BLOGGING BRUNCH16

Another Sunday morning with a cup of coffee, some toast,
and interesting genealogy blogs to browse. Usually I perform
this routine twice a week on my days off but I had things to
attend to on Thursday this week so I’m catching up today.


Jasia has an article on matrinames, the practice of including
your maternal ancestors last name as part of your own. Her
thoughts were a result of a passage from Bryan Sykes’
Seven Daughters of Eve which discusses the benefit of use
of matrinames would have for genealogical research.


Thomas MacEntee commented on this at Jasia’s blog and
then with some thoughts on family name schematics at his
own Destination: Austin Family. He includes explanations of
Spanish and Irish names and examples of how his own name
would be in two different formats of matrinaming.


(By the way, Word autocorrect changes matrinaming
to marinating. Strange are the ways of Microsoft!)


Using Thomas’ examples with my own name, I’d be William
White West or William West White. If I use the name of the
female ancestor furthest back in my direct line, I’d be William
Ames West after my 3x great grandmother Arvilla Ames,
wife of the Elusive John Cutter West.


Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings and Kimberly Powell at
Kimberly’s Genealogy Blog have posts telling how genealogist
Sharon Sergeant helped prove that a bestselling memoir by a
holocaust survivor was a hoax by a Belgian Catholic. Randy
includes a link to the story that appeared in the Boston Globe
and to Sharon’s own website, and I agree with him that
genealogy research shines brighter because of Sharon’s
efforts.


Finally, Chris Dunham over at The Genealogue has “Innocent
Until Proven German” which tells the story of an FBI visit to
a German immigrant’s farm in upstate New York during the
World War 1 years. Apparently this and other cases are part
of what are known as the “Old German Files” which can be
viewed at Footnote.com . Follow the link in Chris’ article to the
original news article by Sharon Tate Moody in the Tampa
Tribune.


I am going to check out that Footnote.com site. I have a
German great grandmother on my mother’s side of the
family!