2011 Holiday Gift Guide For The Family Historian

Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner

This handy mobile scanner will give your family historian the ability to scan pictures and documents where ever they go! With Flip-Pal you can even scan pictures that are hanging on the wall. So many times I have been visiting with family and we look at old pictures or interesting documents and I struggle to take pictures with my cell phone or camera. Often times I can't get the settings right to get a nice clear image. I don't have one of these yet... :) But I've heard great things. Price $149.99

Family Tree Maker

Family Tree Maker software allows you to export your ancestry.com family tree directly to your desktop. Set up is really easy and they have versions for PC and MAC. Once your family tree is loaded to the software, you can access your tree even when you don't have an internet connection! There are tons of great reports, charts, and diagrams you can customize and print to give your research a professional touch. Price For PC: FTM 2012 $29.99 FTM "complete" $59.99 For Mac: FTM for Mac 2 $55.99

Ancestry.com Gift Memberships

The perfect gift for anyone who loves using Ancestry.com to research family history. With a paid subscription you have access to billions of historical records! You can choose a duration and start date for the membership. The recipient will receive an email alerting them of their membership on the membership start date you select. You will have the chance to print out the gift certificate to give to the person if you'd like. **This type of gift is only for people who DO NOT already have an active ancestry.com membership. See the gift membership FAQ for more information.** Price for 12 month U.S Membership: $159 Price for U.S 6 month Membership: $89

The Family Tree Problem Solver by Marsha Hoffman Rising

I found this book at the library and found it to be a very helpful resource! From amazon.com- "Has your family history research hit a brick wall? Inside you will find: Ideas on how to find vital records before civil registration, Tips for finding "missing" ancestors on censuses, Instructions for investigating collateral kin to further your pedigree, Work-arounds for lost or destroyed records....and much more! This revised edition also includes new information about online research techniques and a look at the role of DNA research. Plus you'll find a glossary of genealogy terms and more than a dozen templates for charts and logs to help you organize and record your research." Price: $15.76 (amazon.com)

Archival Photo Pages, Sleeves, and Binders

Archival materials are always a great gift for your family historian. You definitely want to encourage their motivation to organize and preserve your family pictures and documents. Every time pictures and papers are touched oils from your hands will slowly start to degrade the materials. By giving the gift of binders, plastic sleeves, archival boxes...you can help guarantee these precious family memories will be preserved for the next generation. You can buy these materials many different places, I'm linking to one well known site- Light Impressions.

Tombstone Tuesday: A Trip to Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, Scotland

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted! Things get so crazy around the holidays. But don't worry, I'm still desperate to learn and share with lots of stories and adventures!

Last year I watched a 2 hour special on the History Channel, Afraid of the Dark. I really enjoyed the scary stories and history of our innate fear of the dark. Several areas of the world are covered and one of my favorites  was about Edinburgh, Scotland. Not only was I obsessed with the accent of the Scottish guide, but the the creepy scarey stories of the haunted Greyfriars Kirkyard and the underground moors fascinated me. I can be big baby and get scared easy, but for whatever reason I love creepy cemeteries!

When I had the amazing opportunity to visit Scotland this past September I just had to get to Edinburgh to see these sights for myself. I visited Greyfriars during the day, it was beautiful! The crypts and tombstones were very elaborate. This graveyard is supposedly haunted, but since I visited during the day I don't have any spooky stories to share of my own. They have nighttime tours, but there were just too many to chose from and I read that some people felt that the tours were not always respectful of the graveyard. They left garbage and disrupted the area. Not wanting to take part I decided not to take a nighttime tour. 

The ornate tombstones in on the western side of the graveyard sit right up against the back of the buildings. Can you imagine having this veiw literally right outside your window? You could almost touch the stones from the windows! I don't know if I could do it...

I just couldn't stop taking pictures of all the intricate details in stone...lots of skulls and cross bones!

To the right is a picture of the Covenanter's Prison, where thousands of Presbyterian's supporting the National Covenant were imprisoned. Hundreds died and were buried here. This area is behind a locked gate so I couldn't walk down the land to view to areas, but from what I could see, you wouldn't want to stay there.

Edinburgh is a great city for sightseeing, eating, and shopping. After the graveyard we had wee pint of local Scottish ale at the Greyfriars Bobby's Bar just around the corner. Another spot I recommend is Lebowskis Bar. We are huge fans of "The Dude" from the movie The Big Lebowski and this bar is an ode to all things dude, most importantly to his favorite drink, the white russian. They have many different variations of white russians, we loved them.

I really enjoyed my visit and recommend you take a trip to Greyfriars next time you're in Edinburgh, Scotland. If you have gone on a haunted tour I'd LOVE to hear about your experience!

NYC Veterans Day Parade 2011

The NYC Veterans Day Parade is the largest celebration in the country, with 20,000 veterans, supporters, bands, and other entertainment marching in the parade. It was a beautiful fall day. I had the great opportunity to chat with some sweet WWII Veterans, thanking them for their courage.

Click the picture to start the slideshow. Then click the square and arrow icon in the lower right hand corner to view the pictures full screen.

Ancestry.com DNA Testing- What Can DNA Tell Me About My Ancestors?

Last week I received an email from Ancestry.com with a great freebie offer- a free DNA test kit! I didn't have a particularly strong interest in DNA testing and to be completely honest, I wasn't quite sure what I could learn or why I would want to explore this method of research. But genealogy isn't cheap and a freebie is hard to pass by! I just got the kit in the mail yesterday so I figured it's time to see what this is all about.

On the Ancestry.com DNA Testing website I see there are 3 different DNA tests you can choose from, Paternal Lineage, Maternal Lineage, and a combined test for both Paternal and Maternal DNA testing. Pricing ranges from $149-$358.  From reading the FAQ section I learned that a female can only test the maternal lineage, whereas a male can take both the maternal and paternal. If I submit the DNA sample for the maternal test I will find out the ancient ancestry of my mothers side, but it won't help me find living family matches. From the site: "The Maternal Lineage test differs from the Paternal test in that it cannot validate a family relationship -- so even if your maternal DNA is an identical match with another participant it can only prove that you may have been related thousands of years ago." With the paternal test you can find matching genetic cousins, levels of relatedness with other DNA groups, and learn the ancient ancestry of my paternal line from up to 100,000 years.

When I activated my test online I indicated that I will be providing the DNA. In hindsight it might have been better if I asked my dad to provide the test sample for the paternal test. I might try contacting them to see if I can change this, it seems like the paternal test would provide me with better information for growing my family tree. My maiden name is Wright and it's been difficult sifting through this popular surname for relations!

The kit looks very simple, cheek swabs for collecting the DNA sample and instructions for collecting and getting your sample processed. 

Find out more about Genetic Genealogy: Ancestry.com webinar: Genetic Genealogy Made Easy

A book I found, DNA and Social Networking: A Guide to Genealogy in the Twenty-First Century by Debbie Kennett looks like a good resource for learning more about DNA and it's relevance in genealogy research.

Stay tuned for an update after my (or my dads) sample is processed. I'll be exploring the DNA groups and services from Ancestry.com and other DNA projects out there. Have you done any DNA testing for your genealogy research? What did you find out? I'd love to hear about your experiences!

* I am not being paid by ancestry.com for this review or for sharing my experience. I received the free test kit because I am a subscriber of Ancestry.com. I am sharing my experience and thoughts on my blog to help others learn about genealogy research and DNA testing.