Happy Thanksgiving 2021!  By now, you hopefully have enjoyed a day with family and friends and perhaps some shopping for those holiday deals.  I hope that you've had time to pause and give thanks for the many blessings and have captured stories and memories to treasure.

In past blogs we’ve discussed the need to look beyond our direct ancestors and explore their siblings and other relatives. I have been doing that recently with my great grandmother’s siblings who moved to Paris from Luxembourg. Let’s look at how maps are helping my research.

Happy Veteran’s Day! I hope you were able to thank a veteran. It is important for us to honor and remember our veterans and all the sacrifices that they made. Whether they served during war or peace times, they essentially gave up years of their life to keep all of us safe. Those were years that they were away from family, unable to pursue career goals or continue their education. Our ancestors include veterans from different time periods. Their service may have been voluntary or through the draft. They may have been stationed in the United States or abroad. Let’s look at ways to find their records.

​Are you having success in writing your family history? As we gather more information, it does become challenging to incorporate those facts in the stories that our relatives and descendants will find interesting. Speaking for myself, I have discovered (rediscovered) interesting tidbits as I continue to update my source information and scan those random notes and papers that we genealogist accumulate. This week let’s look at some writing tools and resources to help us write our story.