Family Names In My Tree

Future blogs will include the following branches with links under their names leading to them.  I hope to tie them all to this blog as the main entry or portal to them.

My mother's paternal line in the tree that I research are Haas, Grimm, Bauer from Baden, Germany.  Those are my mother's paternal line in the tree.

My mother's maternal branches are Roland/Rowland, Aikens, and Cobb.

My paternal branches include Dunlap, Pleasant, and West. 

My father's maternal line is Gills.    I know of my Grandmother Willie F. Gills, who died when my father was five years old and her mother, my Great Grandmother Eliza Ann Gills.  I do not know Eliza Ann Gills' maiden name.  So, the line ends here for my father's maternal line.  It became one of the famous brick walls for me that I hope to conquer. 

Just a tidbit of information to reveal an interesting life for Eliza Ann Gills that married Williamson P. Gills, who was a Civil War Veteran from Tennessee.  When she married him she had previously been married to one of his cousins and she had two little girls.  My Grandmother and her sister Cora.  So, she already had the name of Gills when she married Williamson P. Gills and the young girls were Gills.  I know this information from my Aunt Violet, my father's sister.

The interesting twist to their story for me to discover is who was the father of my Grandmother Willie F. Gills? 

My blogs will include these family names, with pictures, and many records and documents that I have collected in the past years.

Hopefully as I document the story of their lives it will become an interesting story for all who love Family History and the research process of discovery.

Each discovery has been a jubilant, rewarding discovery.

Today I learned how to back up my blogs at Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers

That is a wonderful site that helps the learning curve to not be so steep!  Thank all of you so much for all the work you do on the Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers.

 

The Holidays Are Here!

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Our son is home from his second tour in Iraq. That truly is something for which I am thankful. We will soon be reunited with him, his family, and our daughter and her family for Christmas. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.

Not a lot of information in this blog, but I did want to update before it looks like I have neglected it.

I do want to add this link to the website where I am learning HTML Goodies

That is a great site to help the beginner with html.

The Best Is Yet To Be

"Come grow old with me the best is yet to (come) be"., by Robert Browning. I have always loved that saying. It came to my mind as I was thinking of about what I am wanting to share.

The best is yet to be, because I have learned how to make hyper-links in my blog that will take the reader to other places on the internet when they click on the links. Now, I can add other places of interest that will help me with my new blogging experiences.

As I organize my research here through my blogging efforts I will be creating and dedicating a special page to each family. The first family that I will start with is my mother's paternal Haas family.

Learning Curves and Goals

As I'm thinking about my blog today, I'm thinking this is the ninth day since starting my blog and I have so much to learn about creating a blog that will be interesting and one that will tie my genealogy research together into a readable form.

I'm thinking of learning curves that I'm still trying to master. Learning does create challenges to learn new ideas, information, knowledge and skills. When a new learning curve has been mastered, the rewards in life are rewarding and beneficial to growth and accomplishment.

From birth until the day we die we are on a journey of learning, growing and transformation.

Sometimes we are fortunate enough to pass on ideas, experiences, and accomplishment to others. I'm thinking now of the many Professional Genealogist that I have been meeting online through Facebook, their blogs and podcasts.

It's these positive accomplishments, through goals and challenges, that they started somewhere in their journey one day they took on and accomplished one learning curve after another. I'm sure their passing this on to others is very rewarding in many ways.

So, it is as we participate in the journey of life. These thoughts inspire me to be motivated to set goals and strive to accomplish them so that one day I might be able to pass on to others what I have learned and accomplished.

So, now, let's see if I can learn how to put links to other sites in my blog. So, far my blog is plain vanilla, but with time, I hope it will morph into an enjoyable, informative blog telling about my family history.

Black Ink

As far as I'm concerned I have listened to both candidates and I have tried to make myself as informed a voter as possible. I have listened to and debated at NazNet.com, I have read the news as reported and watched cable TV with it's reports and slants on both sides.

This morning my mind was made up and it was time for me to vote. I just returned from casting my ballot. As I approached the room at the court house where voting was taking place, my mind had thoughts and memories of pictures of Iraqi voters with black ink on their fingers indicating that they had voted.

I thank God that I live in a Country where I can "read and write", and "as a woman" I am given this awsome privilege to vote. What a blessing we, the people, are given to get to vote.

I have prayerfully participated in this freedom we have here in the USA!

As far as I am concerned the final arguments have been given and next week the verdict will be in.

God Bless America, Land that I love!

Carolyn

Like Sand Through An Hour Glass, So Are The Days In Our Lives

My first entry for my blog is the beginning of an exciting and challenging journey for me to blog about my many years of research. As I do this, I will add my own personal values and insights revealing who I am. It would be very difficult for me to not reveal that as I share about who I am and the people and things that have been my history and those histories that I have discovered through several years of research.

It all begin in 1988 after the death of my father. As I am a Christian the grief process for me was one of knowing that I would miss him, but I would think about the future and realized that I have the hope that I'll get to visit with him again later when I see him in heaven.

This bible promise means so much to me. John 11:25, Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies."

As I read the bible, which for me is a faith document and not a historical one, my hopes for life after death and the renewal of knowing and being with my family and loved ones in my future are based on the promises that I find in the bible. This hope of looking forward has inspired me to look backward to try and put together the puzzle of the lives of those who were before me and who have gone before me.

My research started with reading and learning from books about genealogy and from professional genealogist who have shared their vast amounts of knowledge into the research process. I am a novice genealogist, but with the past 20 years of playing the game, I'm thinking that I have a lot of information about my family history that I can document here in my blog.

I can share with my family, and all that are interested, in knowing and learning about our family. I can share the process of my discovery, my gathering and my collecting these documents. I can share here about many family heirlooms that have come into my possession because of my research journey. The journey has and is so rewarding to me in learning and gaining the knowledge about who I am and who my ancestors were and where my ancestors originated from. It was a journey that began in Baden, Germany for my Haas and Grimm Family, in England and Scotland and possibly Ireland for my Dunlap, Pleasant, Gills, Rowland/Roland, Cobb, and Aiken Families which brought them to America.

They were pioneers, soldiers, farmers and ministers. They were the "salt of the earth". :)