Blog Book Tour and Giveaway: 13 Ways to Tell Your Ancestor Stories

Today I am happy to participate in a blog book tour for the new book by Dr. Bill (William L.) Smith 13 Ways to Tell Your Ancestor Stories.  Oh, and give away a copy of the book!  Yes, a free copy of his brand new book!  Details on the giveaway are listed at the end of the review.

I am a person who is always looking for new and inventive ways to share what I discover with the rest of my family.  You can only do the same thing so many times, but then again, sometimes the old standbys can be done in new and different ways too.  Currently I share my family stories when I write this blog, send email updates, or post to my twitter and Facebook accounts.  In the past I have created artistic family trees, scrapbooks, and transcribed more items than I care to admit.  But is that it out there? It appears that it isn’t.

Dr. Bill gives his readers more ways to share their stories as well as helping them to understand what that particular type of media means.  13 Ways is truly 13 different types of storytelling that a family historian can do.  From writing about family to talking about family there is an idea for how to share your heritage that everyone can relate to.  That is what I enjoyed most from the book, the feeling that anyone could do this. 

For those who do decide to tell their story using one of his 13 Ways, there are worksheets at the end of each section to help you create your family story.  That was exciting to me because I didn’t feel like I had been given a lot of information and then sent off into the deep end of the pool to try to figure things out my own.  These worksheets walk the reader through the creative process, ask you why you are doing it, how you are going to do it, and what outcome are you looking for. 

As an example, the section on using art and artifacts as a way to tell your family stories struck a particular cord with me.  I have quite a few heirloom objects in my possession, and I know that in the future I will inherit many more.  My husband jokes that we will have to buy a bigger house or at least a storage room at some point to fit all the family possessions I will receive. 

I started down the road of recording these heirloom stories in February for the Family History Writing Challenge.  Recording the stories and taking photographs has been great, but I still felt that there was more that I could be doing. After reading the section on this topic and looking at Dr. Bill’s worksheet I was happy to say I have a larger goal now and I am looking at turning my stories and pictures into a family heirloom book for my descendants and my living family members who are interested.  I just needed that extra guidance to help focus my ultimate goals.

With the guidance and inspiration offered by this book I am sure many of the projects in my head will come to fruition.  I hope you will check it out and see what stories you can tell.  To read the other posts from the blog book tour look at this post on Dr. Bills blog.

For the latest on Dr. Bill, his writings, and stories check out his blog Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories.  He is also a contributing writer at the In-Depth Genealogist with me.  Read his column, The Heritage Tourist, published in the IDG’s digital magazine Going In-Depth.

Giveaway: One copy of Dr. Bill’s 13 Ways to Tell Your Ancestor Stories

Saturday 30 March 2013 – Saturday 6 April 2013

I will be giving away 1 free PDF copy of 13 Ways to Tell Your Ancestor Stories.  For a chance to win a copy all you have to do is the following:

1)      Leave a comment here on my blog with an email address (I suggest you use the format: username at whatever dot whatever)

2)      For an additional entry like the link to this post on my Facebook page TNT Family History

Using Random.org I will pick one winner from the entries.  The winner will be announced here on Monday 8 April 2013 and I will contact you with your prize.  Good luck!!

Description of the Book:

Do you have family history and ancestor stories collected and researched?
Do you want to share them and tell your stories, but don't know how or what venue to use?

This book has your answer.

Preservation and interpretation of your ancestor stories will occur most effectively if you use multiple approaches to telling your ancestor stories to your family and interested others. Showing you how to this is the purpose of this book.

The content of you telling of ancestor stories includes your life as well as the lives of your two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great grandparents, etc., and their siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. Ancestor stories include the social context in which these folks lived, their clothes, their farms or ranches, their religion (or not), their occupations, their loves and antagonisms, their education (or not), their friends and neighbors, and the mundane details of their daily lives.

13 sections suggest a variety of ways to tell your ancestor stories; each section has a Planning Worksheet to assist you in doing it most effectively.

"Telling a story about an ancestor can be a gift to oneself and to one's family. It is powerful to have your stories heard. Judy Shintani"

Reminder: Free Lecture Series Tomorrow!

This is a reminder for those in the Fredericksburg, Virginia area that the Fredericksburg Regional Genealogical Society (FRGS) is presenting a lecture series in conjunction with the Central Regional Rappahannock Library(CRRL).  They are free and open to the public, but registration is required to make sure the correct room size is booked.  To see the full listing of seminar subjects see my previous post.

