is now know as 'The Last Supper'. At the meal, Jesus and his friends would have followed the Jewish Passover custom of eating roast lamb and bread and drinking red wine. However, Jesus gave the bread and wine a special meaning. When they got to the part of meal when the Bread was eaten and the wine drunk, Jesus said that these would be a symbol of his body and blood to his followers to help them remember that through his death, our sins are forgiven.
Maundy comes from Latin and is the word for 'Command', this is because Jesus commanded his followers to think of him when they ate bread and drank wine. This is very important to Christians and is now remembered in the Christian service known as Communion, Mass or Eucharist.”
As a child growing up, I loved the Maundy Thursday Service and always found it extremely meaningful. Attending with us were extended members of our family like my Paternal Grandmother, and Aunts, Uncles and cousins from my mother and my father’s side.
www.youtube.com--Three Crosses --pictures

On “Good Friday” the Friday of Holy Week, we mourned the death of Jesus upon the cross. I truly could not understand this as a child--how could they have put to death such a loving man! It bothered me as a child, made me think, and I dare say, increased my conscience and beliefs in right and wrong!

Arlington Church’s Easter Play
Jacksonville.com  John Fullop portrays Jesus as he rises from the tomb on Easter morning during Harvest Baptist's, story by David Crumpler





Finally came Easter Sunday! It was truly an enjoyable celebration! In the Methodist Church I always looked forward to singing “Christ the Lord Has Risen Again- Hallelujah!” You could tell by the joy in the music and the smiles on people’s faces, just how different this day was from say Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services. Before church however, we always went to an Easter Sunday sunrise service. Bundled against the Spring cold morning, we usually attended a beautiful Easter pageant in Richmond, Virginia, USA, where we watched the Easter story unfold. We saw the capturing of Jesus, judgement by Pontius Pilate, his death upon the cross and the dawning on Easter where an angel rolled away the stone from Jesus’s tomb, and found Jesus gone, informing Mary Magdalene and all of us that Jesus had risen from the dead! “ (from the Holy Bible, Matthew, Chaps 26-28.)

The pageant was so beautiful, dramatic and inspiring to the viewers, who were also being bathed in the sunrise of a new day, we could not help but have our faith strengthened.

Back at home after Church, we had Easter Baskets from the Easter Bunny like my own grandchildren pictured below do as well today. This was followed by a large Easter dinner--a gathering of relatives and stories of the generations before us.

Author's Personal Library--grandchildren


When I realize that I have personally known five generations spanning over 100 years of family who celebrated these Easter traditions with me, it moves me greatly. (With my grandmother Hogue-Youngblood born in 1881, to my youngest grandchild born in 2014!) Having been involved in genealogical research for several years now, I more deeply understand the centuries of believers from whom I descend-- from many different countries-- and how their Easter culture and traditions coalesced into mine. It is simply awesome. Happy Easter all!





Friday 25 March 2016

12-Step Program for New Online Collections

I recently learned that FamilySearch had a collection of Ohio death certificates for 1908 through 1953. This was news to me so I wanted to take maximum advantage of the collection. To do so, I have a workflow I use when I discover new online collections that may be relevant to my genealogy research.

My 12-step process for taking maximum advantage of new online document collections;
created using Microsoft Powerpoint

Preparation Steps

These are important steps for saving time and creating efficiency. They let me target specific individual, eliminate duplicate entries, and improve my knowledge of the availability of online sources.

Searching and Recording Steps

These are the actual "meat" of the process. The order of Steps 6 through 11 is just my personal preference. I find I get in a rhythm of search, discover, switch browser windows or tabs, record findings, etc. If I add too many different steps, I lose my rhythm and make mistakes. (I'm a terrible dancer, too!)

Wrapping-up Steps

These steps enable me to easily pick up where I left off if I have to end my research for the day. By updating my custom report of people with new findings, I can easily record where I stopped if I run out of time. I prefer to create source citation creations for many documents from one repository all at once (as it has its own unique rhythm). But it's totally up to you!

