Photos and comments from Arizona and around the world
Walking Arizona When a branch on a tree dies, there is usually a reason. Sometimes that reason is not evident until the branch is cut. Here, the inside of the branch had rotted away and to preserve the tree from a catastrophic injury, the branch is...
Genealogy's Star Online family trees can either be a boon or a bust. In either case, the huge number of family trees can be daunting. In my own case for example, I have several published online trees in different programs. Many of these companies send...
Walking Arizona Most cactus fruit is edible, but only a very few species are common enough and have enough fruit to make an impact on the food supply of the original desert dwellers. Fishhook barrel cactus are not too common and have relatively little...
Genealogy's Star Unless you are almost directly involved in FamilySearch.org's Family Tree program, you are likely entirely unaware of the virtual storm of activity that will occur during the next few months as the connection between Family Tree and...
Walking Arizona This cholla cactus was doing well growing in the much colder climate of Zion Canyon in Southern Utah rather than the dry lower deserts of Arizona. I think it says a lot about variety and adaptability. You may not like your surroundings...
Walking Arizona Almost every tourist bureau type photo of Phoenix includes a shot of the Papago Buttes. They were once part of a National Monument but are now a Phoenix City Park. This shot is misleading since the park sits right on the edge of Phoenix,...
Genealogy's Star It is fairly simple to create a text file on a computer with a keyboard. There are any number of programs that will assist you in creating such a file from free simple text editors available in all the major operating systems to expensive...
Genealogy's Star I had an interesting experience this week, one of the patrons at the Mesa FamilySearch Library came in with her computer and needed "help" with MyHeritage.com. The help she needed was that she didn't know what to do with the over 4000...
Walking Arizona Pink is an unusual color for cactus flowers. I guess you would have to look at a lot of different flowers to know this. I am not aware that anyone is hybridizing prickly pear cactus for flowers. Although there are some of the smaller...
Walking Arizona One of the halmarks of the desert is that old machinery and equipment is preserved by the dry climate. so we have a lot of old farm and mining machinery scattered here and there. I am always tempted to take photos of the equipment, just...
Walking Arizona A condor population has been re-established in the area of the Vermillion Cliffs in Northern Arizona. The birds are numbered so that they can be constantly monitored. L2 is one of approximately 75 condors that reside in the Vermillion...
Genealogy's Star What real value is there in online family trees? Do the have any value at all? How do you use the information that you find in the online work someone else has done? What can you believe and what is beyond belief? Should you add information...
Genealogy's Star A short article in the AARP Bulletin for June 2013, Vol. 54, No. 5, caught my attention with a title, "Guarding the Fate of Your Digital Assets." (Yes, I do take advantage of the discouts for my advanced age!) Some of the time the AARP...
Genealogy's Star As far as I have seen, the FamilySearch imposed deadline of 30 June 2013 for the third-party developers to certify for Family Tree or be partially blocked from New.FamilySearch.org is still in place. There has been a scramble, by some,...
Walking Arizona Taking advantage of the last rays of the afternoon sun, this lovely wading shore bird is intent on finding the small animals it dines on. This is an American Avocet, one of the most elegant of the smaller shore birds on Arizona's lakes...
Walking Arizona These are hardy desert shrubs that flower every Spring. Some of the blossoms are bright red, but this variety has a more subdued, almost purple, color. They are hard to capture in photos because the slightest breeze makes them move.
Genealogy's Star Maybe a little history would be helpful.
Genealogy's Star History is not just names and dates. In fact, genealogy, if it is part of the general area of history, should not be just about names and dates. There is a famous quote from a movie that ends with the statement, "There are eight million...
Each iOS app offers remarkable - and often delightful - possibilities. But the most powerful iOS apps ever are ones that change people's lives in ways they never imagined.
Genealogy's Star I am still getting comments from more than a year ago when I wrote a post on the demise of the old FamilySearch.org website. Not the currently "old" website, but the old "old" website that had little more than the Ancestral File, the...
Genealogy's Star As genealogists we should be acutely aware of the importance of photographs in creating our family history and bringing it alive for present viewers. We have an important role in preserved our photographic heritage. Most photographs...
Genealogy's Star The next few days, I will be in Sacramento, California at the Family History Expo. I hope to see some of you there and please take time to come up and say hello. We are working on some exciting things with the Family History Expo's expansion...
Walking Arizona Columbine come in a variety of colors, but retain the same basic shape. They are all beautiful in their own way. Perhaps we need to look more at the basic shape than the color in making distinctions between individual flowers and individual...
Walking Arizona We get Spring wildflowers in Arizona, but they are long gone by the time June rolls around except in the high mountains. I had to travel to Utah to find these lovely yellow Columbine flowers. It was a windy day and I didn't know if...
Genealogy's Star Even though I type rather fast, when I was introduced to the computer mouse, I could instantly see the advantage of being able to point-and-click. I have never warmed up to track balls or touch pads, primarily because both required a...