Tomorrow, is the second lecture set in the series.  Hope you can attend!

Introductory Genealogy and Beyond

Central Rappahannock Regional Library

1201 Caroline Street

Fredericksburg, VA 22401


Call 540-372-1144 to register

March 30, 2013

9:00 a.m. – Noon

Sourcing and Documenting Information by Charles S. “Chuck”Mason Jr. – Session I

Admittedly not the most exciting part of tracing ancestors, documenting the information is by far the most important. Source citation is critical to genealogy research, and Mr. Mason will show how to correctly document sources and explain why it is so important.

Genealogy 201: Beyond the Basics by Tish Como – Session II

Genealogy is about more than recording the names and dates associated with one’s ancestors; it’s about discovering how they lived. This session will focus on locating records and resources that can help tell your family’s story; developing good research habits; using advanced search techniques for better results; and critically evaluating records and findings.

Fearless Females: Working Women

My mother has always been an inspiration to me. She is intelligent, driven, goal oriented, and in a nutshell does amazing things. Being her daughter was at times daunting. While we share many of the same characteristics, as a child growing up with this larger than life woman in your midst was... in a word.. intimidating.  Several of my past fearless female posts have been about her. You should check them out.

From the beginning my mother was working in one way or another. She married my father during a hiatus from college. Immediately after her freshman year she was married and the month before she went back to college that next year she had me.  She earned her undergraduate degree in Athletic Training and Math Education 4 years later while playing field hockey for Indiana University.  Many years later mom received the W. W. Patty Distingusedh Alumni Award from the School of Public Health (formerly known as HPER).

Next my mother went onto teach high school mathematics and be the high school athletic trainer for 2 years.  It was during this time she and my father discussed her continuing her education to eventually become a doctor.  Mainly she was tired of the local doctors telling her her opinions didn't matter because first she was just the trainer and second she was a woman.  The women in my family, they don't take kindly to that type of talk.

She did go back to school earning another bachelor degree, a masters degree, and finished her pre-med requirements.  When I was eight my mom joined the Army and started her medical education at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.  After many years of hard work, studying, and in some instance out-right gender discrimination in her chosen field, my mother became a board certified orthopedic surgeon.  This of course was not the end of her education as she went on to do a fellowship in hand surgery. All the while writing journal articles and becoming a reviewer for several athletic training and orthopedic publications.

My families most worrying time, and yet proudest, was when my mother was sent to Iraq in 2003.  Her unit, the 745th FST, was attached to the 3rd ID.  They were involved with the initial push into Iraq at the beginning of the war.  While she has talked periodically about a few of her cases and what she saw there, I know I will never really know everything.  Recently during a visit she opened up more about their job, what it was like, and the results of war through a doctors eyes.  She also let me know that they were expected to take heavy casualties in that push.  Her team would have been responsible for treating the casualties of chemical or biological warfare. They were ready, they trained for it, but thankful that there was little resistance and most people were happy to see them.

I have stumbled on articles telling about the time my mom was there and the conditions they were in.  This article, for instance, was written in 2008 during the next deployment of the 745th, but they talk about the first deployment too.  After her return she contributed to the writing of The Third United States Revision of Emergency War Surgery.

Of course, she still laughs about the boys riding bikes in Baghdad alongside their Humvee.  Her driver was a woman also, a medical tech.  They were driving in convoy and stopped on a busy street.  A boy on a bike rode up and started to talk to them. When he heard my mother's voice he stopped and looked at them.


"Woman"

"Yes." My mother pointed at her driver too.

"Two women?"

"Yes." Both she and her driver nodded.

He rode off and then came back with a handful of other kids all who wanted to see the women in the truck.  She said that he spoke English very well and translated some questions from the other kids.  All who couldn't believe that she was first of all a woman, second of all a doctor  and third there was another woman driving the truck.

Mom retired in 2010 and is now spending her days watching after my dad.  There is a 17 year difference between the 2 of them, so you know he needs to be looked after since he was the one looking after us all these years. She wants to spend more time at home, with him, as well as with us and her grand-kids. Work can wait for now.  Can't say that I blame her.