The Steps in Detail
  1. Run a custom report from my family tree software filtering in whatever parameters will capture the names and vital dates of people in my tree who should be included in the new collection of documents. Do I have enough relevant people to follow my workflow? If so, I usually export this custom report to Excel and add a Y/N column to the spreadsheet in which to record my findings.
  2. Add the bibliographic information about the general collection to my family tree software. At a minimum, I create a title for the collection; the author (what organization created the records); date or range of dates; the URL for the home page of the collection, and notes about the collection, for example, why were the records created. A personal preference is to prepend a unique identifier to the title of the repository. All of the specific source citations I create later in the process will be attached, or associated with this repository information.
  3. Add the website address, or URL, of the new collection to my spreadsheet of online document sources. I include the unique identifier on this spreadsheet. This prevents me from creating a duplicate repositories when working with the collection months or years later.
  4. Search the collection for each name on the report. As I find a document, I save it to my computer, using a standard filename.
  5. Add Y=Yes or N=No to my spreadsheet of names. Yes, obviously denotes I found the document and No means even though the document should have existed, I didn't find it.
  6. Upload the document from my computer to the person in my family tree software and enter the date I added the record and the URL where I found it. Unlike, many I do not create the source citation or analyze the record at this time. I'm simply in collection mode and I'll explain why I do it this way later.
  7. Upload the newly discovered record to my Google Drive genealogy area. (How that is organized is another post. Maybe I'll write it one day.)
  8. Continue working through the list until I looked up every name.
  9. Search collection again for people I could find no documents, using as many different search permutations as possible. If no document is found, I may have an error in my tree that needs to be investigated in more depth sometime in the future.
  10. Look up the person/people in my family tree software for which I should have found a document but did not. Add an explanation of my activities and that I didn't find anything to my Research Notes about that specific person. By doing so, I'll know that I may need to re-examine the data I have recorded about that person's death (if I was searching a new collection of death certificates, for example.)
  11. Look up each person for which I found a document in my family tree software. Create the necessary source citation for the new document and attach it to the document. Don't forget to also associate the new source citation to the collection repository created in Step #1.
  12. Upload the Excel spreadsheet of the people for which I searched for a document in the new collection, using a standard filename format, which is R-OH Death Cert 1908-53 200160325.xlsx. The file name tells me that it is a report of Ohio death certificates between 1908 and 1953 which I conducted today. If I run this search at some point in the future, perhaps after finding a new branch of my tree in Ohio during the relevant time period, I can use this report to eliminate searching for the same people over again.
I have found creating this process has saved much time, added consistency to my work, and reduced the errors I make in my tree. Do you have a workflow process for taking maximum advantage of new or newly discovered online document repositories? If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Sunday 20 March 2016

What is Oral History?

Firstly, I must apologise for the tardiness of my post this month.  We have moved house recently and unfortunately have just been reconnected to the internet.  Amazing how we come to rely on that constant connection with the outside digital world.  

Continuing on from my last blog "Family Oral History Project - A Kick in the Butt, today's post looks at "What is Oral History?"

Our culture, traditions and history have been passed down through generation after generation by the spoken word or "oral history".  The expression "oral history" covers a wide span of information and formal story collecting, for example: stories carried down through family generations, history of cultural groups that is learned by culturally appointed "story tellers", projects designed by oral historians to enable us to have an understanding of significant people within our community, cultural groups and the stories of everyday people and their experiences.

The evolution of oral history has seen a significant acceleration over the past 70 years and is now recognised by most, as an integral part of recording and collecting the history and stories of our past. The last couple of decades have seen many changes.  These include: innovative improvements in recording technology and legislative changes that have been initiated as a result of deeper consideration of the ethical issues and accountability of the interviewer and the rights of the person being interviewed. 

Put simply, "oral history" is the formal collection of unique personal memories and stories through the recording of a conversation between two people.  These stories are then preserved for current and future generations.  Originally formal oral history recording was used to obtain an insight from influential people, such as politicians, prominent community leaders and famous artist.  However, it is now recognised that we can learn and gain a clear understanding about past historical events and periods from ordinary people as well.  Their stories add colour, and a realistic and more in depth understanding of past times.

Traditional researchers questioned the value of oral history and the reliability of memor. However we can now see an evolution in their approach to research with a recognition that oral history gives voice to the status and history of the common people and brings history to the community.  It provides an understanding and awareness between generations and social classes.  In short, it provides a more descriptive and vivid picture of those who went before us.  Oral history supplements traditional historical research, by widening and opening up leads to new historical information and understanding.

Recording of oral history is a two-way process, between the person/persons being interviewed and the interviewer.  The "recorded session" will provide the interviewer/researcher with an insight into that person or group's past experiences and how they remember them in the present.  In in order for this to be a valuable exercise careful planning and consideration must be taken.

It is important to note that two people will have different recollections about past events, and that all these memories are a valid and integral part of piecing together the history of an event. It should also be noted that over time a person's recollections or "memories" evolve as they mature and that their life experiences give different meaning and understanding of past events.   

It is with this exploration and a better understanding of "oral history" I move on to the next stage of preparing for the interview. Stay posted for the next installment. 

Monday 14 March 2016

Irish Catholic parish registers - which is the best site to search?

