Ten Thousand Stresses

Well, not really ten thousand! But it sure feels like that right now, with life's stresses ranging from the small to the large to the absurd, and consequently the blog has suffered and posts have not been regular. And what adds insult to the injury is that this post has slipped into the passive voice. Yikes!

Ancestor Files News

One of the problems I have run into on this line is that I have a file box full of my grandmother's papers and histories on the Glade and Wessman lines. It's not a problem to complain about, but it will take a significant amount of effort to sort and process. (But of course, it's only work if someone makes you do it! (As Calvin said.)) Some of the information is things I have already typed up and which will only take a half hour or an hour to post, but I have not typed in the history of William John Glade who is next up on the blog. While looking through my files for his biography, I found some letters written by Henry Green in Utah to his family in England. Original letters! They are on pink paper like the Financial Times. Some are written in pencil, some in pen. I did not know I had those, and I will get them scanned and carefully placed in archival folders and will eventually share the images and text here.

As I said, this box of family history is a real treasure, and the part that is the most important to me is seeing the notes written in my grandmother's handwriting. I felt very close to her as a child and miss her very much. Every now and then I come across a letter she wrote to me, and again appreciate her kind words and advice and encouragement.

Ongoing Plea

If any family members have family treasures, letters or photographs or other documents, it would be wonderful to share them with the family. I am always happy to post additional materials about anyone in any of the family lines or their spouses and children. It is best to send images at 300 dpi or above. It is free and quite easy to share large images on Picasa or Dropbox. (If you want a Dropbox account, ask a current user — such as me — for a referral, because that gives the original user extra storage space.) I do appreciate all the family members who have sent information and images for this blog. The collection is made more meaningful by the many connections and friendships that have been made while assembling it.

Blogger News

In other news, Blogger recently added an additional feature. If you type "view/" onto the end of a Blogger address, for example:

http://theancestorfiles.blogspot.com/view/

...you can see an overview of the entire blog or any Blogger blog. You can choose from five different formats: flipcard, mosiac, sidebar, snapshot, or timeslide. I especially enjoyed looking through the mosaic format and seeing all the pictures of the important people and places and themes in my family history. I have included a screen capture above.