Three Interesting Olive Tree Genealogy Blog Posts

I just recently noticed these three posts that I thought might of some interest to other genealogists:

• "Philadelphia Pennsylvania Baggage Lists"
• "Fort Ville-Marie, French Settlement in Montreal in 1642 found!"
• "Palatine History"

All three of the articles appear to be very interesting from a genealogical and historical view.

Birthdays ... and Genealogy

Today is my birthday, and earlier today I started to wonder about birthday celebrations in the past. I mean, how did our ancestors' celebrate their birthdays? Did they celebrate with parties and gift-giving? When did gift-giving start to become a tradition?

I don't have the answer to any of these questions. I just started to wonder about it. Hm .... I smell a research project! It looks as though I need to do research on these questions.

Anyhow, besides wondering how birthdays are celebrated, I started thinking about when people come of age. Not all too long ago, the age when a person legally came of age was twenty-one in this country and in other countries. I don't know if the legal age for adulthood is twenty-one is in other countries, but I do know that culturally, in the United Kingdom, twenty-one was once the age associated with coming of age. When my Mom turned twenty-one, her relatives sent her money because that was they age that they associated with coming of age. I don't know if that is still the case, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Of course, I wonder why twenty-one was chosen as the age when a person became an adult. I guess I'll just have to research it.

That's just my thoughts. Does anyone else have thoughts about birthdays and genealogy?

Two More History Blogs Added

Over the past few days, I have added two more history blogs. Those blogs are:

• Mass Moments (I first learned about this blog from Randy Seaver's post.)
• Roy Booth's Early Modern Whale

You can find the links to these two blogs on the lower left hand of the page. Any suggestions for other blogs are welcome.

Update at 9:oo p.m.: I should have said that I'm interested in genealogy or history blogs. I deleted the first two comments to this post because the blog suggestion was not to a history or genealogy blog. I'm sorry for any confusion that this might have generated.

Family Myths and Traditions - Confirmed, Disproved or Unconfirmed

Very few family myths or legends have been passed down in my family, so I haven't had many stories to investigate or confirm. I have, though, been able to confirm a few stories or at least confirm some of the facts in the few stories that my family has.

On my father's side, there was a story that one of our ancestors had served in the Civil War. I was able to confirm that this story was true and in addition to my ancestor, his brother-in-laws , his wife's uncle and possible at least two possible brothers also served. (I haven't been able to completely verify yet that these two other men living in the same county are my ancestor's brothers. I'm still doing research on whether are his brothers.)

Another story from my father's side claims that someone in the family became a cattle-rustler, but I haven't proven that story yet.

On my mother's side, one family story claims that my great-grandfather was the youngest of thirteen children and that he went to live with a married siblings after his parents died. This older sibling mistreated him to the point that he ran away at thirteen and joined the crew of a ship. I've been able to confirm that he ended up living in the household of his older, married brother, but I haven't been able to confirm the part about working on a ship. I don't know how true that portion is. Also, I've only been able to find about ten other siblings, so it may be possible that he was the youngest to thirteen.

These are just a couple of the few stories that were passed down. For most of the few family traditions that my family has, I have not yet confirmed or disproved them. I'm still searching.

Haven't Posted In a While

I've been busy lately and haven't had time to post anything, so I apologize to those who were wondering why I haven't posted lately. Now that I am back at school, the focus of my posting will be on history, but I might still write posts for the Carnival of Genealogy.