Butler Family...Our American Story

REVIEWED BY: Marguerite Zelle

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: N/A

WEB ADDRESS: http://www.butlerfamilies.blogspot.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Our story is one of the many family stories of America. Aren't we still adventurers and explorers, risk takers and seekers? As our lives and individual stories continue to unfold, we play a small part in the history of this nation and the world just as our forefathers did. This story, our story is written every day by each of us as we live our lives, raise our children, solve our difficulties and pursue our version of the American Dream.

MY REVIEW: I enjoyed this blog -- it's always interesting to read the histories of people who lived so long ago, and of people today who are able to track their ancestors back so far.

Geneaologists and people interested in history will enjoy this blog. There is one flaw, months can sometimes go between posts. Nevertheless, it's got some interesting stuff there, so check it out.

RECENT POSTS:
--Sacred Harp 332: Sons of Sorrow
--Our Story Is The Story Of America....
--History Came Alive....
--Our Heritage..Their Legacy.....
--Dennis And Lyndell's Story....

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Check out the following blogs:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report

Clue Wagon (genealogy)

REVIEWED BY:

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Clue Wagon, by Kerry Scott

WEB ADDRESS: http://www.cluewagon.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: After nearly 15 years in human resources, I left to stay home with my two small children. Then I started a blog for job seekers. After a year of talking about resumes and interviews and crazy candidates, I finally worked up the courage to pursue my REAL dream: becoming a professional genealogist. Now, instead of talking about employment forms, I talk about census forms.

My blog is about my journey, my research, and occasionally about ice cream. It’s fun. You should visit.

MY REVIEW: I enjoyed this blog a great deal. The author writes well, and covers an interesting variety of topics in the genealogy field. People who are interested in setting out to find their relatives will find this blog of great interest, and people who are just interested in history in general will also enjoy it.

The one caveat - the author only updates the blog 3 or 4 times a month.

Sample post:

About That Guy In The Morgue…
by Kerry Scott on May 17, 2010
Photo not reproduced

Remember Edward Ackermann, the guy I found in the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Unclaimed Persons Database?

Here’s his story:

Edward Lee Ackermann was born in 1926 in Richmond, Virginia. He was adopted by Fred Ackermann and his second wife, Dorothy Ann Meyerhofer. Dorothy already had an adopted daughter, Mary Elizabeth, from her previous marriage.

When he was 16, Ed applied for a Social Security card so that he could work at the Sears and Roebuck store on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. When he was 18, he joined the Army, and he served for three years. I don’t know yet what he did for a living when he got out of the Army, but I know he’d been a security guard for two years prior to his death at age 68. He never married, and lived with his mother for many years (in fact, the house he died in in 1994 on Glenville Drive in Los Angeles is the same one listed as his mother’s residence when she died in 1967).

Ed died of natural causes, and was found by the wife of his roommate/friend, Robert Walton. Ed had written a letter for Robert years before saying that he was adopted, his parents were dead and he had no other family, and that he was a veteran. Robert turned the letter over to the police when they came to investigate Ed’s death, and that’s how Ed came to be buried at Riverside National Cemetery.

As it turns out, Ed did have family when he died. His parents had divorced sometime before they both died in the 1960s, and Ed’s sister Mary Elizabeth died in 1982. Ed and his sister’s family had been estranged for years, and they had no idea that he had passed away. In looking for clues about him, I found them. They gave me the picture above, and some details about his life. It’s funny how Ed’s alone-ness at the end of his life ended up bringing together some branches from his family tree years later.

I’m both relieved and a little sad that Ed’s story turned out to be so ordinary. I had pictured some dramatic end…homelessness, or a crime scene, or some other scenario that probably comes from having watched too much Law and Order. In truth, his story didn’t have any “ripped from the headlines” twist. It could be the story of any of us. I find that a little unsettling.

But I’m glad I “met” him.

RECENT POSTS:
--A Tornado Hit My Favorite Place Last Night
--What’s in a Name?
--Ugly People Don’t Need Jobs.
--Got Doctors in Your Family Tree? Then You Need This

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Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

John Brown Kin (American History)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION PAGE: John Brown Kin

WEB ADDRESS: http://johnbrownkin.blogspot.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Follow a direct descendant of John Brown as she researches and documents her family history

MY REVIEW: I am more interested in the Civil War time period itself (the military battles) rather than the time period leading up to it, when diplomacy ultimately failed and "cold iron" was necessary to settle the question. Nevertheless, it's fascinating to read about the people of that time period, and what they were willing to sacrfice for their beliefs.

This is a well-written blog, with an author who knows her stuff. Obviously, since she is a descendant of John Brown. Anyone with an interest to the time period leading up to the Civil War, and anyone interested in genealogy, will find this blog of interest.

A FEW PARAGRAPHS FROM A SAMPLE POST

At the John Brown Remembered Academic Symposium held at Harpers Ferry, WV in October 2009, I had the pleasure of meeting Ian Barford. Ian is an actor, documentary film maker, and the proud father of twins! Last week, Ian traveled to Texas to do interviews for the documentary he is currently working on about John Brown. He traveled to Austin first to interview my good friend Evan Carton, author of Patriotic Treason. He then drove up to Allen to interview me. While he was here I showed him my prized family artifact - Oliver Brown's Bible that he carried throughout his years in Kansas.

The Bible is small, 2 1/2 inches x 3 1/2 inches and just over an inch thick. Just the right size to be carried in an inside pocket of a wool overcoat. The cover is black leather embossed with an ornate design. On the spine, the words Holy Bible are embossed in gold. For a book that is over one hundred sixty years old, the binding is realitively tight, the cover only slightly torn.

On the inside back cover the following is written in pencil, in an ornate old-timey script:

This Bible was carried all through the Kansas troubles by Oliver Brown.
On the left hand inside back page is written the name of the original owner of the Bible, Oliver Brown, in ink and in a beautiful calligraphic hand.

But it is what can be found on the front inside cover that makes this Bible so valuable to me personally -- in pencil, written over and over again, in the handwriting of a young girl perfecting her signature, is the name Annie Brown. It makes me smile to think of young Annie, my great-great grandmother, scrounging around for a piece of paper to practice her penmanship on, and noticing a clean white space inside the cover of big brother's Bible. The temptation was more than she could resist. I imagine that she got into a great deal of trouble when it was discovered that she used the inside cover of the Lord's word for her penmanship practice.

Annie had the Bible in her possession when she moved to California in 1863, and it is one of the items that escaped the fire that distroyed her house and most of her belonging in 1896. Annie passed the Bible to her granddaughter Beatrice Cook Keesey, my grandmother.

RECENT ARTICLES:
-Join Me at the 2010 DFW Writer's Conference in April (FEb 19, 2010)
-2010 Winter GeneaBloggers Olymics Update (Awarding herself medals of appropriate colors for things she's accomplished on her blog - very amusing!) (Feb 18 2010)
-Tarantino to Free the Slaves Next? (Not happy about Tarantino's plan to film a movie about John Brown, given his penchant for violence in his films) (Feb 18, 2010)
-Letter from CORE - Letter to Gov to save John Brown Farm (Feb 17, 2010)
-Winter 2010 GeneaBloggers Olympic Games (Participating in the "Olympics' with other geneolocgical bloggers (Feb 14, 2010)