Genealogy Resolutions for 2008

Even though I did not come up with a genealogical list of New Year's resolutions for this past year, I've decided to come up with some for 2008. So, here's my list:

1. I hope to get a chance to go to the Grand Rapids Public Library this year. The main branch of the library has records of the Old Soldiers' Home where my ancestor spent the last two years of his life. I am hoping to find more information than I did at the state archive of Michigan.
2. Order more microfilms of probate records for Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.
3. Look up and print other probate records of ancestors who lived and died in Saint Joseph County, Michigan.
4. Order birth, marriage and death records of ancestors from the United Kingdom.
5. Order microfilms of Trippstadt, Germany's civil records.
6. And last, but not least, I hope to make more connections and to find more ancestors and relatives.

Well, those are my resolutions. I realize that it is not a lot, but I believe that I probably will be able to accomplish most of these resolutions. Well, I'll just have to wait until next year to see how I did.

Irish Research

I do not have any experience in researching Irish genealogy. I do have a couple of ancestors who were born in Ireland, but I'm not sure if they are Irish or Scottish. I haven't had much time to do research on those ancestors, so I don't know much about Irish records. I know more about English records, although my research has only been done on a long distance basis.

I do know, though, that FamilySearch Indexing is working on indexing the births, marriages and death indexes for Ireland at the moment as I have helped to index a couple of images. These index books, unsurprisingly, look like the indexes for England and Wales. (Ancestry and Free BMD do have images of the pages of the England and Wales' books' on their sites.)

Outside of that, I do not know anything about Irish records. Hopefully, I'll get some time in the summer to read up on the subject.

Poll Results

The poll is now closed, and the results are in! The question for this poll was, "Where in the British Isles are your ancestors from?" Nine people voted, and the results are:

• England - 8 votes
• Scotland - 4 votes
• Wales - 2 votes
• Ireland - 6 votes
• Other Islands - 0 votes

I think this has been one of the polls that has had the most participation. To those who voted, thank you for voting. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

I just want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas. Enjoy!

Celebrating Christmas Eve ...

On Christmas Eve, my family usually goes over to my grandparent's house. Usually we have dinner, and then we open gifts that they bought for us. We would spend several hours at their house, eating and talking. In all, I don't believe our Christmas Eve tradition is very much different from other families' celebrations.

2nd Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy

Here is the second edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy. The topic for this carnival was on Christmas traditions of Central and Eastern European countries. Unfortunately, this carnival is short since I did not receive very many entries.

First off, we have Russian Holy Supper written by Marcie of A Child Chosen. This article is about the traditions of a Russian Christmas dinner.

Next, we have Getting Across Germany Cheaply, Part One written by poetloverrebelspy of Less Than a Shoestring. This article is on how a person can ride the trains in Germany cheaply. Although this article does not fit with the subject, I added it as I did not have any other articles to post.

Well, that is it for this carnival. The topic for the next carnival is on stories. Do any of your ancestors have stories of their homelands from Central or Eastern Europe? Are you familiar with any stories or folklore of countries from Central or Eastern Europe? The Next edition of the carnival will be due on January 25. You can submit your article here.

Day 23 Posted!

Day 23 of the Advent meme has been posted! You can read it here. Enjoy!

Day 22 Posted!

Day 22 of the Advent meme has been posted! You can read it here. Enjoy!