Beyond Fiction

I thought long and hard about whether to contribute anything to The Carnival of Genealogy this time around. It’s not that I don’t want to, believe me I enjoy contributing and enjoy reading and promoting The Carnival of Genealogy! The main reason I didn’t want to contribute is because I thought there really wasn’t anything to write about.I couldn’t think of anything to write about. No offense is meant by this but my mother wasn’t really that smart!

Now hold on, don’t start casting stones at me yet! I want you all to understand one thing, I love my mother and nothing will ever change that. I have no intentions of wanting to hurt her or belittle her but she would tell you the same thing! I thought I could just write about my aunt who went back to school and got her diploma when she was in her sixties but if I did, how would that make my mother feel?

Well, I guess I really don’t have anything to worry about because I don’t really think anyone in my family reads my blog!

So, let me just explain my statements and that will be my posting for this carnival!

My mother was born in 1934, the sixth child of eight. Her mother died in 1940, just before my mom turned 6. She was pretty much raised by her older sisters and you can just imagine how that was. Her oldest sister, the aunt I spoke of earlier, had been married for about 4 months and was pregnant at the time of their mother’s death. Her other two sisters were 15 and 13! In other words, she never really got to experience having a mother. I believe that is part of the reason that she never really tried to attain much.

As far as I know, my mother never graduated high school. I honestly don’t even know if she attended high school. She doesn’t really talk to much about her early life and her oldest sister really just recalls a very tough and troubled childhood for my mom. Whatever the case, she never finished school, never really held a job that I know of. She did drive for a while when she was younger but was stopped in Oklahoma when she was about 20 and, whatever happened scared her enough that she never drove again!

My mom never went too many places. She didn’t read a lot. She just loved to sit at home, watch TV, listen to her Country & Western albums, and that was that.

Does that mean my mom was not smart? No! It means that she had a lot of things buried inside of her and never chose to get any help. Perhaps she was never able to get the help she needed or perhaps she was afraid to ask. There are a lot of buried secrets in my mother’s head. I will never know any of them and neither will any of my siblings. I do know that, in her own way, she was as good a mom as she could be! After all, she had no first-hand experience at mothering. She had no points of reference. She just did what she had experienced all her life!

In her own way, my mother is smarter than some give her credit for! She is tougher than most folks give her credit for. She never had a lot to work with but she managed to make sure that there was food in the house. She managed to make sure we had shoes and clothes! She managed to care for us and nurture us in the best way she could. My dad was not very giving of his money so there had to be some smarts for mom to make things run smoothly at home! I don’t really know what she did with my older siblings because they never really have much to say. I can say that she knew the value of education and did encourage me to do well in school. She took the time to color with me! I remember when I was in my young teenage years and would still sit down with my mother and color with her, just so we could spend time together.

Deep down, I believe my mother had so many talents she could have shared but there was never anyone ready to take the time to let her share them. Now, at age 74 there is no longer any reason to try and share them. I’ve posted one of her poems. I’ve seen her eyes light up at the sound of my brother singing a song he had written. I know there was and still is a longing to share. I just think she gave up on trying a long time ago.

Sometimes, things unsaid say more than those that are said!

I have seen through the years that my mother has talents to share. The problem is that noone has ever taken the time to let her share them! Now, she no longer has any desire for that. The one person she leaned on throughout her life left her in April of 2000. I believe now she just waits for the time she can finally join him again. He’s the one person who truly understood her and knew just how smart she really was.

Is this a bad judgement on my siblings and myself? I stand today and plead “Guilty!” When I was at home, my mother and I had a great relationship and it was my ignorance that caused me to leave home earlier than I should have. If I had stayed and continued that relationship perhaps I would have been able to help her to come out of whatever shell she was in. I chose to spend my time living it up and travelling around. When I settled down and married and had children of my own, I could see how much love she had for them and I believe she has soaked up the love they have for her.

Smart? I don’t know that she is book smart or street smart. I simply believe she is smart enough to be a survivor! I believe she is a lot smarter than any of her children give her credit for! Shame on me for thinking otherwise!

