Wisteria

In keeping with my current theme project of photographs, here is a bibliography of books and websites I have used: City Gallery. Website with articles, forums, lists of books and other helpful information on dating old photographs. 1995-2000. October 2004. < http://www.city-gallery.com/ > **Unable to connect to this database service 29 January 2012** Cycleback, David Rudd. How to Date, Identify & Authenticate Photographs.   http://www.cycleback.com/photoguide/ Cycleback also published this in book form in 2007 which can be found at Amazon.com. Although I haven’t seen the printed version, I have found the website to be extremely helpful in identifying old photographs and would tend to ignore any negative reviews. Darrah, William C. Cartes de Visites in Nineteenth Century Photography . Gettysburg, PA: privately published, 1981. Frost, Lenore. Dating Family Photographs 1850-1920 . Berwick, Australia: Valient Press, 1991. Moorshead, Halvor, editor & publisher. Family C

 Nancy Sizemore Hardy holding a photograph of her husband Thomas and his two brothers  As if I didn't have anything better to do, I decided to start another project! I was walking through my local library the other day in pursuit of a book on sociology that I found in the electronic card catalog. (Never mind why I was looking for a book about sociology.) On my way to the section I needed, I noticed a book displayed on one of the shelves. It was Maureen A. Taylor’s Preserving Your Family Photographs . ( See Maureen's own blog here .) I was delighted to find it and grabbed it on my way to the sociology section. I often look at the library’s section of genealogy books to see what’s new, but this book was shelved under “photography.” I would have missed it completely had it not been for some kind librarian soul who thought to display it more prominently on the shelf. I had already found Maureen’s book, Uncovering Your Ancestry through Family Photographs which was aptly fi

John & Martha Timmer w/sons Cornelius, Henry & Fred. Taken ca. 1921 in Wisconsin. Randy Seaver ’ s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge for this week is: Find a living male person in your database from your maternal grandfather's  patrilineal  line who could take a Y-DNA test. Answer these questions: 1) What was your mother's father's name? Henry J. Timmer 2) What is your mother's father's  patrilineal  line? That is, his father's father's father's ... back to the most distant male ancestor in that line? John Timmer (born in the Netherlands) – Hendrik Jans Timmer – Jan Luitjes Timmer – Luitje Jans Timmer – Jan Timmer 3) Can you identify male sibling(s) of your mother's father, and any living male descendants from those male sibling(s)? If so, you have a candidate to do a Y-DNA test on that  patrilineal  line. If not, you may have to find male siblings, and their descendants, of the next generation back, or even further.

Original is a 6 1/2" by 4 1/4" in size. Cabinet card photograph. Photo is mounted on dark gray cardstock dating it to after 1900. Large bows were of the 1890s Victorian period. "Randolph. Cadiz, KY" stamped in gold on the end. Subject unknown, girl around age 8 with a collie dog. She may be a Moorefield, see post here .

I wrote about beginning a new search to help discover more of the ancestry of Helen Teroski (see that post here ) and wanted to provide an update. I've had no luck initially with locating any more persons with the surname Teroski (using variant spellings) that might connect with Helen either in Binghamton, Broome Co, NY where she was enumerated with the Novak family or in the state of Pennsylvania (which the census has listed as her birthplace). Neither could I locate this particular Novak family in Pennsylvania during the 1910 census. My speculation is that since both the Novaks and Helen are of Slovakian descent, I may be able to find more information on Helen if I follow the Novaks around for a while. Helen may have had more of a relationship to the family than just boarder. At the very least they share the same ethnic heritage and both Helen and the Novak children were born somewhere in Pennsylvania. So what could I find out about the Novak family? This is what I found 

I've always been a book lover. The above photograph is an image of a bookbag that was given to me by my work colleagues when I was about 20 years old. It brings back memories of winter vacations curled up with a big thick book. I would stay in bed and read for days on end. Because it was my birthday and an extra-long holiday weekend, I went to my local library on Thursday to pick up a good read, preferrably something nice and thick. I found it in the new book section and finished reading it just a little while ago. And it just blew me away, so I have to tell you about it. It's called the Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman. Here's a link to the author's website: The Dovekeepers . It is a very moving story, set in Israel in 70 C.E. I just loved how the author breathed into life a story based on dry, historical artifacts uncovered in the dusty layer of generations gone by. For lovers of all things history, it's definitely worth the read.