Mother’s Day is coming up and I’m sure we’re all thinking about what to get Mom! After writing my post about 10 Easy Mother’s Day Gifts Using Old Family Photos, I found four links to more Mother’s Day gift ideas, including questions to ask your Mom if you’d like to write about her life for Mother’s Day.

Three of the articles I read this week talked about the memories that come from a grandmother’s apron. What a coincidence!

This week and last week I saw photos of grandparents that had gone viral for looking like celebrities. I thought it would be fun to group those together with another ancestor/celebrity look alike in the news back in January.

Also in the list is the fascinating story of writer Cal Flynn discovering a terrible skeleton in the family history closet and her trip to Australia to come to grips with it.

Enjoy your weekend!

Mother’s Day

Oral History Questions to Ask Mom on Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is just around the corner! And if you’re still looking for the perfect gift to make mom feel special, you don’t have to look any further than your own family tree. It’s true! But how will this make mom feel special, you ask?

Legacybox + Pinhole Press Giveaway

GRAND PRIZE: Gift Certificate to Pinhole Press to create Photo Books ($280 value). Gift Certificate for Family Legacybox + thumb drive ($279.95 value).Digitize your old family photos and create a photo book for Mother’s Day!

Mother’s Day 2016 Gift Guide – Lisa Lisson

Mother’s Day is coming soon! I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to honoring all the women in my family. But let’s get down to the burning question….. I am here to help. 1. Ancestors – Maybe you cannot literally give your mother an ancestor(s), but you can give her the tools to find them.

Zap the Grandma Gap

Mother’s Day is the perfect day to honor the women in your life by remembering how they lived.

Creating and Sharing

Ideas for re-purposing heirlooms, creating items related to family history, and sharing family history with others

9 Inspiring Stories about Family Heirlooms

By Cheri Peacock What stories do your family heirlooms tell? Here are 9 that will make you grab a tissue-and your family tree. Something Borrowed Can you imagine wearing a 120-year-old wedding dress? For a young Pennsylvania bride, her “something borrowed” is a wedding dress previously worn by 10 other brides in her family.

Top 6 Ideas for Repurposing and Upcycling Clothing

by · Turning clothing into objects you can appreciate every day is a poignant way to keep the memory of loved ones alive. A few years after my father died, I made a quilt out of his colorful assortment of neckties. You can undertake this kind of project by yourself or with the help of others.

Mending Broken Branches in Your Family Tree

Sunbathing on the deck with my mom, at 17, I was imagining my future life. Would I get married and have kids first, or would it be my younger brother? I mentioned that I would like to be the first one to have kids.

Remembering Grandparents

Sour milk sugar cookies remind woman of her Grandma

ELMORE – Renee Thomas still cuts out her grandmother’s sugar cookies the same way her grandmother did: with the bottom of a tin can. Instead of using modern cookie cutters, Thomas cleans a wide can, cuts the top off one end and punches a hole in the other end to release the air pressure.

Woman Lovingly Captures Grandpa’s Battle Against Dementia

Only those with loved ones suffering from dementia can truly understand the heartbreak of the memory-robbing disease. One of those loved ones is photography student Zaria Sleith, 28, who wanted the world to understand, first hand, what it’s like when a family member has dementia.

Aprons

‘Musings’: remembering Grandma’s apron

I wrote this article several years ago and received a lot of positive response from readers saying they really enjoyed it because it brought back a lot of happy memories. I was inspired to write it when I came across the following prose about a rather unusual subject: aprons.

Sabbath Revival: Life Is Messy

Put on your aprons—My grandmother lived to be one hundred years old. When I reminisce about my grandmother, I either see her in her white nurses uniform, which she wore for longer than I have been alive or standing over the stove wearing an apron. With all those years of living, Nana had learned an important lesson: life is messy so you had better wear an apron.

School Snack Picture: Family Collectibles Identified – Ancestors in Aprons

I used this picture with family collectibles in my post about peanut butter cookies . Here’s the background. The cookies sit on a china saucer that is all I have of the set of china that my parents (Harriette and Paul Kaser) used for many years.The bottom of the piece has two logos-one is a brand featuring the letters H C and L combined into a pattern.

Heritage Travel

Sherry Young: What a family history trip and cattle teach about connections

Cattle and people are not all that different. We need someone who loves and cares about us, and they need us to care about them, dead or alive. When we’re connected, our road seems clearer and the stress of our life’s journey is eased. Leonardo da Vinci is attributed with saying, “Learn how to see.