OK, I don’t want to speak too soon but I believe I am finally starting to get the hang of this.

I’ve finally got the wiki language down enough to where I can edit a page without having to reference the help section! I’ve discovered how to edit the main navigation panels on the left hand side, although at this time I have left them at the default because I’m really not sure how I want them to look.

Tonight, I have finally figured out how to change the colors of the wiki to actually fit in with my web site. So, for those who frequent my web site, they now can have the same color scheme when they go to my wiki. Well, I still need to figure out one thing but I have got most of it working.  I think it just helps to integrate it into my site! (That one thing is changing the colors of the frame around my pictures. I’m sure I will get it eventually!)

I’m not a master of wiki yet but I am learning and that is a good thing. I’ve always told my friends who think I am some kind of computer expert that I only know what I have taught myself because I needed to know it. I don’t always have the answers but they are usually able to be found somewhere!

I hope nobody is bored with this. I just enjoy sharing my learning experiences with everyone!

I’m happy to announce that there is a new carnival in town! The first edtion of the I Smile For The Camera carnival is now online. I’ve been slowly going through the 22 entries and it is awesome!

I am so thankful to footnoteMaven for hosting this carnival. I promise you won’t be disappointed if you go visit today!

I encourage you to think of contributing your own posts to the carnival in the next edition! You can find out more when you visit this month’s edition!

Have a great week everyone!

I know I usually just write about my family research and such but today I wanted to let everyone in on a script that I have found very useful for my web site. I really don’t know if it could be incorporated into a blog or not but I’m sure if it could you all would find a way.

The script I am talking about is Huggins’ Email Form Script. In its normal state it is basically just that, an email script. The script I am using is one that has been converted so that it results in a Family Group Sheet Form. I’m not sure where I picked it up from but if anyone knows, please inform me so I can give them credit.

I have found this script and form to be so very useful. I’ve had several cousins hook up with me through my site and send me their info via this form. You can see it in action here. I won’t fret if anyone decides to try it and accidentally sends me something. It wouldn’t be the first time.

I hope that someone finds this useful. I know it is something I was very glad to find and that has been very useful for me.

Have a great weekend everyone!

(Click On Image For Larger View)

This is the first picture that popped into my mind when I read about Smile For The Camera. I know it’s not that old but it is just so neat being able to see how close my son and his mother are! If you look at his eye, he had just fell and struck his eye on the edge of the fireplace. We were very lucky that he didn’t lose an eye!

I just love the way that his mother was able to take him, hold him close and everything was just so much better. There definitely is something about a mother’s love, isn’t there?

I’m so glad to be able to contribute to the inaugural issue of Smile For The Camera! I hope to try to be a regular if at all possible. Thanks so much for making this opportunity available for us, footnoteMaven!

OK, I just have to post this one. I know I don’t have many readers and that there are many genealogy bloggers out there with blogs that are so much better than mine. So, why do I even bother to do this?

Listen, as I stated in an earlier post, I am not about stats. I must admit that there was a time when I became caught up in wanting to be bigger than I should be, but that is not why I started this blog. When I created my blog it was mainly as a way to keep my family and my website visitors updated on how my genealogy research is going. That, in itself, should be enough to provide some very interesting articles!

So, let me just set the record straight for the one or two readers that I have. I am not the greatest genea-blogger ever, nor will I ever be. I will not post articles about the fight between the Catholics and Mormons, about why Ancestry.com is so bad or about the latest genealogy conference. Why? Because that is not my niche! There are many blogs dedicated to just that cause! Many of them are in my account at Bloglines and I read them often!

Going forward, as I have been trying to do recently, my posts will be about my attempts at growing in to the researcher that I want to be! I will relate the tools that I am using to make my website more interactive, I will share obituaries and biographies of family members and will share what I find useful in my research. That may mean that I will occasionally mention a new database, such as an article I recently posted on the Family Search Labs site. I will also continue to try to contribute to the Carnival of Genealogy and I would like to try to contribute to some of the other great carnivals out there.

