Saturday, August 30, 2014

Saturday Serendipity (August 30, 2014)



The following are recommended for inclusion on your reading list this weekend: 


1.  What do you know about the origins of the Labor Day holiday?  Given the hard times that have befallen labor unions in recent years and the often expressed distain for unions in some quarters, it might surprise you to learn more about the history of this particular holiday that has come to mark the end of the summer holiday season in the U.S.  Read more about the holiday here this Labor Day weekend.      

2.  If you are reading this, then you probably already have a subscription to Ancestry.com, had at one time, or have been thinking about renewing a subscription or getting one for the first time.  You have probably also heard from numerous others sources about Ancestry's FREE access this Labor Day weekend up until 11:59 PM on September 1st.  So you should tell others about it while there are still a couple of days to do some genealogical exploring for FREE.  Go here and tell others who might be interested in giving it a try.  

3.  A very interesting new research source is now available on line -- the U.S. Marine Corps History Division has made its Casualty Card Database available here.  If know you had an ancestor or relative who served in the Marine Corps (or suspect one did) during World War II through the Vietnam War, you should check out this database.  If an ancestor or relative was killed, wounded, missing in action or deemed a prisoner of war, you might find a casualty card filled with vital information to add to your genealogy.  

4.  While Judy Russell may be our favorite and best known Legal Genealogist, there is a new publication just released by the National Genealogical Society (NGS) titled, "Genealogy and the Law: A Guide to Legal Sources for the Family Historian." The authors are Kay Haviland Freilich and William B, Freilich, Esq.  You can lear  more about the publication here.

5.  I have written before about the infamous hurricane of September 21, 1938 that devastated much of southern New England and affected the lives of many of our ancestors and relatives. But it turns out that the 1938 storm was probably not the worst storm to ravage southern New England.  That distinction apparently belongs to a hurricane 379 years ago that crossed eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts in 1635. It had sustained winds of 135 miles an hour and hit without benefit of anything even close to the warnings we have today or had in the 1930s. Read more about the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 here.     

6.  This month marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.  Much has been and will be written about that war in the genealogy blogosphere. Now the New York Times is soliciting stories of World War I from family historians. If you have a story to tell, go here to see how you can submit it to the NYT.     

7.  "Realtor" or "Genealogist" -- who qualifies to be called either?  James Tanner has a nice post that ruminates on this question.  You can read it at Genealogy's Star blog here.  

8.  Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings blog reviews the new features of the Ancestry.com mobile app here.  

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Copyright 2014, John D. Tew
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1 comment:

  1. Note that Ancestry.com's promotion this weekend is for its "New Global Records" not all global records. so if you can't find, say, Canada Census Records (which I was hoping to find), it's because they're not "New" on Ancestry.

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