Fearless Females: Brick walls

Brick walls go hand in hand with female ancestors and I am sure many of you can relate. There are many little stubby branches off of my main tree trunk because I have the name of a woman and as of yet no clue to her identity before marriage. These lost heritages, sometimes due to the lack of importance placed on woman at those times, make my mind go numb on occasion. 

photo credit: Malenkov in Exile
via photopin cc

I have written on this blog repeatedly about the walls I have encounter through my scant three years of research.  I have even celebrated with you as I have watched a wall crumble down and I was able to watch new branches develop on my tree.  Those celebrations are fewer now, but I am still determined to make them happen.  Even if it takes my whole life.

But that is just it, isn't it? This is now my life’s endeavor. I am also sure it is yours as well.

I want to know more about the people who came before me.  I want to pass that knowledge on.  Not just to my descendants, but to the world. There are stories to be told, lives to be shared, and walls to be scaled. I know that some may never be breached, but that is no reason not to try.  Right?

Below are my most frustrating female brick walls, on my and my husband’s lines.  The ones that, well, let’s just say bug me the most.  They needle me when I try to sleep. I hear them whispering to me from my computer. Come find me… you know you want to… Maybe, just maybe someone out there has the key to unlocking their secrets.

While a person is more than just facts and figures, I didn't want this post to go on for pages and pages so stuck to the basics.  Yes, I only listed a few tid-bits but you and I both know there is more to these women.  If I am lucky there will be follow up posts with stories of discovery and stories of them in the future.

Philena L. Brown

She is my husband's 4th great-grandmother.  Born abt 1810 in Maine and died bef 1880 in Swanville, Waldo County, Maine.  She married twice: James Cunningham and Joshiah Emmerson.  Her sister Mary married James's brother William, also in the Swanville / Belfast, Maine area.  There are family rumors are that the Brown sisters were of Scottish decent after a stop over for a couple generations in Northern Ireland, eventually making their way to New England.

Margaret Ann Brundage

She is my husband's 2nd great-grandmother.  Born 25 Dec 1851 in Illinois, died 15 March 1930 in Portland, Washington, and is buried in Pioneer Cemetery.  She married Stephen Crabb 8 feb 1872 in Putnam, Missouri.  They traveled west to the Washington Territory and were among the first settlers in their area of the future Washington State.

Jane DeVault

She is my 3rd great-grandmother, and most of the following information was given to me (with documents and sources!) by a recently found cousin.  Thank you Sue!  Born 7 May 1830 in Harrison County, Ohio and died 5 Jan 1910 in Lost River Township, Martin County, Indiana.  From her death certificate I know her father's name was Strausbaugh and she was buried in Waggoner Cemetery.  She married Andrew Jackson Davisson in Ohio about 1853.

Mary Amelia Dishinger

She is my 3^rd great-grandmother.  Born 11 December 1835 in Baden-Wurttemburg and died 21 November 1921 in Washington, Daviess County, Indiana.  She arrived in this country with her parents, who are unknown to me, and settled in Dubois County, Indiana about 1847.  Mary, or Amelia as she went by both names, married another German immigrant, John Miller, in 1855 at Jasper, Dubois County, Indiana. 

Dorothy Ann Jent

She is my 5th great-grandmother.  Born 1742 at St. Mary's, Maryland and died in 1812 at Nelson County, Kentucky.  She married Rodolphus Norris in 1765 at St. Mary's, Maryland.

Eliza Johnson

She is my 3rd great-grandmother.  Born in Indiana abt 1842 and died before 1900, perhaps all in Orange County.  She married Willis Mayfield Freeman 7 Feb 1861 in Orange County, Indiana.

Maria or Mary Meier/Meyer

She is my husband's 3rd great grandmother.  Born 1853 in Germany and died 30 April 1900 in New York, New York.  She married twice: Augustus Heinritz and Emil Jahnke.  You can read a post about her and my discoveries here.  

Sally Padgett

She is my 5th great-grandmother.  Born abt 1757 in Maryland and died 1817 in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland.  She married Edward Arvin (Harvin/Harbin/Harben) abt 1785.

Agatha Reichter

She is my 3^rd great-grandmother.  Born about 1822 in Baden-Wurttemburg and died before 1900 in Indiana (most likely Dubois or Daviess County).  She married Hubert Negle (Nagley/Nagali/Naigly) 19 May 1855 at St. Celestine Church in Dubois County, Indiana. 

