Belated Saturday Night Fun - My Genea-Bucket List

For this week's Saturday Night Fun, Randy has challenged other genea-bloggers to describe their genealogy bucket list. Although I'm late in participating in this meme again, I still want to post my goals. I think I wrote about this topic before, but it has been awhile. I don't think it would hurt to write an updated version. So, here is my genea-bucket list:

1. I would like to be able to travel to Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, so that I could uncover more information on my ancestors and their families who lived in the region. Although I have ordered microfilms of Huntingdon County records from the LDS in the past, I still haven't been able to uncover much on my ancestors in the ordered microfilms. I think I will have to go and visit the county to find out more.
2. Another region (okay, it is more than one) I would like to visit is the Alsace and Palatinate regions of France and Germany. The majority of my German ancestors resided in those areas. I would probably also try to make stops in Gelnhausen (which is in the Hesse region of Germany) and Stuttgart as well.
3. I would also like to visit the county of Lancashire in the U. K. since I had ancestors living in those areas. (I would also like to visit the other counties my ancestors resided in as well.)
   

Well, those are my three main regions that I would like to visit. I hope some day that I will be able to visit those places and continue my research into my ancestors. Enjoy!

29th Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy Posted!

The 29th edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy has been posted! You can read it here. (Thank you J. M. for hosting the edition!) The topic for the next edition will on "Arrival in New Lands dealing with the who, where, and why our ancestors may have left their homelands and settled in new countries," and will hosted by Al of Polish-American Genealogy Research. Submissions will be due on June 27, and the edition will be posted on June 30th. Articles can be submitted here. Enjoy!

18th Edition of the Smile For The Camera Carnival Posted!

The 18th edition of the Smile For the Camera Carnival has been posted! You can read it here. The topic for the next edition will be on "Gift." It is the holiday season and a time for giving. So give Smile readers the gift of sharing, sharing a family photograph. It can be a gift given or received, it can be the gift of talent, it can be the gift of having the photograph itself. The interpretation of gift is yours." Enjoy!

17th Edition of the Smile For The Camera Carnival Posted!

The 17th edition of the Smile for the Camera Carnival has been posted! You can read it here. The topic for the next edition will be on "Travel. Planes, trains and automobiles. Horses, mules, carts, and wagons. Bikes or on foot. Show us your family and how they traveled." Submissions will be due on November 10th. Enjoy!

14th Edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture Posted!

The 14th edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture has been published! You can read it here. The topic for the next edition will be on Irish reading, and topics will be due by August 30th. Enjoy!

13th Edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture Posted!

The 13th edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture has been posted! You can read it here. The topic for the next edition will be on Irish vacations, and you can read more about it here. The topic for the 15th edition will be on the 2nd summer reading challenge, and you can read more about it here. Enjoy!

Another Meme I've Been Tagged to Participate in ...

Apple tagged me yesterday to participate in a meme that other genealogy bloggers have been participating in the past couples days. So, here I go:

Ten years ago I ...

1. ... was a student. (Well, I'm still a student now.)
2. ... was in middle school. (It's hard for me to believe that it has been that long.)
3. ... thinking about what I wanted to be for Halloween.
4. ... was part of my school's journalism club.

(I can't think of number 5. Either way, it would be connected with school.)

Five things on my to-do list for today:

1. Go to class. (I have two classes later today.)
2. Work on school work. (I'm doing that ...)
3. Research for a paper. (I'm working on that ...)
4. Go to Graduate School Fair. (I went to it.)
5. Chores

Five foods I enjoy:

1. Steak
2. Dessert foods (Well, who doesn't?)
3. Red delicious apples
4. Cereal
5. And lots of other foods ...

Five places I have lived:

Well, I've only lived in Michigan, and I can only come up with three distinct places (I'm not counting the different dorms I have lived in up at college.):

1. Where I used to live in Michigan.
2. Where my parents now live in Michigan.
3. Up at college.

Five jobs I have had:

1. Interned at an archives.
2. Done some volunteer work.
3. I have not had any paid jobs, though.

Five places I have visited that I want to visit again (Yes, I'm copying this one and the next this from Becky and Donna):

1. Germany
2. Austria
3. England (I've been once, but I don't remember the trip because I was a baby at the time.)
4. Western states of the United States (and the National Parks of the U.S.)
5. Switzerland

Five places I want to visit that I have not yet visited:

1. The rest of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
2. Alaska
3. NARA (I have not been to the archives yet.)
4. Huntingdon, Pennsylvania
5. Ancestral areas of Germany. (When I visited Germany, I did not go near any of the places my ancestors lived. Of course, at that time, I did not know where they were from.)