It's St Patrick's Day on the 17th, so it's probably not surprising that FindMyPast Ireland chose this month to release its collection of Irish Catholic parish registers. With the same records available on Ancestry, that brings the number of sites - and ways - to search these records to three, which is a giant bonus to those of us researching Catholic ancestors from Ireland.

Free Irish records

In July last year, the National Library of Ireland first released these records, which were warmly welcomed by genealogists all round the world. It's not just that they help us trace our Irish ancestors, a notoriously tricky thing to do (but not as hard as I thought when I started out). The other wonderful thing is that they're free to access.

At the time, I posted on Worldwide Genealogy about my first impressions of using this wonderful resource, which the NLI provided without an index. I wasn't going to look such a ground-breaking gift horse in the gob. But now, with FMP and Ancestry both providing access to the parish registers, it's possible to search them using the methods that many genealogists are used to on these two sites.

So this month I'm going to conduct a genexperiment and try all three out, looking for the same person, and see if any of them will become my favourite for Irish Catholic parish register research. I also want to know if I can search all three for free.

Catholic parish register search

I'll start with the first publishers of the Irish Catholic parish registers, the NLI's own website. Because you need to know which parish you want to search, I'm going to look for Daniel Delaney of the parish of Tomacork (Carnew). He may be related to my ancestor Nicholas Delaney, who was from the same parish. It's a fairly unusual surname in the area.

Shane Wilson has a useful tool on his excellent website for finding RC parishes.

NLI

Going to the home page, I entered the parish name (Tomacork, in this case). This took me to a page offering three microfilms. I needed the earliest:



Selecting any of the categories or the image all took me to the same page, the first image in this collection:



And from then on it was a case of scrolling through the records, looking out for the name Carnew (usually at the right-hand side of the page).

This took a while, and I found Daniel only as a father, here with his wife Mary as parents to Anne in February 1794:



The display's fairly small and I recommend switching to full screen view using the button on the top right. You can also adjust brightness using the buttons, but here I'm just giving you the image as is, for comparison.

Daniel's baptism and marriage must have taken place before these records were compiled, or else he moved to Carnew from another parish.

Ancestry

Next I searched for Daniel in the Catholic parish registers on Ancestry. I've got a subscription, but I wanted to see whether I could find Daniel without logging in. From the Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish screen I selected Ireland as my collection focus and opened the card catalogue. Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers 1655-1915 is the last collection on the second page, so I hope I've saved you some time!



If you want to just browse, you'll need to know which diocese you're searching for to use Ancestry. I'm looking for Ferns. You then have the option to enter the parish name and year range - for me, it's Tomacork and 1785-1845. However if you just hit the year range it takes you to a page asking you to sign up for a free trial, which I don't need. I still wanted to see how far I could go in searching records which are available free elsewhere. So don't browse if you haven't got an Ancestry sub, you need to actively search.

So going back to the screen above I entered my search. I found that entering the exact diocese brought up a few results but not the one I wanted - but if I didn't enter the diocese I got 240 results and none of them were the one I wanted. That told me that I couldn't search baptisms by parents. So if I hadn't known that I was looking for the father of Anne, I'd have had to browse, just as with the NLI records. So I searched for Anne, and...



The first record! But to check, I hovered over View Record, and...



The right record (though Mary's name in the original is Costolough, not Cossolough). And that's as far as you can go without signing in. I don't know if you can go further by opening a free account because I don't need one. But I wanted to check the quality of the image, so I signed in, and here it is:
It's a slightly lighter image that the NLI's, but (peering at the screen) I think it's not quite such good quality. While using Ancestry, I found it fairly easy to navigate around the record set, so that will save me time researching these records in the future. If I hadn't got an Ancestry sub, I could use it as an index and get the images from the NLI. Or is there an easier way?

FindMyPast

FMP offers its Irish Catholic parish registers for free. Again without signing in, I went to the Ireland Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records screen. But when selecting the record set, I found that FMP has separated the baptisms, marriages and deaths into three different record sets, so unlike with the other two sites, I had to choose.
Luckily, I knew I was looking for a baptism. But this time I got zero results. Once again, it was lucky I knew Daniel and Mary's daughter's name. Searching for Anne, I got zero results again. Was this because I'd gone straight to the record set, which is a method of searching FMP recommended by several genealogists with much more experience than me?
Back to the Search screen, and selecting only Births & Baptisms as a subcategory, no record set:



And there was Anne, the first record.


