Ancestor Approved Award

Thank you, Jenny at Are My Roots Showing (isn’t that the best name for a genealogy blog?!?!?), for the Ancestor Approved Award! What a surprise to wake up to this morning.

The Award Rules: The recipient of the Ancestor Approved award lists ten things learned about their ancestors that have surprised, humbled, or enlightened. The recipient then passes the award to ten other bloggers that are doing their Ancestors proud.

So here are my 10 things:

1. Don’t assume things. Just because someone was in the census with a husband in 1860 and then with someone else in 1870, doesn’t mean the first husband died. They could have d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d. Really. It could happen. And if it happened to happen, you would probably spend years and years looking for a stupid death certificate for no reason. I’m just sayin’.

2. It humbles me still to learn that my great, great, great grandparents couldn’t read or write. Not humbles in a way where I’m embarrassed for them. Just humbled because it made their lives even harder.

3. I have ancestors that came on the Mayflower. That isn’t anything important in itself, but see my #5.

4. It’s a very small world. My parents met 150 miles from my dad’s home in my mom’s hometown. They were cruising the Strip in separate cars and married 2 months later. On the other side of the country, over 300 years before, Dad’s many times great grandfather bought some books from Mom’s many times great grandfather. I love that.

5. I do not hate history. Now that I have a frame of reference for most history in my own family, I found that I *LOVE* history. In school? I hated it.

6. If you send a 200 page genealogy chart to 50 relatives, they are bored to tears and you never hear from them. If you write up a 10 page story and send it with pictures, people like you a lot more.

7. Ancestry dot com *IS* worth it.

8. Google Earth-ing to your ancestors homes is really freaking cool.

9. My great, great grandfather was alive into the 1970s, but the only time my dad spent with him was the short visit when I was 2. It surprised me that they weren’t all close like we were with my great grandfather.

10. Just because you don’t know a lot about someone, doesn’t mean it will stay that way. A little bit can get you a long way. In fact, those lines that had already been researched and GIVEN to me with documentation mean a lot less to me than the ones that I found all on my own with little detail. I know them more. Maybe more than they even knew themselves!

And here are my 10 people to pass the award to:

1. Random Relatives
2. We Tree Genealogy
3. ABT UNK
4. West in New England
5. My Ancestors and Me
6. Genealogy Stories
7. Nolichucky Roots
8. Ances-Tree Sprite
9. Hanging from the Family Tree
10. Tangled Trees