Photos and comments from Arizona and around the world
As anyone who has traveled with me for any length of time well knows, I love to drive the backroads of Arizona and Utah. These roads are mostly unpaved, dirt roads. This one may as well have been paved, it was a dirt road superhighway. But I mostly crop...
This is a classic painting of the ancient Hopi or Pueble sun symbol. Since this is used by the State of New Mexico as its state symbol, it is easily the most recognizable of the ancient symbols carved and painted on rocks.
Many researchers seem to assume that all the records they need are already online. This is extremely far from the truth. There are whole classes of records that are not only unavailable online, but the original copies are difficult to locate and research....
Arizona is filled with strange and wonderful sights. This is one of the strange ones. I can't imagine the series of decisions that would end up in building a small room to live in under a free standing rock in the middle of a clay desert. It was probably...
I hear the term "brick wall" used frequently in my contacts with other genealogical researchers. But I am certain that, in most cases, the term is used inappropriately and has lost any real meaning. I find that what is called a brick wall is often no...
The standard view of the sandstone cliffs of the Colorado Plateau shows bare cliffs with little or no vegetation. In reality, there are places where the sandstone is almost obscured by trees and plant growth. Sometimes we need to take a new perspective...
The way I do my genealogical research has certainly evolved from the days of microfilm and photocopies. But it is a fact of life that the current technological changes will dramatically affect the way I do my research and record my findings in the near...
We got to the area late in the day and found it hard to find good shots of the rock formations without houses, roads, and buildings in the shots. It is Monument Valley, but is like Sedona and the Red Rock area in being built up with houses and such. The...
The color of the sandstone cliffs here in Zion National Park are more than just wet, they shine with saturated color. When dry, the walls appear to be unbroken slabs, but the rain and the wet walls show all the detail of their cracks and crevices. Weather...
This new announcement in the form of a pop-up began appearing today on FamilySearch.org. Clicking on the link takes you to essentially the same pages that have been linked from the new header visible on the site. Here is a screen shot of the video page: It...
For years, I have been asked the same question over and over again; Why do I care? This question is usually asked about the time I have gotten into a tirade about some or another inaccuracy in my pedigree or on a family group record. It is also asked...
Genealogy's Star In response to a recent blog post, I received the following question through a comment: Can you recommend a place to seek advice on breaking through brickwalls of the more recent (19th century) variety? I have a "brickwall" for which...
Whenever I teach a class, especially to older people (which is all the time), I constantly get feedback about identity theft issues. Many people seem to think that by registering their software or purchasing items online they are opening themselves up...
Walking Arizona The prickly pear blossoms have a tendency to vary in color from flower to flower on the same plant and also change colors throughout the day and in different lighting conditions. They seem to be at their most lovely state about mid-day...
One of the things I monitor regularly is the cost of purchasing hard drives, flash drives and other methods of backing up my computer data. As technology advances in the area of data storage, the incremental cost of backing up the data or information...
Genealogy's Star In a blog post, the Digital Public Library of America announced the following: Cambridge, MA — The Digital Public Library of America is pleased to announce it is partnering with the David Rumsey Map Collection to provide online access...
Genealogy's Star I have lived in Mesa in two different houses less than two miles appart for the past 34 years or so and when asked where I am from, I still say I am from a small town in Eastern Arizona. A town I haven't visited for years. Where we are...
Genealogy's Star It has been a while since I published any of the hundreds of mystery photos I have in the huge Overson Photograph Collection. The photos were taken between about 1900 and 1940 in St. Johns, Apache, Arizona by Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson....
I was intrigued by the pattern made by this fire burn. I can't imagine why the fire just stopped where it did. This is a really remote area and I am sure there was no great effort made to stop the fire.
Western Utah is pretty much ignored in the tourist promotional ads, except for the Salt Flats. But if you like big, empty country with almost no people, then you will love the western desert. I think it has an endless attraction because of the colors...
Walking Arizona You have to look carefully to see the bugs flying around these newly opened saguaro blossoms. These are some of the earliest I found this year. Most of the saguaros bloom later in May or even June, but these had started in April. I was...
There are an amazing number of new developments in the digital world of resources and information. Here are a few recent, noteworthy news stories as highlighted by the Digital Public Library of America: From The Digital Shift of the LibraryJournal an...
There is no rhyme or reason to where the prickly pear flowers bloom. They bloom along the margins of the pads but it does not seem to matter if they are pointed up or down. They manage to pull off spectacular blooms at whatever angle and no matter how...
Sunsets are instantly attractive, but terribly difficult to capture. Film cameras seemed to do a better job of catching the color and spirit of a sunset than digital cameras do. This is one of the very few shots I have tried that show the real drama of...
It is hard to conceptualize what this looked like at the time the ancient inhabitants of Tuzigoot were living in this structure. There are drawings with concepts of how it might have appeared, but the reality is that there are presently paved walkways...
