Photos and comments from Arizona and around the world
Genealogy's Star It is an interesting experience to begin and continue writing a blog. I suppose that unless I was writing about food or something like that, I had every reason to expect very impassioned responses in the form of emails, comments and,...
Walking Arizona I see faces everywhere. I understand it is called pareidolia and is a subset of apophenia where you see meaningful patterns in random data. The more I look at the supposedly random patterns, the more objects and faces I can see. Interestingly,...
Walking Arizona You can see huge rocks that have fallen off of cliffs all over Arizona. I say one the size of a house fall at Lake Powell years ago, so I don't have to wonder what it would be like to see one fall. You find people living around where...
Genealogy's Star In the past, proving a family relationship in the area of genealogical research has been compared to the methods of both legal and scientific proof. Both comparisons have basic flaws. From one professional standpoint genealogical proof...
Genealogy's Star It seems inevitable that a cemetery recording site would partner with one of the largest newspaper archives to give access to obituaries. It has now happened with a partnership between the fast growing gravemarker site, BillionGraves.com,...
Genealogy's Star Some times I think we are entirely too insular. In my own ancestry, I have people that came from England, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Denmark. But my closest immigrant to the United States was my Great-Grandfather Marinus...
Genealogy's Star I was sitting in a class on U.S. Civil War Records and the instructor was showing how to identify the actual position in a battle that your ancestor may have participated in, when one of the participants ask a very pointed question, "How...
Genealogy's Star I was at a meeting presenting about FamilySearch Family Tree and the person introducing me and taking care of the "business" of the meeting commented on how family history had advanced so far that we didn't have to be genealogists anymore....
Genealogy's Star A comment to my recent post about the shift to Internet or Cloud based applications raised an important issue: what about access to the Cloud? What if I have my genealogical data stored on an online database and cannot access that data...
Genealogy's Star This Quick View of Genealogy introduces the FamilySearch Library Catalog on FamilySearch.org. Most people probably do not realize that the FamilySearch Library Catalog is organized as a model of the way genealogical records are kept...
Family History Expos Question: My Great-Grandfather’s gravemarker has the inscription “A Native of Armagh County.” He was a Protestant immigrant to Canada from Ireland in 1846. Where can I go to find more information about his origins in Ireland? Answer: Unfortunately,...
Genealogy's Star I was studying my main genealogy file and noticed that I have 18 entries for women identified only as "Mary" born anywhere from 1592 to the late 1700s. Every time I go to my file, I figure out I have my life's work cut out for me. So,...
Genealogy's Star There are a number of considerations I worry about when I talk to beginning genealogical researchers; primarily, I don't want to discourage them before they even get started. Additionally, I would like to make sure that I have given them...
Walking Arizona I am sure that there are larger and more impressive saguaro specimens somewhere, but this is one of the most impressive I have seen lately. Besides, it is growing in a spectacular location.
Genealogy's Star I had some time to do two comparison digitized images; one through the new Shoebox app from Ancestry.com and the second from the same photographed scanned on my flatbed scanner. There is archive quality and then there is "good enough."...
Walking Arizona This is a particularly rugged ridge line. When you are climbing a mountain you usually want to stay to the ridge lines to avoid the rock fall in the narrow canyons between the ridges. There are several reasons why trying to climb along...
Walking Arizona In some parts of the desert Southwest, particularly at higher altitudes, the lichen is more colorful than the varieties in the lower desert. There are at least three different varieties of lichen here on this rock in American Fork C...
Genealogy's Star The new Shoebox Mobile App allows you to upload photos directly from your iOS or Android device to your family tree on Ancestry.com. With this free app, you can scan an unlimited number of photos. The Shoebox app has a number of interesting...
Genealogy's Star Privacy is a slippery term. When someone claims their privacy has been violated, that could simply mean that they are doing something they don't want someone to know about. For example, do terrorists have privacy? Are they entitled to...
Walking Arizona This is a switchback trail up the side of American Fork Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. The trail leads to the mouth of Timpanogos Cave. The trail is a short 1.5 miles with an elevation gain of 1,100 feet.
Walking Arizona In the Basin Range Province, the mountains raise dramatically from the floors of the valleys. This image shows a view of Utah Valley from American Fork Canyon looking across to the Lake Mountains on the western side of the valley. This...
Walking Arizona This is a limestone rock with a tracery of quartz veins. It is interesting to speculate about how in the world the quartz got into the cracks in the limestone when the rocks are so dissimular. This is a photo that you might have to click...
Walking Arizona This tree's roots look to me like a huge hand holding on to the cliff face. I also see all sorts of faces in the tree's roots and bark. I have seen few trees with a more precarious hold on life than this one.
Walking Arizona Ideally, we could live in a cave on the side of a mountain and somehow have all the comforts of home. Even though this isn't possible it is always a dream. The view is spectacular. The cave would be cool in summer and warm in the winter....
Genealogy's Star It appears that only about 1/3 of the existing programs that had some level of integration with New.FamilySearch.org made the cut-off date for certification with FamilySearch.org's Family Tree program. An examination of the Product Page...
