family reunions

  • Ancestry.com

    Nothing like family time

    It’s been a long wonderful week. Last weekend I took our kids to visit family that I hadn’t seen in years. It was a trip I have been planning for a long time, and decided life is too short to put off the most important things in life, being with family.  It was a beautiful drive to Washington from Utah, it took longer than I had planned, but I am glad we got the time with everyone. While we were there we met for the first time a couple of our Great Aunts. One lives only a few hours away, and another who has written about her own Journey through life. About her family and  growing up in Italy, surviving the German occupation, meeting an American soldier that she married and coming to the States. This book is so fascinating, very detailed about births, deaths of family members and the war. We had so much fun visiting with everyone, and the kids loved meeting their cousins. We are already talking about visiting again.  Here are some photos we took on our trip.

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  • review

    Tiny Prints Review and Giveaway

    Recently I was given an opportunity to review and offer my readers a giveaway for 25 Summer Party Invitations from Tinyprints.  Summer is a great time to spend time with family camping, having pool parties, birthday parties, patriotic parties, BBQs, picnics, family reunionsso much excitement.  You can share the excitement with Summer Party Invitations fromTiny Prints.

    The site is very user friendly, and has tons of designs to choose from. One tool that I really enjoyed was the favorite tool. It is simple to use and keep track of your favorites for later review.  As a busy mom of 4, this tool is a lifesaver for me. There are so many beautiful cards to choose from.

     

    And if you are hosting a family reunion then deeply rooted is the perfect invitation to send to family.

    Studio Basics: Party Invitations Deeply Rooted - Front : White

    No matter what fun activity you have planned for the summer rather it be reunions, BBQ, Anniversaries, or birthday parties, there is a perfect card for you. Start with the best sellers and share which one you would love to win in the giveaway.

     
    a Rafflecopter giveaway

    **Disclosure: I will be provided with free product  at no cost from Tiny Prints in order to facilitate this review. The opinions expressed are my own. **

  • family historian

    Who Do You Think you Are?

    Tonight is “Who do you think you are?” Finale, and Family Tree Shop has a great companion bookI wanted to share since it went on sale. Who Do You Think You Are?: Be a Family Tree Detective by Dan Waddell is on sale for 15.99. It includes tips and ideas for interviewing family, looking through treasured photos, letters, and heirlooms. It also has a wonderful section for using the internet for further research. I love the Internet, I have met so many distant relatives that had extra details on my family that I was completely unaware of.

     

    Some of  the other activities to complete in the book are: Creating a keepsake treasure book, creating a  family tree poster, Family research cards, a family crest, a time capsule and a mini-census. With Family reunions around the corner and sites like Facebook, you will have plenty to add to this book. Also Family Tree still has the 10% Code FAMILY10F that is good until December 2012.

    Here is a photo of my Grandma at what at first glace looked like a wedding. It wasn’t though, it was May Crowning that she was part of as a young woman. A tradition many Roman Catholics practiced, and I am glad my Aunt knew what this picture was.


  • family historian, family reunions, family tree, preserving photos

    Sharing Memories, Solving Mysteries

    It’s been a few days since I had the chance to post more on Genealogy.  I had the chance to visit my Aunt and Cousins that live in another State. My Aunt has all the photographs, letters, post cards, and documents that Grandma had saved through the years. My Aunt had found report cards from grade school that were Grandma’s. They were in wonderful condition, and Great Grandma Ula’s signature was still on the back. These were report cards from Grade 3rd to Grade 6th, at St. Mary’s School.

    There didn’t seem to be enough time to go through all the wonderful photographs, read all the letters, and post cards that had been collected through the years. We had found letter from Nancy Ola Akin that she had wrote to my Grandma when she was just starting out as a young mom. I can hardly wait until the scanner is working and we can scan more than I was able to during my visit. They live 10 hours away, so getting there is a challenge at times. Here are a few boxes that we were going through.

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    At 1 AM as we were putting everything away I noticed an envelope from Bubbles- Edna. She has worked very hard on the family tree from the Durbin side and has shared with everyone the same information. Or we thought. We opened it and right away there was the Obituary and copies of old photographs of Fredrick Augustus Durbin. My Grandma’s Grandfather who passed away when she was a couple months old. I had never seen nor was able to find much about Fredrick Augustus Durbin other than he was a Wire Carrier during the turn of the Century. And here was his obituary, photographs, more than I could have hoped to find. 
     