Mary Rice

She is my 5^th great-grandmother.  Born abt 1770 on a plantation in Tennessee and died in Harrison County, Indiana 24 June 1835.  She married 5 times: Job Poteet (a Frenchman), Mr. Whitaker, Eliasen Goodwin, and Mr. McCaslin (I list them as Mr. because I don't have a first name for them).  You can read a letter written about her at this post.

Isabella "Bella" Ruddy

She is my husband's 3rd great-grandmother.  Born abt 1838 in Ireland and died between 1920 and 1930 most likely in Hartford, Connecticut or Westchester, New York.  She married James Bennett either in Ireland or in New York City.  

Ann Tachell

She is my husband's 2nd great-grandmother.  Born 1846 in Coates, Sommerset, England and died before 1874 in Wales (most likely in Llwynypia, Glamorgan, Wales).  She married Thomas Pittard before 1869 most likely in Somerset.  Thomas went on to marry her younger sister Jane Tachell after Ann's death.  Thomas and Jane immigrated to the United States with their and Ann's children through New York in 1883.

Creating fun word cloud graphics

Recently several people have asked how I made the graphic word cloud (shown above) over on my Facebook page .  Since there seems to be an interest in creating these, you have to admit they are darn cool, I thought I would share with you my secret.  Wordle.  

Wordle is a website that generates word clouds from text that you provide. It is a free site and you may use your Wordle however you want to.  One thing to keep in mind is that if you save your creation to the public gallery anyone can use it.  I didn't want my graphic, with family surnames and etc. to be used by anyone else.  Instead I used the snip tool on my computer to cut out the graphic and save it to my picture file. You can also take a screen shot of it at the desired size and use that.  Wordle asks that you give credit to them (link backs are always great) but it is not a site requirement.   

You can create a graphic three ways: pasting in text, using a URL, or custom creation. In a nut shell, you provide the text and then the program sizes the words in the graphic based on how many times it is used in the text submission.  Let's use my blog as an example.

I pasted the text from my post "DAR Application Woes: My Hayden line is driving me crazy!" and this was the graphic Wordle created:

The larger the word, the more frequent it is used in the text.  Hint: this is a great way to find out if you are taking advantage of SEOs in your posts!  If you don't like the layout, colors, font, or words this is your chance to play with the design and make it your own.

Next I plugged in the URL for this blog:

In this graphic you get the graphic representation for the word frequency at the URL. Essentially, what I talk about the most on the blog. Once again you can tweak the colors, layout, or fonts for a more customized look.

Lastly, you can get really creative and do a completely customized Wordle.  The last tab on the website is "Advanced."  This tab is where you can let your creative juices flow in all areas.  There are three ways you can use the advanced functions.  

1. Type a series of words with the weight you want it to have.  The higher the number the larger the word in the graphic.
2. Type weighted words with specific hex colors so each word is the exact color you want it to be.
3. If you are a developer you can send text from your website to create Wordles from text you generate there.

For example, I created this graphic using the surnames from the word cloud already found on my blog:

To make the words larger I added a 0 to the end of each number on my word cloud.  You also need to make sure that you follow the example format exactly or the advanced function will not work.  

Hope that all made sense to you out there.  This is a really great graphics tool and can be used in all sorts of ways.  Get creative and let me know how your creations turn out!

RootsTech from home

The one problem with a weeklong vacation is getting back into the grove again.  Where I should be doing household chores and genealogy all I want to do is sit on the couch and sleep.  Yep.  Once again I need a vacation from my vacation.

Today my couch sitting needs will be meet while I watch the live stream session from RootsTech.  I am bummed that I was unable to make the trip this year, but here is hoping for next year!  Instead I will sit here in Virginia, where it snowed again last night, and do my vacation laundry while listening to some of the best in the field talk about my favorite subject.

What’s on the agenda?  Well the schedule for live streaming sessions is up on the RootsTech website.  You can also download the syllabus for classes to read.  I even downloaded the app so I can take the conference with me.  I may have to run errands so listening to the sessions from my smartphone is an option.  Oh, and don’t forget about twitter.  Make sure you look for #RootsTech to keep track of what is going on, thoughts from fellow genealogists, and to be a part of the community here at home and there in Salt Lake City.

Want some more insight on last minute prep for the next three days?  Check out these tips from the Armchair Genealogist.

Now… back to laundry…

An article on family heritage travel!

