Happy Anniversary to Me!

Today is the one-year anniversary of this blog, Tangled Roots and Trees and my genealogy Facebook page of the same name. When I started, I wasn't sure I had that many stories to tell about my family's history but it turns out I did. And plenty of ideas for more stories and interesting tidbits of family lore and old photos.

During the past year, these posts have been the most popular:

1. Family Values -- 16 Sep 2013: About my great great uncle's brother-in-law, William Rolfe Kelley and his partner, Dinah Rush, a former slave.
2. Guest Blog: What's in a Name? -- 8 Jan 2014: About how naming your children after ancestors can occasionally go awry.
3. Trip Around the World: New York to Egypt -- 6 Sep 2013: About my aunt's family's trip to British East Africa in 1920.
4. Polio -- The Summer Scourge -- 9 Jul 2013: We always thought my paternal grandfather contracted polio as young child and that's why one leg was shorter than the other. However, his half brother claimed that was caused by measles on the application to commit my grandfather to an orphanage.
5. Honoring a Union Ancestor on Labor Day -- 2 Sep 2013: About my sister-in-law's grand uncle, president of United Rubber Workers of America Local #45.
6. A Surprise in My Inbox: Ternes Family Photograph -- 5 Sep 2013: About how I received a photograph about which Edith Mary Madeline (Ternes) Reynolds described in a voice recording she sent to another relative interested in genealogy.
7. Norman Baker -- Quack, Killer and All Around Scum -- 8 Feb 2013: About the Baker cancer hospital in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Jonathan Hiller's wife died there in 1938.
8. Dicken's Bleak House Is about My Family -- 25 Feb 2013: Discovering the Jarndyce v Jarndyce case in Bleak House is about the Jennings inheritance "frenzy."
9. It's Ternes Time…Again -- 31 Jul 2013: About why Christian Ternes went to Panama and his life and death in that country.
10. Trip Around the World: Egypt to Kenya -- 9 Sep 2013: About my aunt's family's trip to British East Africa in 1920.

I've been fortunate to "meet," usually virtually, with some wonderfully generous people who have been willing to share what they know about our common ancestors. Many of these stories are theirs.

Your Family Tree magazine, December 2013, Issue 136

This blog and other social media activity led to having an article published in Your Family Tree magazine, December 2013 issue, and a request for another article to be published sometime in 2014.

I hope you've enjoyed reading some of the posts as much as I've enjoyed researching and writing them. Roll on year two!