May 2008 Reads

Here is my list of books read in May 2008:

Riggs, Cynthia. Deadly Nightshade.

Stanley, J. B. Chili Con Corpses.

Page, Katherine Hall. The Body in the Snowdrift.

Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love.

Webb, James H. Born Fighting.

Rubin, Chana. Food for the Soul.

Foose, Martha Hall. Screen Doors and Sweet Tea.

Brandenburg, Molly. Everyday Cat Excuses. (This one does not necessarily meet the criteria for the book binge.)

Gilmore, Susan Gregg. Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen.

Taylor, Sarah Stewart. Still as Death.

Belmond, C. A. A Rather Lovely Inheritance. (I'm ready to begin page 145 of 355 tonight.)

Reviews of most of these are on my blog or in my LibraryThing reviews.

Diary from Boston - May 31

I left the Asheville airport this morning. What a strange experience. I got to the Northwest counter, and there was no one there to check the luggage. I was able to use the self-service kiosk to check myself in and told it I had one bag, but there was no tag for the bag that came out and no way for me to get it to the baggage carousel behind the counter. The lady from US Airways told me that she thought the guy had gone to clean the other plane. She got the tag that had printed and put on my luggage; however, I still couldn't get it to the carousel, and I sure wasn't going to just leave it so I had to stay and wait. He said he'd been getting the other plane off to Minneapolis. I also found no food in the airport. Someone told me there is a place there but that it's really hidden. I had planned to eat breakfast there. I thought it would be okay since I'd get a snack on the plane. Then I got a rude awakening that Northwest isn't nice like Delta is. Delta still gives you peanuts, cookies, or crackers. Northwest charges $5 for snacks. They are a little larger than the complimentary-sized ones, but they are not worth $5 so I had to wait until we got to Detroit. I hit the Chilis Too and had a burger. The flight from Detroit to Boston was one of the bumpiest I've had in a long time. We went through some storms. It was nice when we landed at Boston. I caught a taxi to the hotel and after making a few phone calls.




I went to the Pru Center to eat supper at Legal Seafood. Yes, I had the steak & lobster. I kept myself from going into the Best Buy that I spotted. There's a neat Mac store that has all those neat Thinbook Air computers nearby too. I went into Barnes & Noble and surprisingly didn't buy anything. I did see a few things that I would love to own though. There's a really cool book of maps of the coast that date back to the colonial period. It was selling for $60 so I decided to see if I could find it cheaper elsewhere before purchasing it. Besides I don't know how much room I'll have in my luggage for books like that! I went into the Truffles Fine Confections store across from Legal Seafood and got a grand marnier-flavored truffle to eat later tonight. I love orange and chocolate so that should be really tasty. The hotel didn't have a vending machine so I walked down to Deluca's Market (on the corner) and grabbed something to drink. I almost went to hear the Boston Pops tonight, but the only tickets left were the high-priced ones. I wanted to hear the Pops, but not that badly! It started pouring down rain right after 8 p.m. and they are predicting another big downpour between 10-11 tonight so I think I'm glad that I didn't splurge. I might try to catch them before I leave town though.

Updated June 1 to include the photos of the steak & lobster!

Southern Reading Challenge: Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen

Gilmore, Susan Gregg. Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. New York: Shaye Areheart Books, 2008.

Catherine Grace Cline lives in Ringgold, Georgia. She is reared by her father, a Baptist minister. Growing up without her mother, Catherine Grace seeks womanly advice from the next-door neighbor Gloria Jean who has been married five times. Catherine Grace has one dream--to leave Ringgold on her 18th birthday. With Gloria Jean's help and advice through the years, she is able to accomplish this. Secrets from the past threaten Catherine Grace's future. I'll stop here because I don't want to give away the rest of this excellent coming-of-age novel. It is sometimes funny and sometimes tear-jerking. I didn't want to put it down and stayed up way past bedtime on a work night to finish reading it.

I forgot to scan the cover before I returned the book to the library! Sorry about that!

This was read for Maggie's Southern Book Challenge.

This weekend in Knoxville

This would be a great weekend to visit the Blount Mansion and Ramsey House. It's Statehood Day Heritage Festival time.

No More Banana Pudding?

The subject of this Wallet Pop post could be a scary prospect for us Southerners! Please tell me that bananas will be around forever! I've got to have my banana pudding, banana milkshakes, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, banana bread, etc.

