What did you learn in genealogy today?

[LizO]

I guess patience is one of the things we learn, along with things like how people lived and worked in different times and places.

[warncoort]

Fifteen years ago,my eldest son needed some family detail for a school project,so i contacted a cousin who had done some work and she scribbled some notes by hand for me.A lot of the information i have was given to my sister who still lives where she was born,and i have added to and corrected several trees.
What i learnt is that a family story is not family history until you have proved it,and today i learnt nothing.
Eric

[LizO]

Well, Eric, as Scarlet O'Hara famously said, "Tomorrow's another day!" Maybe things will go better tomorrow. I hope so!

[warncoort]

Liz,
I am not in the least bit disappointed becuase in the few months i have been a chatter,i have much more information than i would have expected a year back.
Eric

[msallen]

In my searches and researches I have found a new interest in history in general.  I hated it at school.  Now I love to know about the history of a town, usually the town my ancestors came from.

Absolutely! History at school always bored me to tears.

About 15 years ago I picked up a couple of old books about the area I grew up in, at a flea market, and that started me on the (relatively short lived) hobby of collecting old books about the area. That in turn led me to family history, which in turn has led to an interest in the history through which my ancestors lived. Along the way it has also forced me to acquire new skills, such as (very basic) Latin, which I would never have had the remotest interest in otherwise.

[netgrrl79]

Not so much what I have learnt, but what I think I've found today  ...

A photo of the grave of the first husband of one of my paternal grandmother's sisters who was unfortunately killed in WW2 having only been married 6 months   

[Jean McGurn]

In 25 words or less, I meant to add.
 

That's going to be hard  but he goes:-

As a kid in the 1950's - Machine Gun Jack McGurn mobster - No relation not even a McGurn 

Today - have a huge family  back to 1800's 

Jean

[Braindead]

... a family story is not family history until you have proved it...
Eric

Best quote of the day so far and very apt for me today. I'm having a discussion with someone about the identity of people in a photo & he desperately wants it to be certain family members but there's no evidence to show it is them at all!

 

Sorry, went over 25 words!

[LizO]

It's still early today, but yesterday I found out that a house lived in by a distant family connection (we're talking cousin-in-laws several times removed) in San Francisco in the 1930s (and is still standing) was built before the 1906 earthquake. I don't know much about architecture, but I like looking at buildings, and this fact impressed me.   

Having a look in the local library (as you do) to see what else I could find out about the earthquake, I found a children's book that said the fire that followed caused more damage than the earthquake itself. It went into the details of the fire engines of the time and said that dogs were associated with fire wagons (pulled by horses at that time) because they ran along barking to warn people to get out of the way. This was new to me. I had wondered what the point of the fire dogs was. Were they dalmations? It didn't say. But the point is, a lot of the things I find out don't involve my relatives.

Okay, I admit it. Twenty-five words was an impossibly short limit!