Boy finds 45-year-old love letter in bottle addressed to his grandpa – Serendipity trikes again!

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Angie Harmon Understands the Power of Walking in Your Ancestors Footsteps – Check out my "Genealogy on TV" Pinterest board if you'd like to see more photos of Angie Harmon on this week's episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?"

Bruce Springsteen accepts Ellis Island award with his mother & aunts – My video of Bruce Springsteen at Ellis Island with his mother and aunts just crossed 10,000 views! Thanks, y'all! If you haven't watched it, you might want to because it's charming. Sweet family.

Naturalization ceremony for my sister Stacy (left with my mom) and me (right with my dad):

AT&T employee uncovers lost pictures more than a century old

Irish Famine Summer School will be the first of its kind

VIDEO: Surging interest in Irish genealogy from abroad

Exclusive Video: Josh Groban Discovering Remarkable and Controversial Ancestor

Following her dream--- American moving to Ireland at 53 – Love this! I could be tempted!

Genealogy to premiere ‘Don't Deny’ on March 12 on Armenia’s public TV and on eurovision.tv – "Generations are shifting with time but the genealogy remains. . . "

May 2015 will be the 15th anniversary of my genealogy grants program. Initially called Honoring Our Ancestors, I did just that when I renamed it after my mother - Seton Shields - several years ago.

So 182 grants later, I was debating what to do to mark this milestone, and finally decided to give a peek behind the scenes by sharing some of the thank you notes I've received over the years. This will help give a sense of the variety of both recipients and objectives.

I'm not going in any sort of logical order. Instead, I've just opted to post a random thank you note whenever the mood strikes, and will continue to do so at least until the May 2015 grant.

First up is Yamhill County Genealogical Society from Oregon. Way back in May 2005 on the 5th anniversary, I gave five grants to mark that milestone, and YCGS was one of them!

Irish family from Galway the longest living group of siblings in the world – 5 over 100 and one more almost there . . .

Who Do You Think You Are? Returns with 8 New Celebrity Family Tree Searches on TLC – Not long now . . .‪ ‬ If you want to start getting warmed up for the first episode on March 8th, why not spending a couple of minutes poking around my Celebrity Roots board on Pinterest?

10 Things You Didn't Know About Jon Hamm's Roots

Genealogy 101: Discover Your Roots – Did not know this was out there until someone emailed me about it!

Chromosome pillows playfully represent "his and hers" DNA with pink felt applique for the XX chromosome and blue for the XY chromosome – For all my genetic genealogy peeps, you know you need this!

Family Photos From Ukraine — 'My Sisters' – Can really relate to this since I have roots just north of L'viv. Her family was much better off than mine, but I love that she's part Rusyn!

Kindred Voices: Listening for Our Ancestors by Geoff Rasmussen – Got to read an advance copy and strongly recommend this book. You know you want to hear some tales of genealogical serendipity!

Melvina's Descendants, Michelle Obama's Cousins

Crystal Medler Rojas Mora of Kenmore, WA has spent the past six years researching the life of her maternal second great-grandmother, Lucretia Berry Porter Cowan, who, after her move from Maine to Seattle with her two young children in 1912 eventually gained a reputation as one of the best photographers in Seattle. Crystal is planning to write a biography of her ancestor and will be making a research trip to Maine, where she will visit a number of libraries, archives, and historical societies. The grant will help to pay for fees associated with this trip.

Bilge Ebiri opens his article, "Oscar Films and the Prison of Historical Accuracy," saying, "You know it’s Oscar season when the historical-accuracy hit squads show up." The genealogist in me bristles.

But read it all, I tell myself, and I do. And as I continue, I can't help but concede some of his points. After all, these are movies, not documentaries, and don't the director, producers, and screenwriters have the right to take some liberties in order to craft and deliver the best possible story?

As a genealogist, I'm borderline obsessed with the truth, but then, I'm a writer as well, and three of my books have been collections of stories, so I can appreciate the importance of storytelling. Frankly, good storytelling is all that makes history palatable to many.

I found myself being persuaded to his point of view until I got to the part where he wrote of The Imitation Game. This film about Alan Turing is on my to-see list and I was excited to learn more about this tragic genius - and still am. But it wasn't until reading Ebiri's article that I learned about the Poles who had begun cracking the Enigma code years earlier.