This is not meant as a hateful post. I never try to run off visitors. I just want to try and relate to my few visitors what they should expect from here. With that being said, I am now ready to get on with things. Don’t ask what prompted this post because I really don’t know!

Going forward, I hope that you will read this blog with the idea that it is a blog outlining my family history research. That will include what I have found, what tools I use, and how I have found them. It will also include occasional asides about other topics. Yes, I may occasionally post an article about my opinion on some new software or free site, but that will only be done in the spirit of sharing how it has helped or not helped me.

Thanks to all my visitors for their support in the last 14 months! I really appreciate all of my fellow genea-bloggers and wish them all the best and will continue to try to support and promote their sites as often as possible.

Have a great day everyone!

OK, I knew that there was a new version of WordPress available but I am one of those folks who hates to have to upgrade something. Most of the time the updates are to fix something important or improve the program. There are some times though that the upgrade is simply nonsense. Just look at Windows Vista! I’m glad I am still with XP!

Anyways, on to the topic of discussion. I was afraid to upgrade because I didn’t know what problems I would run in to. However, today I ran across a new plug-in for WordPress that will automatically upgrade your blog for you! Yes, again, I was skeptical but I was pleasantly surprised! The plug-in worked like a charm and now I have the latest version of WordPress! It was all so very painless!

So, if you are using WordPress and have held off upgrading for whatever reason, you should try this new plugin! You can get it here. Just be sure to follow the instructions and download the backups that it provides, just in case!

Now I just have to get used to the new look of the dashboard! I believe it will be alright though!

Have a great day everyone!

OK, I can’t hold my excitement any longer!

I want to offer you all a chance to see how my wiki is looking. Understand that I am still very much in the infant stages but you should be able to see just how I hope it will work. There isn’t a lot of info but there is enough to see just how smooth it could flow as you go through some of the pages.

I am linking to my father’s page on my wiki. There isn’t much info but there is enough. My main focus for you is to see how easily you can navigate to each page and pay attention to how I was able to create a page for the cemetery my father is buried in and tell a little about it and how many of our family members are buried there.

I still have such a long way to go but I have made such great progress in the last few days that I thought I would share some of it with you all.

So, tell me what you think and feel free to offer any suggestions. I haven’t made it public to anyone yet (until now) but I am still fiddling with how I want it to look.

Here’s the link: David Isaac Spangler

I just wanted to take a moment to mention a new blog that I discovered last night. I believe it will be a very nice place to frequent.

The Moultrie Creek Online Historical Society is authored by Denise Olsen of Family Matters and will have a group of contributing authors to help folks in many ways. This is her description of her site:

Moultrie Creek Online Historical Society is a fictional organization. It’s only purpose is to demonstrate how associations such as local historical societies, genealogical societies and family or veteran associations can take advantage of free and low-cost online services to support their membership.

I am excited to see what this site will offer. I am always on the lookout for ways to not only make my research easier but to also make my website and blog more user-friendly and interactive.

Make sure to check out this new blog and support Denise in her efforts to help out others! I know there are quite a few talented authors who could contribute to this effort. I will have to say that I know I’m not one of them but I do marvel at the talent that is available in this genea-blogosphere! (Is that a word?)

Have a great day everyone!

Well, it’s time for another quick update about my wiki. I have made a lot of progress lately but, as can be imagined, I still have so far to go!

Today, I played around with some of the format of my surname pages. I’m currently working on the Spangler surname page and it is starting to look a little better. I’ve finally figured out how to make an external link and still have it say what I want it to! I’ve created several pages of family members and have played around with different options to see how they would look.

I also learned today how to make sure that anyone who wants to post or edit a page will have to register in order to do so. I thought about it long and hard and realized that there is a lot of opportunity for mischief if I left it all up to the honor system. I have made it so that you have to register, confirm your email and then you can have access to the site and can edit and such. Of course, as administrator I can still enforce stricter sanctions if abuse occurs.

All in all I am really happy with what I see. I believe this will be just what I need to make my site a little more interactive for all my visitors.