    Fredrick A. Durbin Obituary. I will transcribed and add this later so that everyone can see his story. 

    Photo of Fredrick A. Durbin, with Wife  Mae Augustas Williams Durbin, and son Fredrick R. Durbin. Scrapping these are going to be a lot of fun. Don’t forget My Memory Digital Scrapbooking Giveaway ends on Saturday. I have been using My Memories this week for quick pages.

     

  • family historian, family reunions, family tree, preserving memories, preserving photos, scrapbooking

    My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Giveaway!!!!!- Closed


    I am SO EXCITED to be hosting a giveaway for
            My Memories Digital Scrapbooking!!!!
    I have used My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking in the past, long before I got my current laptop. Still use it occasionally on my Dinosaur desk top that runs Windows 2000, yes OLD! Between my desk top, Laptop, external hard drive, I have over 
    43, 000 photos and still counting. 
    Digital Cameras have added such value to our lives, the instant access to our memories. We can share them everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, Flikr, e-mail instantly with loved ones. Now even our cell phones carry these cute photo moments. What to do with all these photos? They are already in your computer and you don’t have to spend hours cutting, cropping, finding the space to store the photos safe.  My Memories Digital Scrapbooking allows convenience, and has many designs to play with.
    With My Memories Digital Scrapbooking you can make Invitations, Cards, Scrapbooking Pages, Announcements and SO MUCH more!




    My Memories Digital Scrapbooking is giving one of my lucky readers their complete My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Suite for FREE!!!! This software retails for $40! The My Memories Suite Software can use on a PC or Mac. The software has design tools that help you build entire albums effortlessly using one of the many installed templates or designing your own pages from scratch.


    Even though only one of you will win the software for free, all of my other wonderful readers will get a $10 Discount on the software using our promo code STMMMS36408. That is a fantastic deal for the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Suite!



    Here’s how to Enter


    To Enter the Giveaway you MUST follow THIS blog via Google Friend Connect(GFC) on the right. Click the “blue follow” tab on the sidebar. Then share how many family photos you want to preserve. If you’re like me and have a digital camera- there probably are thousands of precious memories. 🙂


    Want Extra Chances to Win?


    Extra Entry 1: Visit My Memories then come back and share with me which digital paper pack was your favorite.


    Extra Entry 2: Share this post on with your friends on Twitter, or Facebook, or Blog- share link here. (3 possible entries)

    Extra Entry 3: Like Dawns Delights on Network Blogs


    Extra Entry 4: Follow My Memories on Twitter.


    Extra Entry 5: “Like” My Memories on Facebook




    It’s all in the Details!


    ~Leave a separate comment for each entry.


    ~Winner will be drawn August 20, 2011 @ 9:00pm MST

    ~ Winner will be drawn through Random.org.


    ~Winner will be announced on August 21, 2011


    ~If I can’t reach you through your GFC email, check back here on Sunday, August 21, 2011. You’ll have 72 hours to claim your prize.




    My Memories is also offering my readers a $10 Discount on their purchase of My Memories Suite v2 Software! Copy and paste the promo code STMMMS36408 in the promotional code field on the shopping cart page. The software also comes with another $10 coupon for Downloads. That’s $20 in Discounts!!!

  • Christmas, family historian, family reunions, family tree, preserving memories, preserving photos

    Editing your Photographs.

    It is so important to select the right photo editing software program to preserve your most treasured family memories. Rather you are editing photographs, old family videos on those VHS tapes. That are in the back of the closet waiting to be watched, memories of get together, reunions. With Serif you can work with a user friendly software to preserve those precious memories.

    This past Christmas I got the Serif PhotoPlus X3, I was a little intimidated at first. I have tons of software programs, and get lost with complicated features.

    Here is the first photograph I worked with, it wasn’t of family but of a road I travel down. The trees along that road are amazing and there was a deep fog that morning. With the editing I removed the street light and brightened it. There is another not so good fuzzy photo on the same day. Taking photos of fog is a challenging task, so I was happy with the second picture. Especially after I had edited it through Serif.

