Tuesday's Tip - how did you spend your Memorial Day?
This week for our Tuesday's Tip is when I ask the follow-up question - how did you spend your Memorial Day? Did you take any of my suggestions from last week?
Did you take a look at your Legacy database and find out whether you have any military personnel who served and died in our country's conflicts? It you found any, did you start putting their story together with documents and memories?
Did you visit a local cemetery to honor your own or others' family members with a few moments of quiet reflection?
Did you take part in the Honor Roll project run by Heather Wilkinson Rojo and photograph and transcribe a war memorial?
Did you watch the PBS special Memorial Day concert from Washington, D.C. and give some thought to the sacrifices we ask of our military personnel?
Did you fly the flag at half mast until noon and then raise it up to honor our military and remind passersby that this was a solemn federal holiday?
Did you think to yourself during the day - we need to honor our military not only this day but every day by remembering the living (our current military personnel and their families) and making sure we honor our commitment to them as they are honoring their commitment to our country?
For my part, I went to the Willamette National Cemetery and photographed the Oregon Korean War Veterans' Memorial. Then I transcribed the 278 names and placed it on my blog The Keough Corner (and sent the link to Heather so she could add it to the ongoing project). I don't have a connection to the Memorial nor do I know of any family members who lost their lives serving in the military - and it did not matter.
I have to say that getting outside your own personal family history and making a contribution to our global family history is important. Whether that is indexing for your local, state or online societies or associations, choosing a cemetery to photograph and index, indexing with a newspaper project, indexing for FamilySearch.org (I choose them as they are free for all to use), or sharing your stories in a blog or at your website - please get your family history data and stories out there - share with the genealogy community.
This week's Tuesday's Tip - go beyond yourself (I know many of you do - so a huge thank you!). You will feel good about yourself and your contribution might just be the information someone else has been looking for.
I participated in Heather Wilkinson Rojo's ongoing project as well, this was not my first submission, I think I may have 3 or 4 on the list. I have several more I can submit. It is a great project.
ReplyDeleteVolunteerism in genealogy - - where would your research be without it???
Mine would not be where it is today, I am SURE of that!
I completely agree Carol Stevens and I enjoyed the project so much I think I will try to do it on a regular basis. I am paying it forward to all those who indexed before I even thought about doing genealogy.
ReplyDeleteUnfortinatly I had to work a 18 hr day
ReplyDeletesee my separate post.
ReplyDeleteDavid - working an 18 hour day sounds illegal (unless you are the boss and/or working for yourself). The good news is that our national cemeteries are open most days and we can work on this type of project any day.
ReplyDeleteI did visit two Veteran Memorials that has my dad's name on them. One of them was dedicated just last Saturday. Wish they would let me post photos with this post. Visited the graves of my parents, grandparents, two sets of great grandparents, a set of gr gr grandparents, a gr gr grandmother and numerous uncles, aunts, etc. No time for Legacy on Memorial Day. I should mention I didn't leave the county where I live.
ReplyDeleteI would love it if you would post in a new post and share your photos - no worries as I am sure you are going to add to your Legacy database about those memorials at some point - it is important to visit those places. Please feel free to share Marla Larson
ReplyDeleteTessa, my 2nd cousin's uncle, Hugh Paxton, is a Korean war veteran and is buried there.
ReplyDeleteOnly had time to visit my parents and my in-law's graves, and my husband's grandmother's grave. My dad was a veteran of both WWII and the Korean war, placed a flag with the flowers we left. The parents/inlaws are at Skyline Memorial Gardens in Portland, the grandmother-in-law is at Rose City Cemetery. Took pictures, too.
Great Alice Allen - wow a vet from two wars, what service.
ReplyDeleteI only know a few of the cemeteries in Portland, OR (some of my family live there). More familiar with some in Seattle and the Washington, DC area.
We were at my dad's house in Ky having a memorial for my sister-in-law who died recently. On the way we visited my great grandfather's grave in Farmington MO. It's in a pretty but lonely rural cemetery that nobody ever gets to see so we've been going every year, usually on memorial weekend. I have lots of relatives living and dead who were in WWII and earlier wars. I was just corresponding with one of my distant cousins about one of my gg...gmothers from the Revolution, Kate Barry of the Battle of Cowpens fame. We also just found out about a cousin, buried in Jefferson Barracks National Cem in St. Louis who was put in charge of the Montgomery Ward store in St. Paul during WW2. This was a busy weekend!
ReplyDelete