GETTING TO KNOW ME, GETTING TO KNOW "WEST IN NEW ENGLAND "

There's a whole bunch of memes and carnivals out there that I
need to get caught up with, so without further ado, here's one.


Terry Thornton of Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi
used the lyrics of Rogers and Hammerstein's song "Getting to
Know You" to issue a challenge to genea-bloggers:


"The number of new blogs is increasing so rapidly that many
of us are having trouble keeping up with reading and visiting.
There never seems enough time to get to know new blogs much
less to interact with their authors. To help out in that regard,
I'm issuing a challenge to all Bloggers to help us get to know
each other --- tell us the bright and breezy and beautiful from
your blog using the following format.

Write a short paragraph describing you, your work, and your goals
for writing"


I'm a bookseller for a major bookstore chain and I just turned
60 two weeks ago. I have a B.A. in history and for years my
primary area of interest was ancient and medieval, but as I've
become more involved in genealogy I've come to have a greater
appreciation for American history. I am an avid reader of sf,
fantasy, and historical mysteries, and oh yeah, I have a computer.

As for the purpose of my writing this blog, thrifty New Englander
that I am, I'm going to recycle this part of a post from the
Genea-Blogger Games:

"A blog about genealogy and thoughts about the various
roots and branches of my family tree as well as the times
in which my ancestors lived."


I wrote that the day I began "West in New England" and while
it's a fairly succinct description of what this blog was intended
to be, it's become a bit more since then. My goal was to
preserve and share what I know or discover my family's
genealogy but that now has expanded to include my memories
of my immediate family, of growing up and living, and of some
of the things that I like or dislike.(Such as the previous "Tunes"
post inspired by Tim Abbott's meme.) Now as I grow older,
I want to leave stories that my niece and nephews can have
about myself and my parents, because I have come to realize
how little I know about my mother's parents and their side of
the family and wish that I knew more."


The Best- Orpha The story of the brief first marriage of my ancestor
Jonathan Phelps West and the devastating effect a diphtheria epidemic
had on his family.

The Brightest:A FLUTAPHONE LULLABYE
Inspired by a humorous challenge from Cow Hampshire's Janice
Brown, this is the final post of the uses I and others came up, all
of which can be viewd by clicking on the label "flutaphone"


The Beautiful: Boy this is tough but I have to go with AGGIE, not
because it's exceptionally great writing but because it was the first entry
where I went beyond names and dates to try to give a sense of what the
life of one of my relatives was like.


If you're new to my blog, feel free to post a comment on an article, or
if we share a common ancestor, let me know by comment or email. I'm
always glad to meet a new relative and I'll happily share with you any
information I might have about our families .

I look forward to hearing from you!