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Blast from the Past: A Patriotic Tintype and New App

Since tomorrow is Independence Day here in the U.S., I thought about posting a list of where you can research your revolutionary war soldiers, but everyone else is doing that! And besides you should be enjoying the day with the most important family members if at all possible: your current family!

So here’s a fun Blast from the Past of a little patriotic tintype I came across back in 2009. Enjoy!:

Last week my oldest daughter Vienna and I were going to spend the day together as we usually do each week. But rather than watch a vintage Bette Davis movie, it occurred to me that we hadn’t been antiquing in ages. So I hit the Internet, found a little seaside town nearby with a nice assortment of antique shops and a lovely little Victorian Tea House where we could lunch, and off we went – a pair of mischievous adventurers.

Among the treasures I snagged that day was this little 2 x 3″ tintype. I fell in love with the facials expressions, and jovial attire…and the American flag draped above them sealed the deal.

The scanned image actually looks better than the original which is quite dark and very small. The more I examined it with a magnifying glass the more I felt the fun these young folks were having the day this pic was snapped, and pretty soon I had an itch to have some fun with the photo.  And here are the results:


A merry troupe of turn of the century young people, pleasing in pink, purple and teal.

Of course I have no idea what colors they were really wearing that day. But I imagine that they were the types to have appreciated a bit of tinkering with some old tin.

UPDATE: If you love your iPad like I do, check out the free Color Splash app. It allows you to convert your photos to B&W and then tint with a splash of color as you like.

Happy tinting, and Happy 4th of July!
Lisa

How Common Was My Ancestor’s Name? Most Popular Baby Names By Decade

Edna Selby, about age 4. Taken about 1873.

Baby names are trendy things. Sure, there are a few standbys in every culture–like William and John in English–but popular baby names come and go. In fact, sometimes you can guess about how old someone is today based on their name (think Josh, Mildred or Shirley).

Popular Baby Names by Decade can help you decide whether your great-grandma Beulah or great-uncle Earl’s names were unusual for their time or a whim of the generation (Earl ranked 21st in 1890 and Beulah ranked 78th).

The site has lists of the most common names in the U.S. census back to the 1880s. You’ll also find a master list of THE most popular baby names during the last 100 years. No surprise: in the U.S., James, John, Robert, Michael and William top the boys’ to buy medication online charts. But I was a little surprised at the most popular women’s names. Click here to see what they are.

Was your ancestor an ethnic minority whose name may have only been popular in their neighborhood or where lots of other Irish, African-Americans or others lived? You can also search for the most popular names within a particular state.

Take a look and think about how your own family falls in. My parents weren’t following the crowd when they named me Sunny, that’s for sure. But my grandmother was a trendy gal: all 7 of her living children’s names hit the top 15 in the 1940s! And in Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 78 Lisa has talked about not only the popularity of her first name, but the soap opera star that made Lisa #1 in the early 1960s!

Genealogy Education Can Be a “GRIPping” Experience

GRIP logo captureHello from Genealogy Gems Contributing Editor Sunny McClellan Morton. I’m still flying high after a week just spent at GRIP, the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh. This was like mini-graduate school for genealogists, complete with a lush green campus in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania; immediate access to legendary instructors; rigorous coursework that’s exactly what I want to learn; a great genealogy bookstore; and plenty of after-hours socializing.

While I was there, GRIP announced an exciting lineup for 2014 (it’s not even on their website yet). Here are the topics and instructors:

  • Finding and Documenting African-American Families with J. Mark Lowe, CG, and Deborah Abbott, PhD.
  • Practical Genetic Genealogy with Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, CGL, CeCe Moore and Blaine Bettinger, PhD, JD.
  • Law School for Genealogists with Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL and Richard G. “Rick” Sayre, CG, CGL.
  • Becoming an Online Expert: Mastering Search Engines and Digital Archives with D. Joshua Taylor, MA, MLS.
  • Determining Kinship Reliably with the Genealogical Proof Standard with Thomas W. Jones, PhD.
  • Intermediate Genealogy: Tools for Digging Deeper with Paula Stuart-Warren, CG, FMGS, FUGA.

All those initials after these instructors’ names means tons of expertise is poured into every GRIP experience, and if you know any of these folks you know there’s not a “boring professor” among them!

If you’re ready for seriously advanced genealogy education, check out GRIP or other learning experiences like it. In the United States, I know about SLIG in Salt Lake City, IGHR at Samford University in Birmingham, and NIGR at the National Archives. There are also more flexible (but still demanding) options like ProGen Study Groups, Boston University’s Genealogical Research Programs and the National Genealogical Society’s American Genealogy Home Study course.

Don’t forget to check out programs and conferences offered by your own state, regional and local genealogical societies. They usually offer a variety of topics for beginners to more advanced students–and they’ll be closer to home and less expensive. Our own Genealogy Gems premium memberships offers a fabulous genealogy education for a fabulous price: in addition to premium podcast episodes, you also get a new, full-length video tutorial every MONTH to watch whenever you like, along with unlimited access to all previous full-length video tutorials. Check out our list of Premium Videos here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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