Follow Friday – 18 March 2016

In case you missed all the hoopla that resulted from a recent article published in the March edition of the AARP Bulletin (20 Tips to Declutter Your Home), I urge you to go read the article and then the rebuttal from my fellow Buckeye and professional genealogist, Amy Johnson Crowe – Don’t Burn Your Family Letters When You Declutter. Feel free to add your two cents worth – or better yet, write a blog post about it and leave a link in the comments! (I’ve written a few articles about the letters that I have!)

Do you add metadata to your digital photos? I guess the bigger question would be do you know why you should? You know all those boxes/albums full of old family photos that you have? How many times do you think “why didn’t anyone list who, what, why, where, when, and how?” so you wouldn’t be left scratching your head and trying to figure out that information. Metadata serves the same purpose. It gives you the information you need – as well as a source. Did you inherit it from your paternal grandmother? Was it part of a scrapbook from your favorite aunt? Was it a loose photo stuck inside a Bible or letter? You will want to source all of that so in five years when you pull up a photo from the cloud or your hard drive, you aren’t scratching your head trying to put it in the right context. Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist has written a wonderful article about this – Repeat: an image citation how-to. Go read!

Yesterday, I posted a photo of Ellis Island and a link to Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak’s article about Annie Moore. Last night, Megan posted on Facebook that she had found Annie’s relatives! Here is the story – Generation Saga: Relatives of Annie Moore Traced. Fascinating story!

This past week, the story of the Purple Heart found  at a Goodwill store was making the rounds on Facebook. Within 24 hours, a family member had been found! Power of social networking! Here’s just one article about it – Purple Heart Found at Goodwill.

Last but certainly not least, I want to call your attention to a photo/travel blog with excellent photos of landscapes, nature, events, and animals. Recently, Broughton Images spent a day in Dallas photographing the skyline. Go check it out! You can also follow on Facebook.

 

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Friday’s Faces From the Past – Liberty

In the mid to late 1960s, my parents and I traveled to Pennsylvania and then to New York. My dad’s sister, Marie (Amore) Werkley lived in Philadelphia so we visited her after we had toured the Hershey’s factory. That was before OSHA and health safety laws prohibited people from walking through the guts of the chocolaty preparation areas. We were thisclose to the huge vats of milk chocolate. For a very young girl who never could say no to chocolate, that was a huge thing!

Hershey, PA

Seeing the birthplace of our freedoms and walking through the streets once trod by the Founding Fathers was too complex for my young mind to comprehend. Luckily, I was able to do that again as a teen when it meant more to me.

Gene Amore & Marie (Amore) Werkley

In New York, while my dad was at a work seminar, Mom and I shopped, went to Radio City Music Hall, shopped some more, walked in Times Square, and shopped some more! Mom’s favorite daytime drama was “As the World Turns” and it was filmed live in front of an audience. Oh, how she wanted to see that. I was one year too young to be allowed in as part of the audience – even though it was my fault that she watched soap operas. Back then, no one thought anything of sitting a child in front of the television in order to complete the daily chores – and in my mom’s case, doing some sewing. So while I watched the shows, she got caught up in them too!

While in New York, we visited the sister of my uncle’s wife. She, her sister, my uncle and mom all grew up together in present day Fairborn, Ohio. Irene and her husband lived on Long Island.

We took a faerie boat ride out to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty. We never landed but just saw the beautiful gift from France from the boat. I still get goosebumps whenever I see film of her – and in the case of the last scene from the original “Planet of the Apes” – it terrifies me. On the way back to Manhattan from Long Island, my dad took a wrong turn and ended up in Queens. I had fallen asleep in the car and when I woke up – some three hours later – we were pulling in to the parking garage of our hotel!

I loved that trip and remember so much about it – including being a little sea sick on that boat ride!

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