Cal Flyn: the terrible truths in my family history

The leader of the Highland Brigade, Angus McMillan, was a Scot who had fled the horror of the Highland Clearances, during which thousands of his ­countrymen were forced from their land to make way for sheep, only to re-enact brutal clearances of his own upon this new land: Gippsland, the south-eastern corner of ­Australia. McMillan was a tough, pious and lonely man. A man who had struggled through miles of unknown territory, built new homes with bare hands, met tribes who had never seen or even known of white skin. He was a man who cut tracks, felled trees, shot strangers dead. He was the “Butcher of Gippsland”. He was my great-great-great uncle.

Heritage Hunter 411

“THE NICEST PEOPLE HAVE A ROOT IN THE BOOT” A Pilgrimage to the Mother Land: In 2014, my husband and I traveled to Italy for a second honeymoon. We originally wanted to go the previous year, but unfortunately, we were victims of Hurricane Sandy and needed to spend time cleaning and renovating.

Popular Genealogy

Family History and Genealogy in the News and Television

5 Spot: Five reasons to trace your family tree

I never liked history, so why would I care about my family history? I don’t have the time. It’s too expensive. You’ll never get any interesting info about my family. I’m just a mutt. But as someone who once uttered some of these phrases, I’m urging you to give a second thought to tracing your family’s ancestry.

Katey Sagal – Who Do You Think You Are – “A PeaceMonger”

Katey Sagal joins TLC this Sunday evening, April 17, at 9/8c for an extremely interesting episode featuring the unique history of the pietist religions on the colonial frontier in Pennsylvania – in this case, the Amish. You’ve probably figure out by now that I have a media relationship with TLC for these episodes, which means that I…

Painting with coffee leads Knoxville artist to reconnect with family history

Some might consider painting with coffee somewhat of a gimmick, but a Knoxville artist will show you something much deeper is happening when his brush paints the canvas. It may be that the best way to start a story, is the same way you start your day.

Hancock’s forgotten hero: Long Beach man wants to honor ancestor from Pearlington

Hancock County has been the birthplace and home of many historical figures, but one particular 19th century war hero has been nearly forgotten. Now, one of the man’s direct descendants is leading a charge to help his ancestor achieve his proper place in local history.

PBS’ “Genealogy Roadshow” Season Three Visits Six New Cities

ARLINGTON, VA; APRIL 19, 2016 – From possible links to the accused in the Salem Witch Trials to heroes of the Wild West, PBS’ GENEALOGY ROADSHOW uncovers more family secrets in the series’ third season, which premieres Tuesday, May 17, 2016, at 8:00 p.m. ET and airs Tuesdays through June 28(check local listings).

Ancestor Celebrity Look Alikes

This Dude’s Great-Grandpa Looks Exactly Like Johnny Depp

Time travel is real. Here’s Exhibit A. Michael William Johnstone, a 23-year-old senior at Saint Louis University in Missouri, recently shared a photo of his great-grandfather a few days ago on Reddit under the username mwjstone14. The photo ended up going viral because the 23-year-old’s great-grandfather Michael Fuller Johnstone looks freakishly like a certain Hollywood star.

Great great grandpa looks like Matthew McConaughey from another century

Alright alright alright – we’ve got a lookalike on our hands. Reddit user EmberRainbow posted a picture of his great great grandpa who, besides from being a looker, also seems to be twin to an Oscar winner. He has the same slightly dazed and confused looks of Matthew McConaughey.

Taylor Swift Has Another Look-Alike — and This One Is a Grandmother!

Taylor Swift should make a music video with all her doppelgangers. After Swift recently posed with a young look-alike fan from Australia, Reddit user Christmaspencil posted a photo her grandmother, who greatly resembled the “Shake It Off” singer.

DNA

New Advances in DNA Science Coming Your Way

We’ve been refining and expanding the science behind DNA matching to find your relatives. And we’ve got some exciting improvements coming your way soon. These advancements are expected to deliver more-precise predictions of whom you are related to, and how closely, among the million-plus others in the AncestryDNA database.

AncestryDNA Plans Update to Matching Algorithm

AncestryDNA is making several changes to its matching algorithm in the next week or two (an exact time is not yet available). You may recall an announcement that was made earlier this month entitled ” New Advances in DNA Science Coming Your Way ” (pdf) in which they stated the following: “These advancements are expected to deliver more-precise predictions of whom you are related to, and how closely, among the million-plus others in the AncestryDNA database.”

Upcoming Ancestry DNA Update – Urgent!!!

This article is very quick and dirty because it’s all that I can do at the moment and you need to have this information NOW! Please read the entire article because you’ll find instructions at the end. Yes, I know this is very short warning, but please do not shoot the messenger.

Ancestry Composition Comparisons: a Case Study

Discovering where your ancestors came from is one of the more popular reasons to do a DNA test but the current ancestry composition algorithms have a long way to go. Sometimes East Asian ancestry is actually American Indian and South Asian might be gypsy or Indian Indian.