Family Beach Stories: Not Much to Tell, Few Pictures to Show

I have a confession to make. The beach has not really been a very important part of my life. Why? Well, it's rather simple. When your skin is as fair as mine and if you forget to keep recoating yourself with 85 SPF sunscreen every time you get in and out of the water, you end up looking like my feet in this photo:

While I don't have lots of family memories from childhood beach vacations, I do have a few from my growing up years and several from my adult life.

My first experience at the beach that I recall was in June 1968 about 14 months before Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. My cousin's father was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base. We spent the day at the beach playing in the sand and wading into the Gulf. Of course, we were young so my parents and her grandmother wouldn't let us venture very far. That night her little brother was born. The two of us wanted to go back to the beach some more, but, of course, there wasn't much more time on that trip to do it because of the events of that evening. I do remember my first glimpse of the Biloxi lighthouse, which is actually in the middle of the highway. I thought that was a very strange location for a lighthouse, but it was pretty unique. That lighthouse now decorates Mississippi's license plates. When Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I was so grateful that my cousin's family had moved a few months before. This photo of the Mississippi Gulf Coast was taken about five months before Hurricane Katrina hit the coast.

My family just didn't go to the beach that much. I do remember going to St. Andrews State Park in Panama City, Florida one year during my school's spring break. A neighbor went with us that year. The big story of that year was getting out of town. There had been major flooding in our area, and the roads were impassible in so many places that we had to drive way out of our way to get to roads where we could make it to Florida.

I don't remember lots of trips to beaches over the years with the family. I've visited beaches more often as an adult.

Here is a rare photo of myself at a beach. I'm wading out in the waters at Coronado Beach in Randy's part of the country. We only had a few minutes at the end of the day. The sunset was gorgeous that evening!

A few years ago, I went to St. Augustine with my parents. We stayed in a campground that was on the beach. I can't locate photos from that trip on my computer. They are probably on CDs.

On the last camping trip that I made with my parents before they sold their motor home, we actually went to the beach. We went to Topsail Hill State Park near Destin, Florida. The trip was made in March 2006 during our spring break at Carson-Newman. We had originally planned to visit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but Hurricane Katrina made that impossible so I decided that this was a manageable drive for me since I'd be driving the RV. Here's a photo of our campsite, one of the quite choppy water that kept the warning flags out most of our time there, and a picture of the beach looking toward Destin on one of the clearer days.

Last summer, I saw a beach of a different type--one along Lake Michigan. It was at Holland State Park. We were only there a short time.

Of course, you can revisit my recently posted Bahamas beach photos.

I'm hoping that I'll have a chance to take some photos of the Boston harbor minus the rain pictured here.

This concludes my beach stories post for the 49th Carnival of Genealogy hosted at Creative Gene. My feet still look bad from that Bahamas trip, but they have begun to peel! I hope that I'll remember to RECOAT every time I get in and out of the water from now on with that wonderful Neutrogena SPF 85.

Bahamas: Moon & Sunset

I thought I'd share just a few more photos. These were taken on the return trip to Port Everglades. I'm gearing up now for the Boston trip. I'm really far more excited about Boston because it's got a genealogical research component.

Thoughts on Census Occupations

If you've ever looked at census records from Southern states, you know that the majority of the persons enumerated have a single occupation that was listed variously as "Farmer," "Farm laborer," "Farm hand," "Works on farm," etc. Occasionally on a big plantation, you'll run across "Overseer" but you know that person also worked on the farm.

Today as I was transcribing 1870 Massachusetts census records in the town of Plymouth, I was reminded of how varied occupations were in the north. I did have one farmer and one farm laborer on that page, but I had several mariners. (I wondered if the oldest one was the famed "ancient mariner," although I knew Coleridge was an English author and that his mariner predated this one. However, I did wonder if others in the town associated the poem with this man.) There was one person who was listed as working for the "shoe man." I don't know if this meant he sold shoes or worked in shoe repair or both. It was an interesting occupations though. The Superintendent of Schools was also on this page. It was interesting that this man had been born in Jolly Old England rather than in the states. One man worked in an iron foundry. Most of the women were listed as keeping houses. Most of the older children were "attending school" while the younger ones were "at home." A few young ladies had "no occupation." My favorite occupation on that first page was "paper box maker."

On the next page I indexed, I found a brick mason, an engineer, a bookkeeper, a rope manufacturer (I'll bet those mariners visited his business quite a bit), a locomotive engineer, a huckster (I'm picturing Mr. Haney from Green Acres in a much earlier incarnation), and two farm laborers and two farmers. Interestingly, the first laborer was an African-American--the first black family I'd encountered in indexing Plymouth. (This family, however, was born in Massachusetts rather than the South.)

