Four Sisters and their Grandpa - Wordless Wednesday

My Grandmother, Frances Rutkowski (left),
with 3 of her sisters (Eva, Mary and Blanche) 
and their grandpa, Henry Lewis Warnken.

Translating 19th Century Family History for 21st Century People - Tech Tuesday

     Two cousins and I are preparing for our Rutkowski - Warnken family reunion at the end of May. the last few reunions have seen dwindling attendance and the loss the last two sisters of the family, my great aunts, on the Rutkowski side. In the past, they spent the time after lunch and meeting playing something like BINGO or a number draw to win door prizes brought by various family members. It was well liked by the older generations but as the years went by, they noticed fewer young families coming. Regrettably, I was one that didn't always make it. The traditional activities just don't seem to attract people anymore. Hmmm...


     We've been  attempting to "reinvent" the gathering by choosing a more interesting venue (from a shelter at a park to a beautiful nature center) and changing up the activities in hopes that we can attract more from the younger generations. 
 
     So far we will have lunch, pictures in the gardens of the center, a fishing derby for the kids, and a short meeting. As a genealogist, I like to try to promote our family history in an engaging, 21st Century way that might interest others to learn more about our ancestors. Last year I used Photostory 3 to created a slide show of family pictures set to music. Each family went home with a CD of the slide show. Everyone was so excited to get their own copy.

     What should I do this year? We have decided to drop the formal meeting protocol of our parents' generation. (The gavel can stay home this year.) Letters went out but also email. I have beautiful scrapbook paper with a family tree theme for them to write their information on. I have enough pictures for a second slide show.

Any ideas?

Motivation Monday - The "To do list" Experiment

I sat down and made a list on the first day of spring break and then began prioritizing. Of course there were things that naturally seemed the most important so they received a high ranking. All of the "shoulds and have-to's" ended up at the top and, as usual, the things I wanted to do were at the bottom; things like day trips to visit aunts, uncles, cousins and family locations. I know from past experience what happens to the things at the end of my lists. I rarely get to them. They get listed under "Things to do next time I have a break".

This year I did something shocking and unheard of! I turned my list upside-down and made spring break an actual break! Okay, I did pay the bills first... but then I let myself have fun! 

• I used my wait time on Saturday to really reread an article that has information about my GrGrandmother. Using my iPhone, I was able to actually get an address, email and phone number of 3 people in the article that might be able to help me with my research.
• I let myself spend time researching some ancestors online and putting documents into notebooks.
• Monday morning, I visited with Mildred, my husband's aunt, and picked up two big boxes of old pictures that she wanted to get to my mother-in-law, Helen. Mildred,89, showed me the books she is putting together to tell her life story and her husband's.
• I traveled on to McPherson to visit my aunt and uncle, 89 and 88, respectively, on their farm. Uncle Don has a love for genealogy and holds a lot of information for my dad's side of the family. I wanted to ask him some questions about my great uncles, Emil and Reuben Johnson, but got much more than that. On the way to the farm, I gave my dad, 89, a call and of course, he had another story about Grandpa Johnson that I had never heard before. Amazing how that can happen after all of these years!
• I stopped to get pictures of the barn that is still standing at the farm where my dad was raised and then wandered through the cemetery where many of the Johnson's are buried.
• Tuesday I spent time with my kids and the newest twig of our family tree, my grandson, Jesse. That evening my daughter and I took the boxes of pictures to my in-law's house. We spent several hours with Helen, 89, and Harry, 90, looking through pictures, telling stories and laughing. It was a nice evening that I wouldn't have wanted to miss by putting it lower on my list. I finally got to see the faces of people that I had only heard of.
• Thursday I traveled to Hutchinson to help my cousin get ready for a Rutkowski/Warnken reunion that we are having in May. I don't know how we do it but we get a lot done for all the laughing and joking around! Letters mailed and activities planned!
• Friday I was just "Grandma". 12 hours of Jesse still isn't enough but I'm happy for all the time I can get!
• Scattered through the week were lunches and/or conversations with friends and a few long phone calls.
• Saturday and Sunday provided a little bit of time to work on "the rest of the list".

I may have to do some of the "shoulds" in the evenings this week but I feel like I had a real break this year and so far I have no regrets about turning my list upside-down. I feel that it has boosted my motivation to keep going with my genealogy work (or should I say play?).

"Grandma and me"

I sat down with my 2nd cousin, Glenna, and her mom, Donna Mae, last night to put names on some pictures I had come across a while back. Donna Mae hurt both of her ankles last week and is sitting in a wheelchair while she heals. I know it's wrong to take advantage of a situation, but right now she can't run away very easily, so I had her captive for a few hours. Very mean, I know, but necessary! Actually, the 3 of us had a great time looking, guessing, arguing, and writing the names of people in pictures that are only 15 or 20 years old.

Even pictures that I was familiar with proved to be a challenge. If I am studying a picture that is 80 years old, imagine the difficulty! Take the picture above. At one time, it was so newly taken that anyone in the family would have known exactly who everyone was. How silly to write names on a picture like that! Now it is a very difficult task. Never write something like "Grandma and me" on a picture. In 80 years, your descendants will not have any idea who that refers to, and it will become one of the mysterious pictures that gets set aside as unidentifiable. Do you see where it says "Great Grandmother Warnken"? This would be okay if we knew who labeled the picture, but there is no clue as to the writer. I'm lucky that Henry is in the picture, which would be "Great Grandfather Warnken", so this must be my Great Grand Aunt Sophia. Henry is my Great-Great-Grandfather, but his first wife, Wilhelmina, was my Great-Great-Grandmother. This is Henry's 2nd family after his first wife died and he remarried her sister. This is where names REALLY help!

Still, it's a lot of fun trying to solve these mysteries.