I live in a room that is straight and bare,
With rings on my fingers and thorns in my hair
And I hear all night against my door
The pounding hands of the days before.
Folding Time
Journaling in Family History
Journaling is a passionate hobby of mine, a hobby I’ve happily begun weaving through various aspects of my family history documentation in a variety of ways.
Heritage Journal – Starting with Myself
When I laid out the plans for my Heritage Journal I knew intuitively that starting with myself would probably pose a challenge.
Truly, how does one properly reflect on their life in a concise way on a simple two page spread, especially when one considers their life only half lived?!
On This Day: November 8th
On this day…
In a timeline where a birth date
can also become a death date,
by sheer will,
stood a man determined
to make it so.
On This Day: 5 November 1906
On this day…
117 years ago,
my maternal great grandparents,
William Oscar and Una June
were married in Jasper, Missouri.
William was 23,
Una was only 16.
On This Day: 2 November 1943
13 Ways to Connect with the Ancestors
Spooky Season AKA the time around Halloween and Samhain, is a time filled with pumpkins, images of antiquity, costumes, scary movies, and ghost stories. Did you know, though, that it’s also the perfect time to connect with the ancestors in a more profound way?
It is believed that this liminal time offers up a thinned veil between our living world and the spirit realm, allowing those who have passed to communicate more easily with those of us still living.
Heritage Journal – Intro & Pedigree
Welp, after a nasty bought with COVID and a little recovery/catch up time, I finally carved out a couple of hours to sit with my new heritage journal, write out a few words on the first two pages, and complete the first spread! I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.
What all does it include?
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Photos of Scotland, England, and Ireland (the lands of the majority of my Ancestors)
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A map of Santa Fe (where I was born and raised)
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A DNA helix
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A copy of my pedigree through my 2x great grandparents…
Integration & Healing Through Creative Journaling
It’s been a little over three years since I confirmed my biological father and half of my genetics…
Since I found my three half-siblings…
Since I learned so many details about so many strangers who I never knew existed and who are my kin.
I spent months upon months talking to siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins…
Gathering data and facts…
Staring into photos and details
Looking for all of the pieces of a massive puzzle that I hoped would come together succinctly to make it all of this history make sense in my head and my heart in present time.