Over the weekend I picked up the April 2013 issue of National Geographic Traveler.  If you have not seen or read this magazine and love to learn about new places or fantasize about those bucket list trips, you should pick up a copy.  I picked up this issue specifically because on the front cover I saw the main story was titled “Return to Your Roots.”  Wow, a feature article in a travel magazine about heritage trips.

The article contained 5 first person accounts by writers who traveled to discover their roots.  They voyaged to Northern Ireland, Taiwan, Sicily, Krakow, and Angola.  Each incredibly personal story drawing the reader into their experiences making you want to know what else they may have found or explored.

In the piece on Ireland the author took her whole family on the trip.  They found her great-great grandfather’s farm, and she immersed her boys into the family experience.  In contrast the author who penned the piece on Taiwan talked about meeting with her birth sisters in the Taipei night market.  You next learn about Sicilian Cooking, the legacy Jewish Krakow, and how a surname from the Jamestown Colony leads a man to find his roots in Angola.

It was wonderful to see how they each had a different experience to share with the readers.  There was no formula, no right or wrong way to take a tip.  They were people searching for a connection to their past and were awed and amazed around every corner.   

At the end of the segment was a Genealogy 101 information box.  It made me so happy to see this included in the article as it is one thing to talk about making trips to find your heritage but something else to take on the genealogical aspect of it.  I was impressed by the author’s advice, links, and suggestions.  Makes me think she may have the bug too.

My husband and I have talked about making treks to the homeland someday.  Choosing which one and when seems to be the problem.  We have mostly Irish, Scottish, and English roots but thrown into the mix are German, Swiss, French, and Norwegian; a lot of choices and a lot of varied places to see on that list.  I also want to take our children with us to see new things and learn about the places our family left before coming to North America. 

How many of you have taken a trip to discover your ancestors?  I would love to hear about it and your experiences.

Guest Post at Casa Italia Chicago

On 14 February 2013 I wrote a guest post on genealogy education and my experiences with Family Tree University for Casa Italia Chicago.  If you haven't checked it out I recommend you do. This organization is dedicated to preserving and celebrating their Italian Heritage.  Their genealogy department is in the works and according to their website will be up and running spring of 2013. I hope you enjoy the post!

There are many choices out there for genealogy education.  You can listen to webinars, take online classes, attend seminars, plus many more options.  Quite a few of these are free, however, more often than not there will be a fee associated with your continuing education opportunities.   During my time as the Family Tree Firsts Blogger at Family Tree University (FTU) I was lucky to take classes through them.

FTU has a wonderful series of webinars, two a month, that are always jammed packed full of information, but there are also many on-line courses offered too.  Personally, I enjoyed and learned a lot from all the webinars, seminars, and courses that I registered for.  Each one is led by an expert in their field who really gets the most important information across to you, the student, in the time allotted.  They are friendly, approachable, and are there to help you be a better researcher and genealogist.

What I love most about FTU is that there are many levels and several different class lengths.  There are courses for complete beginners through experienced researchers.   Some of the courses offered are a few hours and some are a few weeks allowing you to fit them into your schedule.  A wide variety of topics are also offered which cover the scope of genealogy.  Those topics include: history, country specific, state specific, techniques, organization, and problem solving to name a few.

If you choose to take a course you are not left to your own devices.  The course is led by an instructor who is there to guide you, answer any questions, give you feedback on assignments, and make sure you have the opportunity to get all you can out of the lessons.  A message board is set up so that you can also interact with your fellow students and talk about the class or your discoveries.  For some, one down side would be that these courses are not part of any accreditation or count toward any sort of genealogy certification.  However, they should not be dismissed out right as many of the courses are unique and reasonably priced for the amount of information and resources that you will come away with.

As I stated above there are courses for all skill levels.  The beginner classes at FTU are called First Steps.  These are designed with the absolute genealogy novice in mind.  They will guide you through the basic research principles and strategies you will need to be a successful family historian.  At $39.99 these courses are the least expensive with the idea that you are getting your feet wet and trying to decide if this is something you want to try your hand at.

Their shortest classes are their Power Courses which are designed to be information packed mini seminars.  When you sign up for the course you have one week of access to all the reading and webinars on that subject as an independent study session.  It is easily downloaded and completed in one afternoon, and will cost you $59.99.

