Sunday, January 29, 2012

Symbolising 2012

babygenie started an image meme this week - choose an image or icon that shows how you want 2012 to go. Who else would like to join in?

Since I said my 2012 'word' is OPPORTUNITY, and I did mention lemons, here is a photo that illustrates my personal hopes and intentions for this year.

Lemonade Alley
Photograph taken November, 2011, in Hawai'i. Posted on Flickr by Bytemarks (Burt Lum) in the 'Lemonade Alley' photo set. More here about Bytemarks Cafe on Hawaii Public Radio. Creative Commons - CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Lemonade Alley is a "business literacy competition" for students in Hawai'i. A cool idea indeed. And one which perfectly illustrates - When life gives you lemons, it's time to take a break and learn to juggle! (You've always wanted to - right?)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Opposing SOPA


I too am opposing the US bill - SOPA.

This is an issue for Canadians too. For more information, see Michael Geist's posts on his blog, especially his post today, "Why Canadians should Participate in the SOPA/PIPA Protest".

Genealogy Resolutions - 2012

I know, January 2012 is half over and I've not even set out my New Year's Resolutions yet.

As far as last year went, I did keep up with most of my resolutions, but sometimes that meant running, running, running, and sometimes my resolve just got left behind. And looking back at 2011's Resolutions, I see 2010 went a bit too fast for me too.

So I'm only making a couple of resolutions this year, however, since many of the previous years' resolutions were designed to instill and enhance good genealogical habits, wherever possible, I'll continue following up with them.

1. This first resolution I did make early in December, and asked a friend to repeat it to me this year as needed:
" I will not promise/volunteer to do 3 things at once. I will not promise/volunteer to do 3 things at once. I will not..."

Not that I can't still do 3 things at once, but it's usually that news-to-me 4th thing that just has to be done that gets my schedule tied up in knots.

2. Pick my one practical genealogy project for 2012 to focus on. Usually that's been a family line or sometimes just one individual.

This year, because the 1940 US census will be released in April, I decided I'd focus on the family of Alfred White and Emma Cox/Cocks. Originally from England, they emigrated to Canada in 1871 with their 2 children, Alfred, and Eliza Imray, in an East-End Emigration (London) group. While living in Ontario, they had several more children (Mary Elizabeth Miles, Ernest Albert, Joseph Floyd, Florence, and John), then emigrated to the USA where they had at least one more child, Harry.

First I'll be gathering and assessing all the information I do have on the family; then I'll be preparing myself to search for them in 1940. I'm hoping to find some descendants yet.

3. Pick one personally pleasurable genealogy project for 2012.


I've chosen to 'index' my oldest books, the ones that belonged to other family members first. I'll scan and describe the covers and any inscriptions or other finds, I'll do a little writeup and print these out and I'll do at least one a week. This should get me through these by the next new year.

Most of these books have been in my personal library since I was a girl and I've used them in my family genealogy sometimes. For example, where someone, like my mum, wrote her address in various books, I've listed and investigated those.

Not all inscriptions are as straightforward as addresses though. I thought I'd start with one of those in a book once my Na's - The Golden Book of Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Selections for the Year (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Ltd., 1935). Seemed an appropriate start as this includes a selection for each day of the year. More about this book later.

And yes, for my faithful readers,
4. I promise to blog much more (and more regularly) in 2012.


Like some others, I've chosen a word for 2012. That word is OPPORTUNITY, to remind me to look for those, when things don't go the way I expect. I do hope I won't be drinking only lemonade this year.

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Happy New Year



Here are some New Year's thoughts from Agnes Deans Cameron, one of British Columbia's famous women.

We are men, now, and women, in a world of work. Let us do that work as well as we can, without stopping to ask if we were once slugs or will one day be angels. And have a kind word and a smile for the next one you meet; he too is fighting a hard fight.

Victoria, January 1, 1903.
Published in The Province, Vancouver, Friday, 2 January, 1903, page 12.

Agnes Deans Cameron (1863-1912) was an educator and a journalist - and an adventurer and an activist. Read about her in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.