Research Tips

Why You Should Sometimes Ignore Boundaries in Genealogy

The importance of location is drilled into us from the beginning of our genealogy research. We need to know where our ancestors lived. Census records are based on location. Voter lists are based on location Land records are definitely based on location.

Popular Mobile Apps for Finding Local History

In last week’s article, we explored three websites that offer a wealth of information on local history: Historypin.org, WhatWasThere.com, and TheClio.com. Each of these sites offers photos, documents, and other digital items pinned to a map that will help you celebrate and learn more about an area’s local history.

Finding Children When There Isn’t a Will

The U.S. Wills and Probates collections hold the answer to countless questions about our family trees. As you’re going through, don’t be disappointed if your ancestor didn’t leave a will. His (or sometimes her) death could still have generated records that answer who the children are.

Tech Tip: TurboScan for copying important documents

A couple weekends ago I was traipsing through court houses collecting deeds and other documents for my ancestors. And yes, it was as much fun as you imagine! But how do you easily make copies? And cut down on the expense? Some court houses charge 0.50 cents a copy!

Minnesota Death Records

Not that long ago, I posted about Ostrom Witherell, my 2x great-grandfather’s brother and what could have happened to him. I mentioned that Ostrom’s father died in 1915 and the obituary mentioned that Ostrom was in Grand Rapids. Now, me being me, assumed that meant Grand Rapids Michigan.

Genealogy through the ages

During the past few weeks I have been busy working with a genealogical peerage from 16th century Spain, named Nobiliario genealógico de varias casas de España. It is a handwritten manuscript that describes noble families in the Iberian Peninsula, and includes drawings of each family’s coats of arms. Through the years, many people have used it, as…

LDS

Photos: Temple Grounds Flood After Major Storms in Texas, Temple Remains Miraculously Untouched

Deadly flooding in Houston, Texas, has killed at least five and caused the evacuation of hundreds of people while leaving thousands of homes without power. Severe thunderstorms dropped at least 240 billion gallons of rain fell on Houston throughout Monday, and storms are expected to continue throughout Tuesday, according to CNN.

Family Stories: Creating Connections – The Mama Birds

Years ago I was sitting in front of a 7th grade English class interpreting for a 12 year old hearing impaired student. Throughout the year this particular class had been a typical 7th grade English class, filled with kids that were usually bored out of their minds, and teachers that were praying for the weekend to come quickly.

Writing and Sharing

Adding historical context and relevance to family history

5 Ways to Weave More Storytelling into Your Family’s Life – simple as that

I’m often a bit stunned at how my lectures fall on deaf ears, where my stories are received with rapt attention. It’s just one of the many benefits of telling family stories. I can tell my children to be kind or honest or hard-working. OR I can show them people who were.

Adding Historical Context to Your Ancestor’s Life

Nothing hits me in the gut more than knowing that a direct ancestor of mine spearheaded an Indian massacre. In January 1863, Colonel Patrick E. Connor and his regiment wreaked havoc at Bear Creek in southeastern Idaho, resulting in hundreds of casualties for the Shoshoni Indian Tribe and their families.

The Last Will and Testament of Henry RUPE 1765-1845

The beautiful Eclipse on Thursday night took us by surprise. The weather has been so charming, that we had no occasion to consult the Almanac for “signs,” and hence the first intimation of the phenomenon we derived from the darkened face of the Moon herself.

Leaves & Branches

The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, Part I: The Constant Patterns of Women’s Lives Conclusion: A New Era of Female History Essay of Major Families and Sources Many of us can trace our family back to the Revolutionary War. We research the service records of our male ancestors but what happened to the women during this time?

How to Make Family Stories Relevant

There’s a point to sharing ancestors’ stories-or at least there should be. Educate. Connect. Inspire. That happens best when you’re able to make family stories relevant. I could share a detailed tale about my grandmother, one that includes every bit of historical minutiae that I’ve been able to find.

5 things your kids will want to know about you in 10 years

As children grow older their interest in what their parents were like as kids, teenagers, or even young adults, will grow deeper. Be prepared. 765 views | 11 shares It seems to be fascinating to children to realize that Mom and Dad might have dated someone else before finding each other.

Photos

The Real Reason We Take Photos May Be Fundamentally Linked to Our Humanity

For over 27 millennia since the first cave paintings were discovered, telling stories has been one of humanity’s fundamental communication methods. Even with technology’s increasingly sophisticated and instantaneous capabilities, our brains still respond to content by looking for the story to make sense out of the experience.

Crippin & Co Photographer – photo reunited!

Over the Easter weekend I visited an Antiques Fair in Ingatestone in Essex and found several old family photographs for sale – sadly they usually have no family details written on the back and remain lost to the family history forever. However I was intrigued by one group family photo with the photographer’s details of…