A typical multi-week course is designed to be learned through weekly segments usually over the course of a month.  Each week you have a course reading assignment, supplemental reading, and a worksheet or quiz to be turned in by the end of the week.  As these courses are designed for you to take at your own pace, sticking with this schedule will make sure that you have time to complete all worksheets by the end of the session.  On average I spent 3-4 hours a week on each course.  That was for taking time to do the reading and assignments for the course, but not time on the message board.  There was more than one occasion where I spent many hours conversing with classmates on the boards about research, discoveries, or what we were going to take next!  While they are the most expensive classes, at $99.99, they would be best for people who want the human interaction along with their materials.

I would encourage you to check out FTU if you are unable to travel, have limited time, or are looking for a good value in genealogy education.  With the variety of classes offered I am confident you will find one that interests you.  The information I learned is still beneficial to me today, and I frequently reach for those resources to help me with my current research.  I hope you take some time to investigate if this would be a good option for you too.

Fearless Females: Favorite Recipe

 Share a favorite recipe from your mother or grandmother’s kitchen.  Why is this dish your favorite?

My mom doesn't cook, she burns water.  No really, she is an excellent surgeon but unless it is baking (very similar to lab experiments) or can be microwaved my mom is pretty useless in the kitchen.  However, her mother was a fantastic cook.  Homemade noodles, soups, roasts, you name it she could cook it.

One of my favorite recipes, and my mom’s too, was grandma’s Shrimp Creole.  I have begged for this recipe for years, after I lost my first copy, and finally got it from my dad this past December.  One of the last times I remember grandma cooking for our family she was making this dish. 

She lived with us the last few years of her life and usually she sat in the kitchen talking with my dad as he cooked.  Grandma was a talker.  She could spin a yarn that had you hanging on every word.  One night she decided to make Shrimp Creole, probably as a favor to my mom, and we loved it.  I can still see her sitting at the stove on a bar stool stirring the ingredients, tasting it, adding more, and being completely content. 

I have made this twice in my life.  Once in college for an “adult” dinner (we had friends over and I wanted to have a nice sit down dinner, you know, like adults) in which I learned the value of already peeled and deveined shrimp.  A few years later I cooked it again when I had a craving for shrimp, thankfully I remember the lessons from the previous attempt and the preparation for cooking took a significantly less amount of time.

If you search for it online there are several other versions of this dish out there.  Some call for celery to be added, or different spices   One day I may try these, when I am being more adventurous and not wanting a taste of grandmas cooking.

Hope you enjoy and if you try it let me know if you like it!

Shrimp Creole

Ingredients:

1 tbs butter

1 tsp flour

½ C water

1 C strained tomatoes

1 C chopped onion

3 lbs peeled and washed shrimp

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 thinly sliced green pepper

Chopped parsley

Salt and pepper taste

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Rice

Directions:

Melt butter in skillet.  Add flour to thicken.  Add the ingredients in order listed except Worcestershire sauce.  Cook for 20 minutes over low heat.  Add Worcestershire sauce.  Serve over rice.

Notes:

• 2 or 3 cans of shrimp may be used but just ass long enough to reheat (today I would say this means precooked frozen shrimp since I never remember seeing canned shrimp in my life).
• My grandma and dad both added garlic juice to taste for a more subtle flavor.

Handwriting tools for your iPad

*This blog post originally was published on the In-Depth Genealogist blog page 18 February 2013.  

I have a confession:  I love hand writing notes.  Not only is the feel of pen on paper absolute bliss to me, but there is just something about pulling out a pad of paper and writing on it.  Even if I just need to jot down a quick reminder, an idea, a grocery list, or a doodle to pass the time.  I am also one of those people who if I write it down I tend to remember it longer than any other way.

Hand-written notes are old school in today’s high-tech world, but I found the answer to my note taking habits with a couple of amazing apps.  On the downside, neither of these apps have a function to add voice memos, which if you like to make voice memos to yourself or want to attach an interview to your notes you won’t have that option.  Sorry folks to android users – both of these apps are for the iPad, but I am on the lookout for great android-based ones for other tablets.

First, I recommend you look into the app Penultimate, created by Evernote, and for the low price $0.99 everyone should give it a try. It appears Evernote is looking into making an app for android-based tablets a reality in the future.  Penultimate allows to you write, draw, add pictures, and keep notebooks of your thoughts together.  Plus, you can create a PDF of your work and upload it to Evernote or Dropbox, email it directly to a friend, open it in GoodReader, or share it with iTunes file sharing. I don’t know about you, but I can be a note book snob and prefer grid patterns for note taking. If you are like me and have a paper preference Penultimate comes with graph, lined, or plain paper for you to choose from.  There is also an in app purchase option of 6 different paper templates for music, pictures, lists, and games.

