2010 GeneaBloggers Games Results

2010 GeneaBloggers Games Final Results

Here are my final results for the 2010 GeneaBloggers Games. I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the 2010 GeneaBloggers Winter Games and look forward to participating again if I have the opportunity.

Category 1 None

Category 2 Silver
Task B 16 February 2010
Task C 16 February 2010

Category 3 Diamond
Task B 22 February 2010
Task C 16 February 2010
Task D 16 February 2010
Task F 16 February 2010

Category 4 Gold
Task A 16 February 2010
Task D 16 February 2010
Task E 14 February 2010

Category 5 None

Category 6 Bronze
Task A 15 February 2010


I have learned a valuable lesson here. Remember the story of The Hare and the Tortoise? I expect I will do better next time.

Hellen O’Neal McCray R I P

I don't subscribe to my local newspaper but I do have the headlines as a widget on my iGoogle. This obit appeared this morning in the online edition.

Local teacher, civil rights Freedom Rider dead at 68
By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer
Updated 10:55 AM Thursday, February 25, 2010

YELLOW SPRINGS — Teacher and veteran civil rights marcher Hellen O’Neal McCray died Wednesday, Feb. 24. She was 68.

A Yellow Springs resident since 1966, she taught English and literature at Wilberforce University. She also taught school in Springfield for 29 years.

As a college student, she was jailed in Mississippi as a Freedom Rider in 1961, the first of four arrests for her civil rights work, which included several years with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

The Freedom Rides were a series of demonstrations in which volunteers, many of them college students, rode buses into the segregated South to test civil rights law.

She is among the Freedom Riders featured in a documentary, “Freedom Riders: The Children Shall Lead,” produced by The William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi.

She was born in Clarksdale, Miss., and attended Immaculate Conception School, Myrtle Hall Colored School and Holy Rosary School in Lafayette, La., according to her biography for the online African American HistoryMakers Website.

In a 2007 interview, she said, “One of the things I find really frightfully lacking, especially in the young, is that they really don’t know much about the story of the ’60s. It was a time in American history that changed a whole way of living, and they know about Dr. Martin Luther King and that’s about it,” she said. “Young people have no history because the history has not been taught.”

Of Black History Month, she said she’s often disappointed.

“Although I think their lives should be celebrated, we celebrate the same three or four people every year. There is no depth to what we know about or teach about the civil rights movement.”

Funeral arrangements are pending at Porter-Qualls Funeral Home, Xenia.

Idora Park

Idora Park-Youngstown, Ohio

2010 GeneaBloggers Games Post 2

Hey fellow Bloggers.

Category 2 Task B
Category 2 Task C
Category 3 Task C
Category 3 Task D
Category 3 Task F There's one gold medal right there.
Category 4 Task A
Category 4 Task D These 2 and a previous task makes another gold.

For Category 4 Task D, I went instead to tutor on Evernote. Watched several of the videos, downloaded and installed it on my laptop. Will install on my desktop tomorrow. Dick Eastman reviewed Evernote again recently and this time I decided to go for it. I think it will help me, especially with my journal situation Check it out at Evernote.com.

2010 GeneaBloggers Games Post 1

Before I brag on my accomplishments so far, I want to congratulate all of the competitors on the creation of some of the most beautiful and creative flags I have ever seen. Even if you aren't competing, you should get over and view the parade of flags.

Winter Games Category 6, Task A: Comment on a new (to you) genealogy blog. See the New Genealogy Blogs tag at GeneaBloggers for the newest blogs.

I'd like to introduce you to Family History Publishing. I was introduced to these folks about two years ago through one of my volunteer coworkers at our local family history center. John was a student at BYU many years ago and according to him, the Stevenson's Genealogy Center products and copy center are staples on campus. Family owned business, very reasonable prices and downright friendly folks.

Today while I was browsing around, I found their publishing tips blog. Hopefully 'whenever' the time comes that I publish my book, they'll still be around and still be reasonable. In the meantime, I can still follow their tips blog.

Ha! This is very sad. I just remembered that I went to their site because somebody wrote on their blog that she was in need of a solution for printing and storing her legal sized pages. This person needed page protectors and this place is the only place I know of that has legal sized page protectors. The sad part: Then I forgot whose blog I was reading. Whoever it was, is a person who'd had all her stuff online and has now decided to store print copies as well. What can I say? It was the first time I'd been to her site. Hopefully, I'll find it again.

