I'M BACK

I'm back - kinda. First I have to say where in the world did August go? I can't believe it has been over a month since my last blog post. Granted I was away on vacation for 2 weeks without internet access but that still doesn't account for the remaining weeks. The time just flew by but at least I can say I wasn't sitting idle just watching it go by. I actually spent many hours constructing another blog to promote a fundraiser I am organizing for my son's school. You can check it out here. As part of the fundraiser I am doing a class on genealogy. So I have also spent many hours preparing for that. This will be a beginner/introductory genealogy class and I'd actually like to get some feedback from you for it. (Hopefully I haven't lost too many followers through my absence LOL). I'd appreciate it if you could leave me comments on what you think would be the most important thing to teach in a beginning genealogy class. i.e., citing your sources, how to search the census or bmd records, what information can be gleaned from a birth, marriage, or death certificate, etc. Or, if you follow my blog but haven't really done a lot of genealogical research what would you like to get from a class like this if you took one. I'd really appreciate some feedback as preparing for a class like this is certainly not easy. I have an hour and a half for the class and have realized that it will not be enough time to teach everything. So your feedback will help me streamline the class and cut my 10 hours of material down to the time I have alloted, LOL.

On another note, my time away from the blog has helped me to realize something - I need another blog, LOL. No seriously, I returned from vacation to find out I had been 'tagged' several times (and I'm apologize to everyone for not having responded to the tags yet) and I love my friends dearly for thinking of me but I also realized that this blog perhaps isn't the right venue to respond to these tags if they have nothing to do with genealogy. In the past I've tried to adapt the tags to be relevant but I have now decided that I should have a 'personal' blog also. So, although I haven't created it yet I will be setting up a blog to document my 'personal' scrapbooking, cardmaking and photography endeavors and will be keeping this blog for anything family history related. I hope to have the new blog up within the week so I will let you know when that is so if anyone has an interest in my other endeavors you can follow there.

In the meantime, thank you everyone for understanding my absence and please leave some comments about the class that I will be doing.

I've Been Tagged

So after returning from camping last week and catching up on my blog reading I discovered I had been tagged - more than once! Being tagged means you:

1. Collect the book that you have most handy
2. Turn to page 161
3. Find the 5th complete sentence
4. Cite the sentence on your blog
5. Pass it on (tag) 5 other bloggers

So the book I happened to have most handy was one I started reading at camping. Being a genealogy buff I'm naturally interested in history as well. I picked up "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" at the thrift shop and thought it would be interesting both from a historical standpoint and because my great-grandfather was a licensed victualler. He ran the Crown & Thistle in Rochester, England for a number of years in the late 1800's. So far this has been a very interesting book. The author talks about how beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and cola have had an influence on human history. The L.A. Times calls it "As refreshing as a cool glass of beer on a hot day and as stimulating as that first cup of coffee in the morning...there aren't many books this entertaining that also provide a cogent crash course in ancient, classical and modern history" and I have to agree.

So on to completing my tag. My sentence is: "Such was the impact of his work that Newton is widely regarded as the greatest scientist in history."

Now, being the rebel that I am, I'm going to change things up a little. I'm going to tag 5 fellow genealogists and ask that you either choose the book you have most handy or a book that you have really enjoyed or would recommend to other genealogists and give us a short review of that book as well as quoting the sentence. Let's find out what our fellow genealogists like to read and maybe we will find something new and interesting to add to our own libraries.

I am going to tag: Karen Rhodes, M.Diane Rogers, Elyse, Jennifer Dyer, Janet Iles,

BTW, on another note, I did find some inspiration and get some journaling done on my 'This Is Me' album while I was away camping so I will be posting some of my work soon. I didn't actually take my scrapbooking supplies with me and thought I would scrap when I returned home. I didn't know I was going to be returning to an unusually HOT, HOT, heatwave. At 10:00 am this morning out house was already 30 degrees celsius or 86 degress fahrenheit. Last night it got to 36 degrees celsius or 97 degrees fahrenheit and it's supposed to get hotter over the next few days. Considering our average summer temperatures are around 22/23 degrees celsius (75 fahrenheit) this is unbearably hot for us and needless to say I don't feel much like scrapbooking. I don't feel much like doing anything in this heat actually. I may have to find a local scrapbook store with airconditioned cropping space to get anything done.

I'm going to try to find someplace cool now (maybe Tim Horton's for an Icecap) so good luck to all whom I tagged. I'm looking forward to seeing what your reading interests are.

A Day with Mom at the Walter Draycott Library and a Chance Meeting

Yesterday I took a break from camping and met up with my mom to go the the BC Genealogical Society's Walter Draycott Library in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. The library is free to the public this week so mom and I decided to go and check it out. For a small space they sure have a lot of resources packed inside, over 13,000 books, periodicals, CDs and microfilmed records! Everything was extremely well organized and if you are looking for genealogical resources this would be a great place to go. You can join the BC Genealogical Society for $45 and use or check-out their resources anytime they are open, or you can go and use the library for the day for only $5, however, you cannot check-out books unless you are a member.

The best surprise of the day though was meeting Diane Rogers. Diane was one of the first followers of my blog, a fellow member of the Scrapaholics scrapbooking Meetup group I belong to and a fellow member of Genea-Bloggers, but I hadn't yet met her. It was so nice to finally meet Diane and I know I will be seeing her a lot more often as I intend to make good use of the library resources in the future. Diane and I had our picture taken outside of the library and you can check it out on her blog, CanadaGenealogy, or, 'Jane's Your Aunt'.