AI generated “We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act," said Stephen Fry. We humans are active. We do things, changing the world and our future. We move around our world with action verbs.  So why do we describe ourselves and our ancestors as nouns, which are static? When people are asked to describe themselves, they often use roles: mother, father, or profession. While part of the picture, it does not get to the heart of the person. I heard a story on the radio today from a mother describing her son who has died, and it was all about what he DID. He kissed the back of her neck as he left with a friend; she never saw him alive again. Precious and painful.  My favorite obituaries describe actions . I treasure them, because they are a window into the human who lives in the records. Dates, places, names are great, but read this  bit of Peter Cain's: " To this union were born 7 children, all of wh...

   Capt. Alex Hacker, in Belgium 1945 D Day 6 June, 1944 82 years ago Allied Forces stormed the beaches of Normandy.  Among those forces was Captain Alex Hacker, father of SKCGS member Alexis Hacker Booker.  These photos and the information with them are from Alexis and her sister Dee Jarvis. Day One, Landing Craft Dee Jarvis:  My dad was on one of the first boats [landing craft] and was pulled off for a doctor [who was senior to my father and demanded to take his place], who was shot in the landing. Daddy went on day 2, encountering gunfire and bodies.  Alexis Visits Omaha Beach Omaha Beach Division Marker Alexis Hacker Booker:  I was on Omaha Beach three years ago. I called our mother Evelyn from the beach and this is what she told me: Our father Alex was in the Corp of Engineers, and the engineers were placed on various landing craft with the Infantry. They already had orders for when they got ashore.  However, when they hit the beaches their o...

Great Blue Heron in the Weeds at a lake in SE Kansas M. L. Haen, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons I recently found a legal suit while researching more distant Booth relatives, where some members of the family were suing other relatives. A bit more work found that often the defendants were their own siblings! Transcribing the lists of names was both tedious and disturbing, while thinking what happened? Why were they doing this? While working through the first few transcription drafts, fixing spellings, adding in missing names, and double-checking numerous land descriptions, it reminded me of something similar found years ago. Fortunately there was an email about it to our Groups.io about that earlier case, with a transcription!  Re-reading it was good luck: this notice stated, " the object and general nature of which is to try and determine the ti tle to said land as between the parties, plaintiff and defendan t," whi...

  The Winged Victory of Samothrace, Louvre Museum. photo by Carole Raddato:  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 Are you a sculptor, or a basket weaver?  Creating a work of art out of a block of marble is very different from gathering materials and then weaving them together into a basket. Humans have done such things since before recorded history, but rarely are such works created by the same person. We are all different, and so we will all approach our family history-keeping in different ways. And maybe you are an artist, quilter, painter, creator of montages. Do you find bliss in marrying your love of family history with your art? Do you love listening to stories? Capture them! We are not all natural writers, and not everyone wants to dig into dusty archives or spend hours researching online. What are your strengths, your natural bent, hobbies, and pastimes? Also, the best interviewers are good listeners . Interviews published here in the SKCGS Blog have bee...

Why, why, why, why? by  dullhunk:  CC BY 2.0 Celebrities are making the circuit of talk shows with books about "Finding My Why", defining purpose and motivation in their lives.  This is an approach to self-help for overcoming some negative aspects of one's life and adapting positive thinking and actions.  The common denominator in most of these books is asking the question, "Why?" As genealogists, we have frequently asked "Why?" in our research.  "Why did they move there ?  Why did they leave wherever  they left.  Why, Why, Why?  It is often one of the first questions we ask. It also one of the last questions we answer.  We get the answers to who, what, when and where through our research in BMD information and census records.  We trace the growth of families and their movement from place to place through newspapers and obituaries. Answering the why question isn't always so simple.  One reason is our lack of knowledge about the...

  A Rose By Any Other Name...  Sheila Unwi n:   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ A Rose by Any Other Name This is a line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  Juliet  seems to argue that it does not matter that  Romeo  is from her family's rival house of Montague. The reference is used to state that the names of things do not affect what they really are.   What genealogists encounter As genealogists who depend on names to identify individuals in our family research, we know the importance of names.   Patronymic patterns When we think of research in Scandinavian families, we immediately prepare ourselves for the John's son, Lars' son, Anders' dotter people in the family tree. An enormous number of cultures around the world use naming systems like these; look at Wikipedia for a large list:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronymic . Even many of the English names we're used to began as patronymics; think of all the f...