Thursday, May 28, 2009

You Can't Go Home Again

Or can you? I was doing a Google Search on "1963 Obituaries Niagara Falls NY" in search of my maternal Grandfather James O'Rourke's date of death. I do not know when he died, just that he died the year before I was born (yes, I did just give away my age). As often happens when I research, I took a detour and clicked on my hometown newspaper to read the headlines, to see if any names I knew made the news.

I did not find the obituaries I was seeking, but did find an interesting article about an upcoming Niagara Falls Event "Niagara Homecoming 'Citybration". The event aims at bringing former residents home for at least a 4-day weekend if not to relocate "home". It is complete with tours, wine tastings, and job fairs. It is scheduled for the weekend of June 25.

From the article I learned that the Mayor of Niagara Falls, NY is Paul Dyster. I'd be willing to bet that he is a descendant of or collateral descendant of Melvin B. Dyster M.D., who was my and my brothers' pediatrician. Interesting. Also interesting was that the majority of Niagaran place names in the article are places/names I'd never heard of, making it obvious that places, as well as people, change.

One thing about Niagara Falls that will never change is the fact that it was the place of my birth and the site of a very happy childhood. I truly wish I could go to the "Citybration" next month. This city famous for such wonderful notions as honeymooners and such horror story truths as The Love Canal will always be "My Hometown".

(photo credit: http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/00/12/4b/fa/niagara-falls.jpg)

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Saturday Night Fun: Bumper Stickers

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings has another great edition of Saturday Night Fun going! Finally I have time to actually participate! Here are the rules:

1) Make up a/some Bumper Sticker(s) that describes your genealogy addicti.., er, passion in 12 words or less. You could recite some of your favorite tag lines like those found here or here. Or you could be very creative and make up your own!

2) Post them to your blog or to comments on this post.

3) Extra credit if you make them look like a real bumper sticker!

I had some fun with this one! If my house wasn't such a disaster area I'd make more, but here are the ones I came up with:
I hope I made footnoteMaven proud with that one! Finally, the motto on my genealogy blogs fits this bill quite nicely:

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Award Time

Wow. Kathryn Doyle of The California Genealogical Society and Library Blog honored me with the One Lovely Blog Award! It's so nice to know that people still read my blogs even when I'm unable to post as often as I'd like. Including time to respond to her award :/. However, sometimes it really is better late than never, so Kathryn, I thank you and bequeath this award to the following:

Dana Huff at Our Family History
Brian at Zalewski Famiily Genealogy
Bob Franks at Itawamba History Review: The Itawamba Historical Society Web Log

Enjoy and thanks, Kathryn!