In nearby Wauham Wareham, my next page yielded a couple of wharf workers (one of whom was a black man born in North Carolina; he was probably a former slave who migrated north after being freed), a mariner, several Irish iron works employees, and a stevedore (someone who unloaded and loaded the ships). There was actually what was likely a boarding house full of Irish workers for the iron works on this page!

One can actually learn a lot about a community by paying attention to the various occupations enumerated on a census. These communities definitely had occupations in keeping with their waterfront locations. The presence of a locomotive engineer means that the railroads were becoming an important means of getting goods from the shipyards to the outlying areas and the rest of the country.

My next batch is taking me to a different part of Massachusetts so I'll end my thoughts for now. I'm sure that I'll be able to tell as much about this next community as I was the others (and even those Southern communities where farming was the driving force).

Okay - I can't resist one more occupation that I ran across later because I'd never seen it listed as an occupation before (especially for 1870)--trance medium. I did find this person listed in the 1900 census as a "lecturer."

So . . . what am I doing genealogically?

Some of you may wonder if I'm doing anything related to genealogy at the moment. I really didn't do anything while I was in the Bahamas. I didn't even take my computer along. This past week I spent a lot of time working in the church library. I was trying to get ahead of the other volunteers who are doing the processing. (I'm doing the cataloging.) We generally work on Saturday mornings. I needed to get ahead because I will miss the next 3 Saturdays because I'm headed out on a genealogical research trip and library conference all rolled into one!

When a library conference is in the greater Boston area, that's a perfect excuse to spend some time at the NEHGS Library researching your New England lines. Of course, there's so much historical stuff to see in the Boston area as well, but some of my fun times for this trip are also planned around places my ancestors resided.

I've been planning this trip and also trying to get myself organized to make efficient use of my time in Boston. My current plans include a day trip out to the Ipswich/Essex area where my Perkins family lived, another day trip into Maine and spending quite a bit of time in the Hampton, New Hampshire area where several of my families resided, researching at the NEHGS Library, Lexington & Concord (hopefully including a trip to Walden Pond if I'm lucky enough to be one of the first to arrive that day), a day trip to Concord, and more research at NEHGS.

The conference I'm attending has library tours scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. One of the options is NEHGS, but rather than touring the library, I'll probably spend my time doing a little more research so I checked "I will arrange my own library tour."

I will probably also spend some evening time at the Boston Public Library on the evenings NEHGS is closed. My hotel for the time before the library conference begins is in the Back Bay near both.

I'm looking forward to my Boston trip, but I'm going to have fun and also research! I'm looking forward to seeing where my ancestors resided and learning more about them!

Non-Fiction Five Challenge: Book 2

Webb, James. Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. New York: Broadway Books, 2004. (ISBN 0767916883)

Webb outlines the warlike spirit of the Scots-Irish as he tells their history. I enjoyed the earlier parts of the book which were based on research far more than the latter parts which were more of a personal memoir. The author does offer insights into the cultures of Appalachia and the South. The reader can see how the Scots-Irish settlers shaped these cultures.

Mail

You just never know what you are going to find when you go out to your mailbox. I had 4 pieces of mail today. One was one of those credit card offers. Another was an offer for a home equity line of credit. One was Southern Living's latest issue. The last piece of mail was the most exciting though. It was from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration. Okay - it was from the U.S. Census Bureau. It seems that my household (The letter made sure it let me know that it wasn't me individually but my address) has been randomly chosen to complete one of those American Community Surveys. The survey should arrive soon. I actually had one of the long forms in 2000 although I was living at a different address then. Since Hamblen County is roughly the size of Greene County (Hamblen is slightly smaller) and Greene County's sample rate is posted, I can assume that I'm one of no more than 644 households selected in our county to take the survey. This, of course, is any genealogist's dream--to be chosen to participate in these surveys which, if kept and made available in 72 years, will be useful to future generations of family historians! Now . . . I have another piece of mail to look forward to receiving!

