Photos and comments from Arizona and around the world
In a blog post today, MyHeritage.com announced the release of their free genealogical database program, Family Tree Builder 7.0. You can read about the program in the post entitled, "New Release: Family Tree Builder 7.0." More later.
We often worry about planting our gardens in the best soil with lots of fertilizer and care. Some plants don't seem to worry much about where or how they are planted. Maybe we should take a lesson from this cactus in the rocks and use the plants that...
There were a few changes today as announced by FamilySearch.org, but the basic website remains the same. Here is a current screenshot with the anticipatory announcement for today 15 April 2013. There are reports of FamilySearch Photos being opened...
OK, so you know that I am opinionated and you can read the title to this post. I am also aware that there are a whole lot of people out there in genealogy land who love fan charts. There are even some of my friends that make a living designing and printing...
In between helping others with their genealogy research, I spent some time working on a lineage problem. Quite a few years ago, I checked out the family tradition that we had Mayflower passenger ancestors through Joshua Tanner's wife, Thankful Tefft....
The following press release was received from the Digital Public Library of America. This opens up another kind of record not normally available to genealogists. If you think that there is no genealogical information in this type of record, perhaps you...
One of the people I was helping recently with a genealogy file had an interesting experience. She had copied the file from an online pedigree and had been researching the people in the file for some time. In the course of her research, she acquired a...
I have long known about the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group, previously known at the Utah Valley PAF Users Group. For me, it has always been as legendary as the Homebrew Computer Club. Corporate records for Utah show that the original Utah...
There is really nothing imagined by artists or artisans that rivals the patterns and textures of nature. This plant shows two separate spirals, one from the right and one from the left that intersect. You may have to stare at it for a minute to see the...
The name does not really go with the cactus. You would definitely not want to cuddle this teddy bear. It is one of the most painful cactus when you get stuck. I have managed to avoid them almost entirely. But I have been around a lot of people when they...
There are some many fantastic flowers in the Spring, we hate to miss the opportunity of seeing all of them and of course, taking pictures of too many of them.
It is hard to imagine how many different shapes and colors you can see in the course of one Spring looking at cactus flowers.
Yuccas are attractive enough and tame enough to be used frequently as landscape plants. This is also likely because they are so resilient and hardy. They can bloom more than once a year.
With all the news today, it is really hard to distinguish what is really going on in the world, even the smaller world of genealogy. But here is a major development in access to information going on without much fanfare and almost no notice by the major...
I like huge fields of flowers, but have come to appreciate the beauty in single blooms. It is a remarkable experience to hike through a dry and rocky desert and come upon such a display of color. It is helpful that the flowers bloom in the Spring before...
I was struck by the almost perfect form of this wind-blown grass. The stems are so delicate and look almost like hair. I don't think I would have appreciated this type of plant and the beauty of it when I was younger. There is something about this image...
It is hard to compare flowers, they are all so beautiful. But cactus flowers are unique in their form and color. This single Claret Cup flower is an example of extraordinary form and color. Just think, all of the beauty is free for the looking.
In the past week or so, I have run into another round of researchers fixated on names. Fortunately, through some not-so-gentle persuasion they were able to overcome their mental block and move on to find some productive leads in their family lines. I...
In honor of the upcoming ANZAC Day, findmypast.com.au has added thousands of military records and has just launched its inaugural Findmypast Anzac Memory Bank. Plus, to commemorate Anzac Day the entire military collection (including the newly released...
My adventures at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah started about 30 or so years ago. My first big effort to identify my family consisted of primarily tracking down hundreds of Family Group Records accumulated from family members over...
I couldn't resist this little fellow with its unruly assortment of spines. Yes, it does need a haircut.
It is amazing to me that immigrants that came to America almost 400 years ago and that are so famous and have so many descendants in the United States, are still the subject of a considerable controversy. I have been spending some of my time at the Family...
Legacy Mobile is a free app that allows you to take your family tree with you wherever you go and uses the latest genealogy technology LegacyTec. The app syncs with FamilySearch and BillionGraves (and other genealogy sites coming very soon!) to give the...
One of my favorite photo shots is looking out of a window and nothing in particular. I am fascinated by the views people choose for themselves out the windows of their homes, especially very old homes. Most of the time, when they could choose almost anywhere...
The Vermillion Cliffs are made up of hard and soft layers of rock. When the softer layers erode, they leave the harder rocks to fall down the cliff. It always looks to me like all this just happened a while ago, but I know how infrequently they fall and...
