Climbing My Family Tree

I always love the New Year.  New beginnings.  A fresh start.  Out with the old.

And while I didn’t set any resolutions, I did make some goals.  I already posted my genealogy goals here.

I have a few personal ones too – one of which is to participate in the Bataan Memorial Death March this coming March at White Sands, NM.  I’m not doing the full march of 26.2 miles – I just don’t have enough time to get myself into that kind of shape.  I am, however, doing the “honorary” march of 15.2 miles.  Still not a walk in the park, but I think it will be doable for me.

So, what am I doing when I have a free moment now?  Walking and walking.

If there is someway to do genealogy research while out on the walking path, I’d like to hear it!  I have some podcasts on my iPod that I can listen to, but I think that’s about as far as I can get with that.

The plus is that when I get home from walking 6 or 8 miles, I just want to sit on the couch for a while.  And while I’m sitting on my couch I CAN do genealogy.  So, maybe I’ll have some extra time for it after all! 🙂

I’m interested in hearing if any of you have every done the Bataan Memorial March before.  Or even more if you have a relative that was in the actual Bataan Death March!!

And on to this week’s favorite finds.

• Susan at Climbing the Branches of My Family Tree wrote a nice post abut the packet ship Gladiator.
• From Here to There and Back Again at Collecting dead relatives….and live cousins! is a good read.  I love old letters.
• The 113th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is up over at Creative Gene.  The theme was “A Dickens Christmas”.  The next edition is the 5th Annual iGene Awards – the deadline is February 1st.
• ICAPGen Mentoring Class videos are available for free online here.  They cover topics from citing sources, evidence analysis, writing reports and more.
• Tonight’s edition of GeneaBloggers Radio is all about our 2012 New Year’s Resolutions!!
• Karen shared a tragic story of a fire over at Genealogy Frame of Mind.
• Cherie of Have You Seen My Roots?  shared her two cents about everyone’s complaints regarding WDYTYA.  I agree!
• She also had a wonderful post about her time as an Army Drill Sergeant.  Did you know that she and my husband served as Drill Sergeants together at the Defense Language Institute?  (And Cherie and I actually served together in San Antonio before that!)
• Ok, one more from Cherie (you’re on a roll this week!).  She found a newspaper article about an unrelated family that she just had to share.  Can you imagine actually getting married to someone at your wife’s funeral????
• Michelle Goodrum of The Turning of Generations posted the first of her weekly series “The 21st Century Organized Family Historian”.  It is about those greeting cards I’m sure all of us still have sitting around the house.
• The Legal Genealogist Takes Flight!  The Legal Genealogist is a great new blog, about “Genealogy, the law, and so much more”.  Add it to your reader.
• Marian Pierre-Louis has a new genealogy newsletter that will be coming out later this month.  Sign up here if you’d like to receive it.
• Heather Rojo, of Nutfield Genealogy, found out that she is a Swamp Yankee!

And, as always, a few pictures from this past week…

We went on a hike to Aztec Caves in the Franklin Mountains State Park here in El Paso.  It was only 1.5 miles round trip, but with 5 kids, a steep incline, and a bunch of icy spots near the top of the path, it felt like much farther!  And I”m telling you – going down was SOOOO much harder than going up.

We made it though!And if you want to know the story behind this bizarre photo, you’ll have to read this post on my other blog. 🙂