Saturday Serendipity (December 28, 2013)

Saturdays often allow a more leisurely approach to life than work days. I can more easily post links to some blog posts or other materials I have discovered during the week, or even to those discovered during a Saturday morning coffee and extended surfing of the blogosphere/internet.

Here are a few recommendations for inclusion on your reading list.

1. Does "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens owe a lot to the writings of mill girls in Lowell Massachusetts in 1842 -- the year before Dickens published his famous Christmas redemption tale? In this week's Weekly Genealogist newsletter, NEHGS provides a link to this article that explains the connection.  

     

2.  The Civil War was instrumental in making the celebration of Christmas an important and permanent American tradition.  Read about it here at The Vault and follow links to some illustrative engravings and "Christmas in America: A History" a 1996 book by Penne Restad.      

3.  The Legal Genealogist, Judy Russell, has an interesting post about the legal aspects of Christmas as a holiday.  

4.  How about strategies for organizing your genealogy research efforts for the coming New Year?  Janine Adams at Organize Your Family History blog shares her approach and provides a link to her genealogy research goals from last year.           

5.  Most all of us like to illustrate our blogs with captivating subject-related photos or other images, but few can aspire to the level of the photography showcased each year in the annual National Geographic Photo Contest.  To see some truly awe inspiring photography, go here to see the winners of the 2013 contest.  

6.  Here is a very different twist on what it means to be a "professional genealogist."    

7.  With the recent receipt of annual holiday newsletters and posts here and elsewhere about the wisdom of saving, reproducing and sharing these wonderful genealogy source materials, you should check out Lynn Betlock's "Note from the Editor" in this week's The Weekly Genealogist. Lynn discusses the preservation of Christmas memories and mentions a collection of 82 years of such memories by the Blake family.  The Blakes collected their documents in a self-published book To Friends at Christmas: A Garland of Holiday Greetings in Verse 1927 - 2009. NEHGS has a copy of the book in their library and Lynn quotes a few examples from this unusual collection of holiday memories. [Look for Vol. 16 No. 52 Whole 667]    

8.  For those of us with some Irish roots, Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings has posted his review of the new edition of a well-known resource book for researching one's Irish ancestry.  The book is Tracing Your Irish Ancestors, 4th Edition by John Grenham.  See Randy's review and an overview of the contents here.   

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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