Ashamed of my own ignorance, I realized that this is my true gripe with liberties taken in historical films - for the vast majority of the people who watch, the movie will be the only version of events that they'll ever know. It will become their truth, their reality. 

I understand that I'm a relic, feebly shaking her fist at the sky, insisting that historical accuracy does indeed matter. But then I think of Annie Moore, the first immigrant to arrive at Ellis Island, and how her story had been hijacked and later corrected, and I realize that small victories are possible. And though I genuinely believe the truth is usually fascinating in its own right, it's next to useless if no one knows about it, so some compromise with movie embellishment is in order. 

I suspect that in the battle between story and accuracy, story will almost always win, but at least these slices of history will be out there, and the almost inevitable debates about the veracity of this or that aspect of this or that movie will themselves lead to greater understanding. So while I'll instinctively continue to at least clench my fist, I'll console myself with the historical awareness that films generate.

Even so, with all due respect to Alan Turing, I'd be very grateful if someone would make a film about Marian Rejewski.

Ah, this one kills me. It's a happy story in a sense - honest urban explorer returns money to family. But the photos - the photos! They protect the identity of the family in the article, but I can see from the photos that they are Slavic, and given that the money was American and Canadian, I'm guessing the vicinity of Detroit. And as someone with Slavic cousins who were drawn to Detroit for the auto industry, back when it was the Silicon Valley of its time, I could all too easily see this happening to my own family. That said, the place is a time capsule, the family now knows (and has presumably taken at least the photos home), and there's the kindness of strangers aspect. So all in all, a happy tale, but still tugging at the heart, you know?

Here's MESSYNESSYchic, where I first read about this:

The Abandoned House of Money and the Honorable Urban Explorer

And here's FREAKTOGRAPHY, the person who explored and photographed the house (photos for sale, if you're interested):

ABANDONED HOUSE OF TREASURES

The Genealogy Guys, George Morgan and Drew Smith, explore Oaklawn Cemetery in Tampa, Florida, and tell the story of William and Nancy Ashley, hinted at by their tombstone which describes them as "master and slave," but reveals more about the true nature of their relationship:

"Faithful to each other in that relationship in life, in death, they are not separated. Stranger consider and be wiser, in the Grave, all human distinction of race or caste mingle together in one common dust. To commemorate their fidelity to each other, this stone was erected by their Executor, John Jackson."

What makes this especially remarkable is that this tombstone was erected in the 1870s.

© Scukrov | Dreamstime.com - Three Red Wine Bottles In Wood Case Photo

As I write this, I'm waiting for a case of wine. If not for a delivery hiccup, this would be a complete surprise, but I was forewarned by the sender this time so the second attempt would not go astray.

The reason for the wine? To thank me for research I did for a friend of one of my cousins. She contacted me last month hoping to track down some maternal cousins to surprise her mother at Christmas, and fortunately, I was able to assist.

Oddly, this is the second time I'm welcoming a case of wine (yes, a case) into my home for poking around in someone's family tree to solve a long-standing riddle, and that got me wondering about the gifts my fellow genealogists have received. I'm not talking about paying clients, and of course, most of us routinely get thank-you emails (I hope!) when we lend a helping hand, but what else has come your way? In addition to the simple satisfaction of using your research powers for good, what's the most unexpected "I appreciate your sleuthing" bonus you've ever received?

Alex Trapps-Chabala began, at age 15, to research his 5th Great Grandfather, Jordan B. Noble, a drummer in Andrew Jackson's militia who played an important role in the Battle of New Orleans. Alex will be attending commemorative events to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. While there, he will be presenting information on the life of his ancestor, who gained fame throughout his life both for his music and his role in the history of New Orleans. The grant award will fund copies of records at the New Orleans Public Library to help further Alex's research.

The house that time forgot: Mother and sons keep family home frozen in the 1920s for 70 YEARS with original decoration, food and furniture. – Can't get enough of these time capsule houses!

Sean Hayes Traces Roots to Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland. More on this here.

Fulmoth Kearney, President Obama's Irish Immigrant Ancestor, Gets a Tombstone

WWII Love Letters Reveal 3 Soldiers Vying for Same Woman’s Heart