Family Tree Gal

Family Tree Gal
Carolyn Calton welcomes YOU!

Motto

In every home, frame a family tree to help strengthen your posterity.

Welcome !

I am committed to acknowledging connections throughout the generations--past, present, and future--and igniting a sense of extraordinary family purpose in individuals in THIS generation. Let me help you discover your "roots" as well as strengthen the "branches" of your family tree. If you have had painful experiences in your family line, then this is the blog for you! In fact, all of us will see that as we strengthen ourselves, we strenthen our entire FAMILY TREE through the power of our positive influence.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Talk About It Tuesday: Ancestor Approved Award

 Talk about it Tuesday
This last week I received an honor that I'm passing to others today.

Just after being asked to be a Blogger of Honor for the AZ Family History Expo (to be held Jan 21 and 22 in Mesa, AZ), I was given the Ancestor Approved Award by Bill West (West in New England blog).  I was certainly surprised and very grateful to Bill, to say the least.

       Each recipient of this award is asked to list 10 things they have learned about their ancestors that have surprised, humbled or enlightened them and then pass the award on to 10 other genealogy bloggers who they feel are doing their ancestors proud. 

Here’s my list of 10 things and my list of 10 other bloggers

1.   I have been surprised to find out that my great, great, great grandfather wrote poems, and loved both music and teaching.  I also love to write poems, and my husband and I love music and teaching.

2.  I am humbled to have been adopted into a family line with so many kind and loving people.
     
3.    3.  I have been enlightened through my mother’s example of continuing on and serving others in spite of great pain. (My mother, who died in 2000, was the youngest of 13 children.)

4.    4.  I was surprised by the antics of my fun-loving father (who died in 2001).  When I was little, he’d tell me he had some money for me and asked me to hold out my hand.  Being the tease he was, he’d place a small frog in it instead of money.  I’d scream, and he’d think it was funny.  He’d wait a few days, and I’d fall for the same trick over and over!  Finally I wised up.

5.    5.  I was enlightened about my aunt’s life and her childhood activities with my mother, grandmother and other relatives when she unexpectedly sent her life’s history to me in the mail.
I learned about life in their small town, how they kept their traditions, about her brothers and sisters, about her feelings, and much more.

6.     6.  It was enlightening to learn that my father never remembered being hugged or told he was loved by his father (my grandfather).  This seemed to bring my dad great sorrow, yet my dad became the most loving, happy man I have known.

7.    7.  It was humbling to watch my grandfather become very thin and gaunt with lung cancer (caused by many years of working in mines.  Living in mining towns was a huge part of our family history.) To see my grandmother’s undying concern and loving care for him was a great example to me of love, even during the hardest, most heart-wrenching times.

8.    8.  It was enlightening to learn from my grandmother what is was like to live in a boarding house (which was run by my great-grandmother when she had to solely support her children) and to see what a good woman my grandmother became in spite of being abandoned by her father.

9.     9.  It was enlightening to know that my great, great grandfather saw the first cannon balls roll down the streets of Nauvoo, Illinois when the persecution of the “Mormons” began there.  I can’t imagine how it would have been to have gone home and find that his family had been taken away and left across the river.

1    10.  When I read their stories, I am humbled to know of the great sacrifices that were made by my ancestors, so that I may have the privileges and blessings I have today.

I am passing this award to:

Amy Coffin     The We Tree Blog            
Thomas MacEntee     And I Helped  (I love cooking!)
Gena Philibert Ortega      Food. Family.  Ephemera                
Colleen McHugh     Orations of OMcHodoy                 
Donna Moughty      Donna’s Ireland Blog  
Chris Paton      Scottish Genes                 
Angela McGhie     
Adventures in Genealogy Education  
Claudia     Claudia’s Genealogy Blog             
?                Family History Writing                    
Karen  Gowen      From the Shadows to the Page 


I believe you are "doing your family proud!"  Enjoy!



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Talk About It Tuesday is a daily blogging theme:  Talk about specific things you are doing this week to make a positive difference in your family line or about what you are doing to meet your family history goals.  For Generational Change-makers (those who have “Joined the Quest” at www.familytreequest.com), identify yourself as a GCM and tell what you are doing to meet any one of the three goals to 1) Glean Wisdom from the Past, 2)Live Mindfully in the Present, or 3) Prepare Confidently for the Future.  You may wish to record this in your journal (history-in-the-making) or personal history records.

About our daily blogging themes
:  I hope you will use these themes in your own posts for blogs, Facebook, Tweets etc. as well as read them here.  Please mention the title of the theme in your own original blog posts (example:  Talkk About It Tuesday: (then your title—not in parenthesis) for blogs.  We will all benefit from seeing what you have to say on the subject. 


For Twitter posts, here are the hashtags:  Memory Lane Monday= #memlm, Talk About It Tuesday= #taitu, Resource Wednesday= #rwed, Thankful, Think About it Thursday= #ttaith, Family Tree Friday= #famtf (Make sure you note that there are two “t”s at the beginning of the Thursday hashtag.)