Enumerate Me Challenge

I saw this challenge at Randy's. I'll confess that because "Lori" is a fairly recent name that I'd never thought to look for it in the census; however, I hit the comprehensive search button at Ancestry.com to see what I could find with "Lori Thornton." There were 2 hits for "Lori Thornton" in the 1920 census, but since one of them was "Ella Lori Thornton" and that is definitely not me, I decided to stick to the only one that was just "Lori Thornton." There was a 6-year-old Lori Thornton living in Riverside, California with parents Joseph E. and Florence Thornton. (Of course, the parents' names are wrong for me.) This Lori's father was born in West Virginia and the mother in Tennessee. I have no known West Virginia ancestry on my Thornton line. Those were the only hits on census records for my name. I am surprised to find any at all.

Screen Doors and Sweet Tea

Bob reviewed this cookbook earlier in the week. It sounded too good to pass up, so I ordered a copy which arrived today.

Southern cuisine--some of it "kicked up a notch." Each recipe contains notes that point to the history of the dish or hints about the dish's preparation. Information about some of the South's interesting culinary history can also be found--such as a brief history of the Chinese groceries in Greenville or stories about the recipes or those important to its history. A great addition to any cookbook collection.

Food for the Soul (by Chana Rubin)

3.5 stars. [LibraryThing Early Reviewers program].

This book simply rehashes most of the information about maintaining a healthy lifestyle that is heard on the news of on cooking shows that focus on healthy lifestyles. Having grown up in a home where my mother was a dietician, most of the first portion of the book was old news to me. The book, however, is very readable and informative for someone who lacks basic knowledge about healthy lifestyles. It will be easily understood my most readers. Toward the end of the narrative portion of the book, the author addresses specific concerns of her Jewish audience. The last part of the book consists of recipes which focus on the use of whole grains and fresh ingredients. Most of the recipes look tasty and should add a great deal of flavor to the diet without the high calorie counts of some other choices. It would have been nice to have photographs of most or at least some of the recipes. An extensive bibliography is included.

This is the 3rd of my Non-Fiction Five Challenge books. Right now I'm running way ahead of schedule.

Bahamas: A Few of My Favorite Photos

This was made from the bus as we toured an upper class neighborhood.

One of the buildings in the International Bazaar. This one was still occupied.

This was along the channel to the glassbottom boat docks.

Parasailing. I didn't do it, but it made for a great picture!

Another picture along the channel where the glassbottom boats were docked.

Bahamas: Plant Life

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm terrible when it comes to identifying plants. I can definitely identify the coconuts in the second photo, but if you can help me identify some of these others, I'd be grateful. I suspect that tree in the last photo is some variety of a Christmas tree! (LOL) You do have to admit that it's an interesting shape though!

Coconuts

Bahamas: The Merchandise

Reading Roundup - May 20

At Genealogy: Digging Up Dirt, there is a blog entry that details a most interesting murder case from the 19th century. One of the suspects is a John H. Dearborn, whom I would assume descends from Godfrey Dearborn. Since I'm a descendant of Godfrey, this really caught my interest. I may even have to see how I'm related to this "black sheep" family member!





Birmingham Genealogical Society tells us about the Alabama Department of Archives and History's 1867 Voter Registration database. The actual database is at the ADAH site. I'm excited that Walker County is there, but I'd like to see Fayette. I also wish that women had voting rights back then!



Paula has come up with quite a list of prizes for cooperating with the census taker. Of course, I think the census taker just didn't find the "holler" my ancestors lived in on some census years. They lived in an area of Monroe County known as the "Lost Corner." The only way to get there was to go up into Itawamba County and then back down into Monroe. I think the census taker just stopped at the county line and didn't try to track them down!



Footnote.com sent a newsletter. The Mississippi Confederate soldiers database is posted. I know what I'll be busy checking out! (Tennessee, South Carolina, and Louisiana have also been added. The Dawes packets are also available now.)



Stealing the Cat in the Hat.



Terry has really gotten Mississippi on the radar screen of a lot of bloggers. Randy is now using Mississippi as a search example!



Demolition Alert: It involves Paul Revere.

Non-Fiction Five Challenge: Book 1

Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everthing Across Italy, India, and Indonesia. (ISBN 978-0-14-303841-2)

I ran out of books on my trip to the Bahamas. The book selection was rather limited in the Fort Lauderdale airport. This sounded like one of the more interesting reads, although I knew that I'd disagree with the author in regards to spiritual matters. I purchased it to read on the flight home. I also discovered that we disagree on political matters. The author set out to find herself after a divorce. She travelled to the three I's--Italy, India, and Indonesia. The real search was for God, but she was searching for Him in all the wrong places. No one will find God in Yoga or in Hinduism. In many places in the book, the observations she wrote sounded similar to Biblical truths; however, I'm reminded that Satan is a liar. He will often snare someone by making something appear to be good when in reality it is leading one down a slippery slope that will eventually separate them from God. (cf. 1 John 2) I found myself wanting to tell the author about the one true God--much as the apostle Paul told those in the Areopagus of the one true God in Acts 17.