Disclaimer: I have no interest in this company or association other than being a potential customer in the future.

Category 4, Task E: Create a surname visualization using Wordle, Word It Out or a similar application. Post the graphic to your blog.

See why I don't participate in Surname Saturday? I'll probably get a couple more in there when I add my database entries. Then I look forward to doing it again. Wordle was a Lot of fun.

2010 GeneaBloggers Games

Da           da daaaaaaa (horns blowing)

I want to play! I followed along during the last games, watching from the sidelines. It looked like a lotta fun.

You see my badge and my flag to the right? The flag stands for the USA (red white & blue), for Cameroon (yellow green & red with the star) and Nigeria (supposed to be green white green according to Wikipedia and others). Cameroon and Nigeria are both in East Africa.

I chose Cameroon because I used to work with a young man from Cameroon. Hi Landry! I chose Nigeria only because it is a prominent country on the west coast of Africa. It seemed logical to me that we were taken/kidnapped from the African west coast. But sources, including Landry and others, confirmed we were also taken from the east coast of Africa. See how ignorant we might be if we didn't study genealogy? Too bad I don't have my dna done, I could name an ancestral country.

I plan to participate in all six categories as described in the rules page. I can't positively say that I'll post every day but I'll do my best. If I do publish accomplishments daily, it will probably be very short and sweet like category # and # of tasks. I think I'll try that stand alone page thing. It looks appropriate for this kind of activity. Maybe I'll post on the front, then move them as I progress. Keeping only the most recent on the front. Interesting thing about our games. Everybody who participates, wins!

I expect Thomas will make some appropriate announcement like, L T G B! Hey. I found his response to my entry. Looks like he is going to parade the flags.
Hooray for the United States.
Hooray for Cameroon.
Hooray for Nigeria.
Hooray for all the Geneabloggers.

Good luck everybody.
Let's have some fun.

Celebrating Ancestors

Ella Lee BRIMMER was born 1890 in Hawkinsville, Pulaski, GA. She was the oldest of her three brothers and two sisters. Both of her sisters always called her by her nickname, Sister. I remember when she died, 5 February 1969, there was a discussion as to when she was born (ha, that means my dad didn't know how old his mother was). I don't remember in the discussion aka argument who else sided with my dad for her birth to have been in 1891 but both her sisters argued that it was 1890. Their logic was that because she was the oldest and that Uncle Willie was born in 1891. I think to myself now, that it's a wonder I didn't get the geneabug then. I vividly remember my thoughts as I was listening to this 'grown folks conversation', "How do any of you know when she was born? None of you were there!" Well the sisters won the debate and they were correct. I have confirmed that:
parents marriage 18 Oct 1889
Ella born 5 Aug 1890
Willie born 10 Aug 1891

Something else I remember from the day of the 'discussion'. There was the accusation that the sisters raped our house of most of her mementos. Well, I have Ella's bible.

Since Sister is the focus person for today, I'm looking at the copy of the map that I got from the cemetery. The sexton's secretary wrote the note for Ella and four others of my folks buried in this cemetery. The note reads, "Ella Draper - Greenlawn Rg 2 Gr 37" and the date of her death. I was adding this detail info to my Legacy, when I thought to myself, "What is Rg?" It almost looked like Pg to me. So I called the cemetery today and got the scoop. It is Rg, which is Range; their designation for 'Row'.

Also since I'm focused on Ella today, I linked the original unmarked copy of cemetery map shown here to the cemetery address in Legacy and the copy shown here is now linked to Ella and the other three of my folks you see here. You like how I marked the grave with the colored dot along with the RIN # of the person buried there? I am thinking I may link the saved census images and city directory pages to her Legacy record. I wonder does anybody else do this.

Calling all Ohioans!

I need to go to the Ohio Historical Society soon(er or later). So that I could make a swag guess as to when I might go, I checked their website to find that the "The Archives/Library will be open only on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m." I am thinking "oh no", another sign of "these tough economic times" (I'm getting tired of using that expression). I looked again and saw that they are "temporarily changing hours starting January 2, 2010, as it transforms into a collections learning center." Yay!

So they have a discussion board and are trying to come up with a new name for the place. The interim name until an official name comes up is the collections learning center. Anybody is welcome to view the forum but only registered Ohio voters are allowed to comment. I thought that was interesting.

btw, This Is The Best Place to get microfilm copies of Ohio newspapers that are not online.