Five bloggers that I am tagging:

1. Wendy of All My Branches
2. Cathy of In Deeds
3. Harold of Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog
4. Nancy of Fermazin Family Genealogy
5. Al of Polish-American Genealogy Research

Well, that is it for this meme. I hope you had fun reading it. Enjoy!

So, Where Was I?

Last week I mentioned that I would not be posting any major articles or be available due to the fact that I was preparing to go back to school. What I did not tell anyone was that I would be away on vacation.

So, where did I go on vacation? Well,I went on a cruise with almost all of my family. In addition to going with my parents and brother, I went with three of my cousins, my grandparents, an aunt and an uncle. The cruise lasted for five days, and we stopped at Cozumel, Mexico and Grand Cayman Island. At the moment, I do not have any pictures of our trip. When I do get some, I'll post a few and write more about the trip. At the moment, I'm not going to post anymore on my vacation because I want to post an article with pictures from my trip.

Out For A Picnic ...

A few days ago, I learned from a post on Terry's blog that Bill West had started a mini-meme/carnival on picnics, and I thought I would contribute some of my memories of family picnics.

Most of the time that my family has had a picnic has been due to either being part of a group or club event, part of a family trip, or part of a visit to a beach. At these picnics, we primarily ate hot dogs, chips and maybe potato salad. Sometimes, we had sandwiches instead of hot dogs. It just depended upon the situation. We mainly brought along food that could be kept in a cooler or could be made easily. In addition the food, we usually brought along cans of pop and bottles of water. Of course, one cannot forget to bring plates and utensils, and we primarily brought paper products along so that we could easily throw this stuff away. The stuff we brought was fairly simple as the simple stuff was easiest to bring along, and did not take very much time to prep or cook the food, if that was needed at all.

Many of my memories of family picnics mainly consist of stopping off somewhere to have lunch (instead of going to a restaurant) while we were on a family vacation. In that situation, we were most likely to eat sandwiches as that was the easiest to bring along on a car trip. As you can see, our family picnics were pretty simple and basic.

Another Interesting Article ...

I just happened to notice an interesting article on yahoo news. You can read the article here.

I realize it does not really have to do with genealogy or history, but I thought it was interesting, nevertheless.

Advent Meme Day Eleven Posted!

The entry for day eleven of the advent meme has been posted. You can read it here. Enjoy!

Somewhere Else for Christmas ...

There have been a couple of times when I have not been in my hometown to celebrate Christmas. Of those few times, I have spent time in Florida visiting relatives. Two of the times my family and I have gone to Florida, I think it was because it was easier for us to go visit our relatives than it was for them to come up to Michigan.

For both trips, we drove down to Florida, and it would take us two days to get down to where our relatives lived. One of the years that we went down was 1998. That was the year that we had a Ford Expedition. I remember when we were driving through Tennessee, my dad noticed that the price of gas per gallon was $0.69. Needless to say, my dad got off the highway and filled up our gas tank. Later, my dad said that he had not paid that amount for gas since the '70s. (And that was a novelty. Remember when we thought a $1.30 per gallon was expensive? How would we know that within about a decade we would be paying about twice that amount?)

Once we got to Florida, we stayed with relatives. We did not stay in a hotel. While we were down there, we visited a flea market and the Ponce De Leon lighthouse. I remember climbing all the way up to the top of the lighthouse, and when I had to go back down, I was so afraid that I had to hold onto my dad's hand. I also remember that at the beginning of the trip the temperature was in the 70s and that was it very humid. I could actually wear shorts. (For being someone who has experienced almost every Christmas in Michigan, it is a novelty.)

Other tings that I remember is that the only thing in the news on the way down was about the sex scandal in the White House. I also remember that while I was down in Florida, the Midwest got hit by a snow storm. The Detroit airport got about six inches of snow, and had problems clearing the snow which resulted in backlogs and the stranding of people at the airport. It was a total disaster. On the way home, I remember that we were racing to get home because another snow storm was on the way home and we did not want to get caught in it. We were lucky, and we made it home the day before the storm hit. On January 3rd, the storm hit. My parents still went to work, but my brother and I stayed home because school had been canceled. Of course this storm only added to the problems at the Detroit airport. Even after school reopened, I remember that some students were not back in school. (One classmate and her family got stuck in Hawaii, and I clearly remember the teacher saying, "Nice place to get stuck at.")

After reading over this, it is hard for me to believe that it has almost been a decade since this has all happened. I don't think I ever imagined then what I would be doing in ten years.