Genealogy Grant Awarded to Vine Lake Preservation Trust

Congrats to the newest Honoring Our Ancestors genealogical grant winner:

The Vine Lake Preservation Trust in Medfield, MA serves the genealogical communities who visit Vine Lake Cemetery by providing walking tours to interpret and celebrate noteworthy events and persons buried on-site, as well as support for family historians and collaboration with professional genealogists. The grant award will assist the Trust in developing a self-guided walking tour map, titled "Walk Among the Shadows." The map will be the first in an information series that will provide stories of 50 selected persons buried in the cemetery. 

You can apply for a grant here.

Genealogy Round Up, March 29

Looking forward to sharing the 1940 excitement with Archives.com! 
Megan Smolenyak Joins as Family History Advisor to Archives.com

Would someone please write my 20th review??
Amazon.com: Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing

So May will be the 12th anniversary of my genealogy grants and July will be the 150th grant. Any ideas how to celebrate? 
Genealogical Research Grants 

Share this fun 1940 census infographic!
Find Your Family in the 1940 Census [INFOGRAPHIC] 

Genealogy Round Up, March 22

Unexpected Irish

Though this piece makes it sound like a he-said/she-said situation, it's Annie! 
Discovering a New Photo, Perhaps, of Ellis Island's Annie - NYTimes.com

C'mon, Slovakia!
Records Update 19 Mar 2012 from FamilySearch.org

Meeting with his #Irish cousins yet again. Here's how they were found.
President Barack Obama's Roots

Helen Hunt, Cory Booker, John Lewis, Harry Connick, Jr., & Branford Marsalis all get their roots don

Over 4 Million England, Hungary, and Italy Records Added at FamilySearch
Records Update 21 Mar 2012

Cool idea! Student exhibits based on family history - like a science fair!
Family artifacts, history displayed at Tuesday’s LVHS Night at the Museum

Helen Hunt, Cory Booker, John Lewis, Harry Connick, Jr., & Branford Marsalis all get their roots done this weekend! #genealogy #DNA #WDYTYA

Just about everyone I know is an avid viewer of Who Do You Think You Are? which airs on Friday nights on NBC, so there’s a good chance that many of you reading this already know that Helen Hunt will be featured this week.  But I want to make sure y’all know about what else is heading our way this weekend.

 

The latest genealogical TV series, Finding Your Roots (PBS), starts on Sunday, March 25th, with a double-opener – a pair of episodes featuring Harry Connick, Jr., Branford Marsalis, Cory Booker and John Lewis.  I did a little work on the show, and specifically requested to research Cory Booker.  I wish the show could have been longer because his family tree is even more remarkable than what you’ll see.  In fact, I can honestly say that I’ve never encountered one quite like his in all my years of research. And yes, for my genetic genealogy friends, DNA will be involved!

 

Here are a couple of photos from one of the shoots.  I know the second one is a little odd, but I like the fact that we’re both cracking up!  And yup, that’s Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. in the background.

 

 

 

BTW, Finding Your Roots will be ten episodes long with 20 celebrities, so when you take both series into consideration, we’re in the midst of a 4+ month stretch of genealogical programming!  Not shabby, eh?!

me and Sing Sing

Got a kick out of this.  Helped out a bit with an ESPN documentary called “26 Years – The Dewey Bozella Story.”  Watched it last night and was amused at the credits where I followed on the heels of Sing Sing Correctional.  All through life, I’ve come behind a pile of Smiths, but this is a first!

Genealogy Grant Awarded for Gold Miner Biographies

We are thrilled to announce the latest recipient of an Honoring Our Ancestors genealogy grant:

A researcher of the gold strikes in Alaska, Susan Gibson is writing short biographies of the thousands of early pioneers who lived, worked and mined in the Fortymile country of Alaska. The biographies will be gathered into a book, with copies to be donated to the University of Alaska Elmer E. Rasmuson Library and the Fairbanks North Star Borough Noel Wien Library. The grant award will be used for travel expenses to and from the Dawson City Museum Archives, where many records of these pioneers are located.

You can apply for a grant here.