Bahamian Animals

The first of many lizards.

The ham!

Through the glass bottom boat!

Over the side of the glass-bottom boat you can see many of the fish we fed! This photo does not show the barracuda that was after some of them. I do have one with the barracuda, but you can see the fish so much better in this shot!
A curly-tailed lizard.

Bahamas: A Cemetery

This was near the beach where the bonfire is held. We were told that it is a cemetery where only one person was buried. The tour guide did not tell us whose grave it was.

Bahamian Foods

Conch Fritters
Conch was on the menu everywhere. This was how we decided to try it. It was less threatening as an appetizer than if we'd really hated it and ordered it as a main course!

Guava Duff
This is a traditional Bahamian dessert.

Bahamas Goombay Punch.
It tastes like ginger ale with pineapple and coconut. It grows on you, but it's not something you'd probably go buy again!

Bahamas: The Water Is Lovely

This was taken from the ship as we reached the Bahamas!

The above two photographs were taken on the tour at a beach where the bonfire is held.

This is in the channel used for the glassbottom boat tours near the Island Seas Resort.

Xanadu Beach

Back from the Islands

Okay, I didn't tell you all where I was going before I went or even that I was headed out of town--much less that I was headed out of the country. I'm back from the Bahamas--Grand Bahama Island to be exact. I promise pictures later but I'm too tired to download well over 300 pictures at the moment. I won't be posting 300 photos here, but I will post a few of them.

My parents had "won" one of those trips where you register at the grocery store and everyone wins them. They get you because you have to pay upgrades on everything so that it is a half-way decent trip for you. When you upgrade, you end up paying all but about $10 of the room charge for the hotel to which you upgrade. Still you aren't in a really good one, but you are in a comfortable and clean one. You also have a lot of hidden and somewhat undisclosed costs associated with the trip that they conveniently don't tell you about upfront. By the time you get through, you wish you'd booked with your travel agent at AAA.

We sailed on the Discovery Sun to and from the island and stayed in a hotel on the island. Anything you've heard about great food on the cruise doesn't apply to this ship. It was "nothing to write home about." (I know that I ended the sentence with a preposition, but that's the idiomatic phrase, and I'm sticking to it.)

Anyway, my niece and I went in place of my parents. We weren't given an upgrade choice of one of the hotels in Port Lucaya. If I ever go back to Grand Bahama and actually stay on the island, I'll stay at one of the all-inclusive resorts in Port Lucaya like the Westin. While our hotel was nice, it was near the International Bazaar which is becoming like a ghost town. There were probably more hotel employees than guests the first day or two we were there. However, we saw a couple we'd met on the cruise ship while in Port Lucaya one day and discovered that we were glad we had upgraded. They had all sorts of problems with their "free" accommodations such as wires hanging out of the wall. In fact, they asked to be moved to another room which was apparently slightly better but still had problems. The people at our hotel were very nice and the rooms were clean. (I actually have more complaints about the hotel rooms in Fort Lauderdale the night before and after the trip.)

It was nice to get away for a few days. I decided that I needed a computer break too so I left the computer at home. I really didn't miss it.

Did I get a sunburn? Only a partial one. I just forgot to reapply sunscreen often enough. I was wearing 85 SPF from Neutrogena. My feet and neckline are the worst. I have two other tiny places on one leg, but those are mostly beginning to change to a tan and don't hurt at all.

I took 3 books with me and had finished all of them about 4 hours before we returned to Port Everglades (about 5 hours before we disembarked). I purchased another book in the airport at Fort Lauderdale to read in flight. I finished it at my niece's house last night before coming home.

Blogging Hiatus

I will not be blogging again until May 17 or 18. I'm taking a few days at the end of the semester for R & R.

I apologize to footnoteMaven for not participating in her first Shades carnival. I tried to find a photo of a mother, but I could not find pictures of mothers with their children. My family tended to just have the kids or just have the mother in their photos.

Graduation is tonight. I've got a couple of things that I've got to go take care of in the office today.

Bloglines vs. Google Reader

I've been asked to comment on my switch to Google Reader from Bloglines and compare the two.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who provided the information on exporting my subscriptions from Bloglines so they could be imported quickly without having to enter each and every one!