    Serif doesn’t limited to photo editing software, but has a variety of software available for every need.

    They offer WebPlus-Professional Quality Websites Made Easy, Movie Plus-High Definition Video editing, PagePlus-Professional Desktop Publishing, PhotoPlus-Powerful Digital Photo Editing, DrawPlus-powerful Drawing and Graphics, Webplue Essentials-the fun, fast & easy website builder, and many more to meet your everyday need. You could build a family sharing website, share documents from other family far away. Design those amazing family reunion invitations. The creativity is limitless.

    I am sharing the Youtube.com video from Serif, I am really glad that my family thought of this wonderful gift for me last Christmas.


    image: PagePlus X5

  • family reunions, preserving photos, Snapfish

    Digital storage

    There are many different sites to store your downloaded photos safety, but the one I have been doing business with since 2002, when I got my first digital camera, has been Snapfish.com by HP I absolutely am so happy with the customer service and with the quality of photos. Sure I have tried other new photo places, only to be disappointed, feel left down and totally unsatisfied with the quality of my photos. I always come back to Snapfish because their prices are great and their customer service reflects their dedication to their customers. 


    I was really excited to get their newest updated specials for customers and wanted to share with everyone their latest offer. Summer is coming to a close, family reunion photos need to be printed, perfect time for getting all these lovely memories organized. 








    Snapfish.com

    Free Shipping on $20+ Code: SUMMERFS20 8/1 -8/31

  • family reunions

    Hellman’s Sandwich Contest

    Aunt Theresa, Grandma, AJ, and I Christmas 2002

    Grandma, Cali, and I sitting at the table in 1983

    My Grandma loved making sandwiches for us all the time. It was a quick meal, and living in the Hot Southwest a blessing not to heat up the house cooking a meal. Sandwich making is still a tradition for us, and our family loves dressings on our sandwiches. No matter what type of sandwich, we always have a dressing on our sandwich. One of our favorites is Hellmann’s Dressing.

    Recently as a Mom’s Select Member I was contacted to help announce that Chef Bobby Flay has teamed up with Hellmann’s to encourage sandwich lovers everywhere to share their favorite sandwiches. With the Hellmann’s build your perfect Sandwich Sweepstakes, you can enter to win a $5000.00 Grocery Gift Card. Contest ends on August 15, 2011.


    You can enter in their contest on Hellmann’s Facebook page, 

    “Disclosure: I was entered for a chance to win a Hellmann’s® prize package in exchange for this post. No monetary exchange took place.”

  • family historian, family reunions, family tree, Genealogy, preserving photos

    101 Brick Wall Busters Part 2

    Grandma Ola, Aunt Lovella, and AJ at Aunt Lovella’s home in Corona, NM

    This was a common sight when visiting my Aunt Lovella. Many a day we sat around this table sharing photos, stories, documents. I was always amazed by all the documents she had. She had dedicated all her life in being the Family Historian, listening to stories, gathering documents and keeping photographs. 

    Nancy Ola and Gip Akin with their two eldest children Joy and Roy Akin
    Returning to the Brick Wall Busters, the next three steps will really help you. 
    4. Identify your Sources, make a list of sources that you could find the information you need. Not only is family a great source for records, especially if family was born prior to record keeping, but Churches are wonderful places to search. Long before states started collecting data and information, Churches were the record keepers of births and deaths. Local Newspapers, censuses, naturalization papers, are great places to look. The Family History Library Catalog is a wonderful tool.
    5. When you cant find the information needed online, and there are lots of records still being digitized. Expand your search, try different spellings of your ancestors names. On one census my Great Grandma was listed as Carla, instead of Ula. The location, parents, siblings all matched except her name. On the same census report her Mom was listed as Old N. Akin instead of Nancy Ola. Names got reversed, comparing with other information on these reports will help confirm the lineage. 
    6. Research those who lived and were part of your family. Many multiple families lived together during those times and may have served as witnesses to their lives. Land deeds, tax records, the paper trails in communities can also help verify family members. 
    Maggie Coffee Randell sister to Nancy Ola Akin