Clicking on the image icon brought me to a register/sign in dialogue box. I know that FMP Ireland has promised that the registers will be 'free to search, forever', but there's no mention of whether the images are free to view. Again, I don't want to open a new account just to check this because I already have a subscription to FMP. (How do I afford these subs, you may ask? I grab the special offers.) So I signed in, and here's the image:


It looks very similar to the NLI one. You can navigate using the < and > arrows, but there's no jumping to a page as there is with Ancestry.

So there you have it - three ways of accessing the NLI's Irish Catholic parish registers. Which will I use in the future? Obviously, it's a huge help to be able to search, though you need to know who you're looking for first (eg the daughter's name, not the mother's or father's, in this case).

I think I prefer the NLI site for scrolling through the images, though, as I said, I'll be using full screen. But for jumping around the records, Ancestry's the easiest. I suppose, in the end, it's a very personal choice.

And I'm hugely grateful to all three providers for making these superb records accessible.

It's a long post, so thanks for staying with me. There's so much more to say about these records! 

 

I'd love to know your thoughts if you've used the Irish Catholic parish registers via any of these sites. Have you got any favourites, or tips? Is there a clever shortcut I've missed?


Irish genealogy webinars

PS: There are some free Irish genealogy webinars taking place this week:

Family Search is hosting two sessions a day on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th. Full details over at Claire Santry's unmissable Irish Genealogy News blog.

FMP is holding its webinar tomorrow (Tuesday 15th) at 1600 GMT and the link is available here (this works for the UK; please check for your own area).
Thursday 17 March: Where is That? Finding and Understanding Places in Ireland. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Thursday 17 March:
Ireland & Census and Census Substitutes. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT.


Friday 18 March: Ireland Catholic Church Records. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Irish Protestant Records. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT. - See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/03/family-search-four-irish-genealogy.html#sthash.f3itwe7R.dpuf
Thursday 17 March: Where is That? Finding and Understanding Places in Ireland. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Thursday 17 March:
Ireland & Census and Census Substitutes. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT.


Friday 18 March: Ireland Catholic Church Records. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Irish Protestant Records. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT. - See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/03/family-search-four-irish-genealogy.html#sthash.f3itwe7R.dpuf

Saturday 12 March 2016

How are your descendants going to know who is in that photograph, where and when it was taken?



Do you have a pile of photographs that someone gave you that you just wish you knew more about?
Maybe you don't even know to which branch of the family they belong.

I have been trying out a relatively new introduction to the Flip-Pal scanner toolbox which I believe can help us to share more about each of those precious photographs that we have in our collection or that others in the family may have and have allowed you to scan.

This new option is called StoryScans and you can learn more about it here

I have uploaded my first 2 attempts as examples and they can be seen below.




This is a nice addition to the toolbox for the Fip-Pal and I am looking forward to being able to use it with my android phone. I hope to capture more from others in the family about the people and places in the photographs.

The addition of metadata to our photographs is another way that we can ensure we add the information that is needed to identify the who, what, when and where.

I am not going to try to explain how to do this as there are many places on the internet that will do a better job than I can. I found this post on The Family Curator blog which I would recommend.

Thursday 3 March 2016

From Cave to Chapel

In one of my early posts on this blog I talked about W's, Who, What, When, Where and Why.

Today I am returning to Where, but not the where of my ancestors, it's the where of the place where I do most of researching and connecting, I call it my Geneacave. My issue is that I need a new name for my hideout.

We are empty nesters so I have a few choices for an office. For several years I used the small fourth bedroom but, after a while I found myself drowning in a sea of paper, files and techno toys so Mr GeniAus suggested that I move into bedroom 3 which is slightly larger. Bedroom 3, however, while it had more space only had a small window and didn't have much natural light (no good for webinars and hangouts). I worked happily there for a few years.

2013 - the move to Bedroom 3
Paddy the Pup was happy in Bedroom 3
Late last year, as we were getting rid of the paraphernalia that comes with small grandchildren I thought about the living room off the kitchen which we had dubbed the toyroom. It's a big room with two large windows and natural light, it's away from the bedroom zone and near the living end of the house, the router, kitchen and over a hall from Mr GeniAus' study and an external door. I made an executive decision that I would move on to there.

Mr GeniAus Painted the new digs while I was at Rootstech
I am loving my new accommodation although it's taking me a while to move and sort my gear. I have set Easter, when the family visits, as the time I will be done. Paddy the pup who used to sit in a bookself in the last Geneacave has happily found a nice spot at my feet under the desk.

My problem is that the term Geneacave. just does not fit. I am wondering what I should call my light and airy new digs.

Moving in
Moving in
What is your Where?Geneacave or a Geneacorner or a Research Zone???

I may call my new room the Chapel because Genealogy is my religion!