Google Reader appears to be delivering all my feeds. I've pretty much quit using Bloglines. There are things I like better about Bloglines. I was able to use the keystroke S to navigate from one blog feed to the next quickly. It worked even between different feed categories so that I could click on the first feed in the first category and work my way down. With Google Reader, the S keystroke doesn't work. I can still use the J keystroke to navigate down blog feeds, but the quick keystroke appears to be gone--or I haven't found it yet. If you don't mind your feeds being all scrambled in the order of receipt, you can use the J keystroke all the way down through all feeds.

I no longer have to reload Janice's page when I click to read her blog. It works like a charm in Google Reader. All of Glenn's posts are being delivered. See my original post if you don't remember the context! I compared both blogs for awhile, and the only two I seemed to be having trouble with were these two.

Some feeds arrive faster via Bloglines; others arrive faster via Google Reader. I guess it ultimately depends on which reader you like best, and if all your feeds work with your reader. I'm still maintaining feeds at both locations, but I'm generally hitting the "mark all read" at Bloglines and reading things at Google Reader.

Reading Roundup - May 6

I think all of us can relate to Marshall's cartoon and also to Jim Borgman's.


Thomas found a rather interesting obituary. It's written from a first-person point of view.

I love mysteries. Lesa posted the winners of this year's Edgar awards.

I love baking. Janice has just provided several old cake recipes. I love reading those old ones!


Most of you know that I love my Tennessee Volunteers. Rob Huddleston has written an excellent tribute to our star basketball guard who played this last year through cancer. Until this week, most of us never knew what he was going through.

Here's the latest edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. Since it is on home towns, you'll find it arranged by continent, country, state, province, etc. The next edition will be a mother's day theme. Each person is supposed to talk about their mother's education.

Thomas shared the interesting obituary of Dot Cully. This is the second obituary of his that I'm sharing in this post!

A couple of reading challenges--The Southern Reading Challenge by Maggie and the May Book Binge. I don't know yet what I'll read for Maggie's challenge, but I'm sure I'll participate.

[Update - List of Books Read]

Gilmore, Susan Gregg. Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. (read 29 May 2008)

Allen, Sarah Addison. Garden Spells. (read 2 July 2008)

Andrews, Mary Kay. Savannah Breeze. (read 23 July 2008)

[end update]

{Best thing since sliced bread? (Tip of the hat to Glenn.) I'll keep thinking about it. I'm not completely sold yet.

The last day of the semester is tomorrow. Graduation is Friday night. I am planning a week of R&R and no blogging beginning Saturday the 10th and running through the 17th!

Web Roundup - May 1

Open Source applications are becoming more sophisticated all the time. Here's a list of 50 useful open source applications for online writers.

I loved "Now is the month of Maying" over at Walking the Berkshires. I had not thought of a Maypole in years!

I talked to someone down in Amory in the Hill Country of Northeast Mississippi today who told me they'd read Terry's column where he rambled about everyone who lived up in the hills. Let's hope he keeps on rambling!

A few free online books of interest to genealogists and family historians can be found in the University of California Press' eScholarship editions.

Do you have Virginia ancestry? You might want to check out the site that has tax lists from 1790-1800 on it. (Hat tip to Arlene) I added this to my del.icio.us bookmarks!

Thomas shared a photo of his retro barbershop. Barbershops are becoming few and far between in the South.

This week's question to stitching bloggers will generate some responses of interest to family history lovers. A few are already posted.

The Great Smoky Mountains is a popular tourist destination, but those of us in East Tennessee need to offer a word of advice to all of you who might be thinking of coming through Knoxville this summer. Find an alternate route. Interstate 40 is closed through downtown Knoxville until the "Smart Fix 40" project which will provide additional lanes (which is desperately needed) is complete. In the meantime, traffic is being re-routed along I-640. Expect heavy traffic and possible delays. I've got my alternate routes planned when I can avoid Knoxville. Randy has a good roundup on Smart Fix 40 on his blog.

Earlier today, someone posted a link to the Old Bailey Online on a listserv for genealogical librarians. If you are researching English ancestors who might have had a run-in with the law, you might want to check their online court proceedings.

I fell in love with Jasia's Wordless Wednesday post.

The 5th Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture has been posted.

Ruth found John F. Kennedy in Mississippi. (Okay - so it's a century too early for the president, but it makes an interesting post.)