Happy 3rd Anniversary to Me!

Tangled Roots and Trees is three years old today! I started the blog as a way to tell stories to my Dad to let him know that his love of genealogy and the research he did for many years continues. The audience has expanded a bit since then and I still enjoy telling family stories.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

I define "ancestor" more broadly than most and will write about my own and those who belong to my sisters-in-law, nieces-in-law and cousins. I most frequently write about these families:

Created using Tagxedo.com

The most popular posts I wrote in 2015 were:

1. (Guest Blog) A Star in Heaven: Chelsea Ann Tucker (1989-2015)
2. Introducing the Slave Name Roll Project
3. Social Security Applications and Claims Index
4. Slaves of Harvey Claytor (1800-1871) of Franklin County, Virginia
5. Cecelia's Big Secret?
6. Last of the Covered Wagons: Duck and Cover
7. The Onion Layers that Were Cecelia Dagutis
8. In Celebration of Black History Month (or More DNA Discoveries)
9. Professor Frederick Speece's Will
10. Discovering My Local Family History Center

Perhaps, selfishly, the biggest news of the year was that I retired. (I'm Retired!) I now get to spend about 4 hours almost every day researching and writing about my extended family tree. I am also able to fulfill a promise I made to my mother before she died -- volunteer work, which I do with my DAR chapter. I also read to senior citizens in a couple of nursing homes.

In late 2014 I started what turned out to be an ambitious project -- a book about the descendants of Robert Muir (c1800-1869), my three times great grandfather and the one line on my father's side, he could not research very well as his great grandfather, James Muir, Robert's son, immigrated to the U.S. from Scotland in 1887. Dad did not have access to Scottish records at the time he was able to conduct his research. I promised I would write a book for him. That promise turned out to be a 8-volume opus! Two volumes are completed and available for download and I am now working on Volume VII: Descendants of James Muir (1848-1926). Only five more to go!

Covers of the Descendants of Robert Muir (c1800-1869)

The books and associated genealogy reports, including source citations, are available for download at: Robert Muir Family Blog/Books.

I also wrote a month-long series about the 19th Virginia Infantry regiment which fought for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. My great grandfather, Charles Edward Jennings, his brother, and three of his first cousins fought with the regiment. I am condensing the series now into an article for a magazine to be published later this year. You may find the series under the Civil War heading on my War Stories page.

On Veterans Day 2014 I began contributing to Heather Wilkinson Rojo's Honor Roll Project, which is an effort to photograph and transcribe the names of men and women who served in their country's armed forces in times of war so the names will be indexed by Internet search engines. I continued participating in 2015 and have several photographs and names to share for Memorial Day this year.

During Black History Month in February 2015, I began the Slave Name Roll Project, with five contributions. The objective is to record information about named slaves whenever and where ever they may be found so that African-American genealogists and family historians may break through the wall beyond the 1870 census. Documents such was wills and other probate records, bills of sale, court cases and newspaper advertisements for run-away slaves are often rich sources of information. Today, the project has over 310 contributions and continues to grow. If you have found a named slave in your research, I hope you will consider contributing.