Follow Friday: Prairie Sanctuaries

This week's follow Friday is Prairie Sanctuaries on Facebook. Photographer Christian Begeman has some pretty neat pictures of little country churches.

https://www.facebook.com/prairiesanctuaries/

Two photos I'm particularly fond of are Lake Campbell Lutheran Church and Sterling United Methodist Church. My family members have attended these churches for many years.


Lake Campbell Lutheran Church

Sterling United Methodist Church

Follow Friday: Hendricks MN; Collignon-Foley Family

Two sites I've been hovering around lately are the Hendricks Minnesota Family Tree Project and the Collingnon-Foley Family Tree.

Hendricks MN Family Tree Project
http://djwinsness.com/hendricks/index.htm
Hendricks MN is home to my Singsaas and Christianson family lines. The Hendricks MN Family Tree Project seeks to connect the families of 31 original settlers of Hendricks. All of the original settlers came from the same town, Singsaas, Norway.  It is believed all 31 were descended from Per Persen Vinsnes (b. 1638).  While my ancestors don't appear to be amongst the original settlers, they were from Singsaas, Norway and eventually ended up in Hendricks.


Collignon-Foley Family Tree
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=kcf&id=I01010
This is my Christianson family line. I've been in contact with cousin Karen Foley in the past, but have lost touch in recent years. When I go looking for Christianson family information, I usually end up looking at Karen's work of art here. Thanks, Karen!

Follow Friday: Portraits are more than a piece of paper

A friend shared the following post on Facebook and I just have to share it with you as well.

A photographer, Jeanine Thurston, received a letter from a former client that decided to cancel a portrait session and spend the several hundred dollars in other frivolous ways.  The client later learned that portraits are more than just pieces of paper.

Here's the letter Jeanine found on her doorstep:

July 2nd, 2011

Jeanine -
Today I am writing for a couple of reasons. I have some quiet time at the moment and need to get a couple of things off my mind. I will leave this for my husband to deliver to you when he is ready.

You photographed my wedding, you photographed my first pregnancy and my first baby. I contacted you awhile back to photograph my 2nd child and family. After getting prices and realizing I would want all of the pictures as we love your work – I decided against spending $500+ – which is what I normally spend for portraits and prints with you.. Please know it is not because I don’t value your amazing eye, or how much we love the experience.

That week that I decided to NOT do a session with you, this is how I spent some money.
On Sunday I called and cancelled our session. Monday I went out and got my hair cut ($39+tip), and colored ($65), Thursday I had my nails done ($24), my family went out to dinner at a somewhat expensive restaurant for no particular reason costing us $79 + tip. This was just 4 days since canceling our session, already totaling over $200 for unnecessary things. My nails only lasted about 2 weeks, my hair is gone, and seven weeks passed when I got the phone call from our doctor. It was not something I expected and the cancer has spread very quickly. I will be leaving my husband, my 6 year old girl and my now 2 year old – not by choice. It is very hard for me to talk about it which is why I need to write you.

I watch your Facebook page and your posts about the value of a photo and if I could give back all of those things that I purchased this few weeks after I cancelled my session with you, knowing what I know now, and have that session, well… I would do it in a heartbeat.
Now my time is done and there are no more chances for me. The next time someone cancels a session – my wish is that you forward this letter to them. Time is fragile, it is gone before you know you had it. If you charged $200 for one print it wouldn’t be enough for what it is actually worth. I cringe to think that my priorities were a manicure over a memory to pass onto my babies and husband.
My love and thanks for what you have given us from past photos. I am so sorry that I did not see it as more than paper until now.

Karen L.

I find this so true.  While digging through all the family photos that you've seen here on the blog and in photo albums, I've seen the faces of family members light up at the memories of those loved ones pictured.  The photos usually bring about some reminiscing, which of course helps with the genealogy!


Thanks go out to Jeanine for sharing this heartfelt letter on her blog over at Fototails Photography.

Follow Friday: It's All Relative

http://livinginthepastlane.blogspot.com/
I stumbled upon the It's All Relative blog over the weekend.  I really like Laura's "Standard Operating Procedure" post.  Now if only I had the time to organize my family files.

Follow Friday: Ancestor Soup, Faces of My Family and 2338 W Washington Blvd

Today's follows were created by the ever-amazing network of Geneabloggers:

1. http://2338wwashingtonblvd.blogspot.com/ and
2. http://thefacesofmyfamily.blogspot.com/ and
3. http://ancestorsoup.blogspot.com/ 

I recently started following the 2338 W. Washington Blvd. blog.  Margel was also given the Ancestor Approved award in early December.  The address used as a blog title is what caught my eye here and thus began my venture through her blog posts, which I've enjoyed reading.  She led me to the Faces of My Family blog with her "Follow Friday. . . Oh Whoops, It's Tuesday" post.

The Faces of My Family blog intrigued me because, afterall, in the electronic media "faces" usually indicates photos exist.  By now I'm sure you've learned that I've amassed quite the collection of family photos.  So I'm always interested in seeing what others have learned about their family photos.  Lisa's recent posts don't have many photos, but they have some fun stories.  She led me to Ancestor Soup via her list of favorite blogs;  "Ancestor Soup" was just a name that jumped out and caught my attention.

The most recent post on Ancestor Soup mentioned Huron, South Dakota.  I got all excited that I'd stumbled upon another genealogist from South Dakota that blogs!  Then after a little reading, I discovered she was actually from Minnesota.  But I think Karen may provide some inspiration and insight that is a little closer to home for me than most of the other genealogy blogs I follow.


... And so the crazy world of social media has led me astray from catching up on my blog reading!  Or maybe it's just given me MORE to read!

Follow Friday: Newspapers Collection on Footnote.com

http://www.footnote.com/page/2539_newspapers_at_footnote/
Footnote.com has an excellent collection of newspapers from small towns.  One of the papers is the Hendricks Pioneer and several members on my mom's paternal line are from the Hendricks, Minnesota area.  Unfortunately, it is subscription based.  I've signed up for a 7 day free trial so I can view several editions though.  I found several articles already this week on Singsaas family members.

Footnote.com also has the WWII diaries available for FREE this month.

Follow Friday: The We Tree Genealogy Blog

http://wetree.blogspot.com/
Amy Coffin over on the We Tree Genealogy Blog has a neat idea, Fun with Search Terms.  This caught my attention, maybe because I deal with data, documents and retreival of the data and documents all day long at work.  Amy takes the time to shed a little light on how users can better find the information their looking for, even when it isn't actually part of her blog.  Thanks for pointing us all in the right direction, Amy! 

On a whim, I decided to look at search querries for my blog ... "geneablog", the one and only search term.  Keeping with Amy's tradition - here is the Geneabloggers site.

Also of note Amy and I share a common (way too common!) name "Mary Smith".  I predict my Mary Smith line will be right near impossible to discover though.  My Mary married a Michael White.  Their daughter then married the son of William Carter and Margaret Miller!  This is my Alonzo Carter and Lorena White family line.

Follow Friday - Be Not Forgot-Quotes and GeneaBlog

Here are a couple Genealogy Blogs I'm following:

http://www.geneabloggers.com/
A blog about genealogy blogging, for the genalogy bloggers, by the genealogy bloggers.  Geez, I wonder how many times I can put genealogy and blog in one sentence!  This site should provide me with lots of good prompts to encourage my blogging habit.

http://benotforgot-quotes.blogspot.com/
I love genealogy and I love quotes.  So this neat little blog is one that I'm sure I'll spend too much time reading.  The writer has devoted an entire blog to quotes pertaining to family and genealogy.