For a bit more, there is a fancier handwriting note app called Noteshelf.  At $5.99 it is not a king’s ransom, but it is an app you may need to think about before diving into buying it.  Like Penultimate you have notebooks that you create and customize for your purposes.  There are more types of paper and notebook covers to choose from as well as varying styles of pens and markers for your use. Of course, if you do have the desire to type an item into your note this app gives you a typing option with varying fonts and sizes for the text. If you are concerned about privacy, Noteshelf has the ability to password protect individual notebooks for security, unlike Penultimate.  Noteshelf allows you to tweet and Facebook your pages as well as share them via email, export as a PDF, publish to Evernote and Dropbox, and send them to an iOS compatible printer.

Now that you have an app to try for your note-taking needs it is important to have a great stylus to make your words, and doodles, come to life.  Recently I was introduced to a stylus that bears the closest resemblance to a ball point pen you can get for a reasonable price.  It is called Jot and is made by Adonit. Amazingly enough the Jot works with all capacitive touch screens on the market.  Instead of a clunky rubber tip that can be unpredictable in its line Jot gives you a fine point stylus with a disk on it.  The disk provides the contact that the tablet needs to draw your line, but you have more precision and control with where you line goes and how you write.  The one drawback is it works best with no screen protector or least a newer one.  If your screen protector is old and scratched I found the disk has difficulty making the right contact and your words will not appear. Finally, there are 5 styles to choose from ranging in price from $19.99 to $99.99.

With these apps and a new stylus you will be well on your way to digital note taking in no time.  Hopefully it will keep you from wondering where on earth you placed that very important note, besides in a very safe place.  Happy writing!

Update:

As is the way with technology, there was an update to one of the apps listed above that came out after my print deadline.  This should make anyone wanting to check out Penultimate very happy.

On 31 January 2013 Evernote, the company who owns Penulitmate, released on their blog an announcement about the new version 4 now available.  Better yet, they are offering it for FREE!  However, if you are not an Evernote user (and if you aren’t, why not?) be aware that you will not be able to access some of the new advanced features without an account.

A few of the upgrades include:

• Cleaner interface
• More accessible functions
• Sharing with Evernote is now a core function
• Searchable handwriting software
• Access your notes anywhere Evernote is installed

I have to say, this is one of the more exciting things that has happened today!  Happy note taking!!

Fearless Females Posts for Women's History Month

I am a bit behind already this month, and I was looking forward to participating in the Fearless Females prompts by the Accidental Genealogist.  Well…better late than never I guess right?

This is the 4^th year that Lisa Alzo has done her Fearless Females prompts for the month of March.  March is Woman’s History month which leads to this perfect way to celebrate your female ancestors.  She provides a prompt for each day; however you don’t have to write each one.  You can pick and choose, or write about the women in your family who have inspired you. 

If you don’t have a blog to write on, consider picking up a journal or typing out your response to her writing prompts.  It would be a great keepsake for future generations.  Let Lisa know if you do this.  I am sure she would love to hear about it.

My posts from last year’s March prompts are located under the Fearless Female Tags on this site.  Feel free to go check out who I wrote about in the past.

So, without further ado, my first post honoring my female ancestors for Women’s History Month.

Post a photo of one of your female ancestors.  Who is in the photo? 

When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

This picture is of my grandmother, Maxine Armstrong Arvin.  It was taken at the Sky Club 1630 N. Harlem Ave, Chicago, Illinois.  My mother thinks it was taken in the late 1940s when my grandfather did a short tour of duty in Chicago. 

I recently discovered this picture at my parents’ house and fell in love with it.  She is so carefree and happy in the picture.  Her smile is contagious too; I can’t help but smile when I look at it!  At this point she has everything she could hope for in her life.  A little boy, her husband has returned from WWII, and they are really beginning their life together.   She had second chance after not knowing where my grandfather was or if he was going to survive being a POW. 

The cover to the picture intrigued me too.  What was the Sky Club?  I quickly found out that it was a restaurant and dance hall that featured live music and the latest entertainers.  The Illinois Digital Archives had several pictures and advertisements from the club.  The menu looked delicious, especially the lamb for $1.50.