A FLUTAPHONE FANFARE, PLEASE!

The flutaphones are to celebrate the return of Janice Brown to her
Cow Hampshire blog. She's been absent far too long from the
genealogy blogging community and we've missed her wit and humor.
Having her come back now is, as footnoteMaven put it, a geneablog
Christmas Miracle.

Welcome back, Cousin Janice!
(Now if we can only get Chris Dunham to post new entries for The
Genealogue.....)

BAD NEWS ABOUT " COW HAMPSHIRE"?

Ironically, I was checking the links on my Puckerbrush Award posts when I
found that the one to Janice Brown's Cow Hampshire blog doesn't work.

I got one of those dreaded error messages:

"ERROR: cowhampshire.blogharbor.com is temporarily unavailable
or does not exist. Please check the address and try again."

I hope it is only temporary, but given the length of time since Janice last
posted I fear the website is now gone.

I hope Janice is well wherever she is at present and that someday we will see her
return to her genealogy blog!

THE PUCKERBRUSH AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

This past Friday I was honored to receive The Puckerbrush Award for Excellence"
from both Cheryl Fleming Palmer and Judith Richards Schubert. I am flattered and
grateful for being given this award, especially since it is given in honor of one of my
first genea-blogger friends, Janice Brown. She has a great sense of humor and it was
her that gave me the challenge to come up with 49 Genealogical Uses for a Flutaphone!
Early on we discovered we were distant cousins.


The award was started by Terry Thornton, aka Willie Puckerbrush:


"In honor of our absent friend, Janice Brown, whose delightful blog Cow Hampshire
continues to inspire through all her archived articles, is my attempt to recognize a few
writers and their blogs --- those I consider the best in the blogging world and whose
work has influenced me the most.

Janice told us all about the word "puckerbrush" in an article she posted August 27,
2007, at Cow Hampshire .... That article inspired me to use, on occasion, the
alias of "Willie Puckerbrush" in making some of the many foolish comments I've left
about the blogosphere.

It appears to me that in the thicket of all the blogs being written that I should highlight
those ten writers of greatest influence to me --- in other words, my list of the ten best
based solely upon my personal opinion."

So here are my list of ten. Please note I had one heck of a time coming up with this, not
because I couldn't think of anyone, but because there are so many out there to choose
from. So in the end I opted to go by the wording used by Terry and pick those who've had
the greatest influence on me through their style of writing and the content of their blogs.
They've all contributed prominently to the formation of our genea-blogger community:

Jasia from Creative Gene- The creator of the Carnival of Genealogy through which I
discovered so many other genealogy blogs and author of great articles on her own
blog!

Chris Dunham from The Genealogue- There's always something there that makes me
laugh and I found many genealogy blogs through hi Blog Finder, Besides, he's a cousin!

Randy Seaver from Genea-Musings- Randy's blog has great analysis of genealogy
programs and issues written in a direct and easy to understand style! And his Saturday
Night Genealogy Fun challenges are exactly that: fun, and educational!

Miriam Midkiff from AnceStories- The creator of ScanFest Sunday where I've
learned a lot about scanning and have had a chance to "meet" other bloggers.
Besides, she's a cousin!

Tim Abbott from Walking the Berkshires- Reading his blog inspired me to explore
the historical background of my family's history. And, besides, he's ...yeah...another
cousin!

Craig Manson from The GeneaBlogie- Another great writer. Craig is able to explain
legal aspects of genealogy and blogging in a way even a dunderhead like myself can
understand.

footnoteMaven from footnoteMaven- A creative lady with a sense of humor that rivals
Janice's own. Creator of great graphics for various genealogy carnivals and an authority
on proper source citation. All that, and a writer I enjoy reading!

Terry Thornton from Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi- Terry's writings on his beloved Mississippi are great reads. And he's the Founder of the Association of
Graveyard Rabbits bloggers .

Thomas MacEntee from Destination: Austin Family- "The Perle Mesta" of genea-blogging community and creator of the Geneabloggers website and the Genea-Bloggers group on Fb.

Apple from Apple's Tree- Another fine writer who's blog I read regularly. And, yes, she's
a cousin!

It was after I made my choices that I realized that four of them were my distant cousins.
But so is Janice, so I guess I'm sort of keeping the award in the family!

Thanks again, Cheryl and Judith, for this award!

BEDTIME BOOGIE 2

A few random things as I sit and wait to feel sleepy…

Apparently A*******.com was well aware of genealogy bloggers’
opinions on the recent controversy. A post and comment on
Craig's Geneablogie mentioned the location of Pleasant Grove,
Utah and sure enough, when I checked my Statcounter there it
was. So all those posts from the community were being read.

Thanks to Janice at Cow Hampshire and Becky at Kinnexions
for alerting us all!

I gave myself a belated birthday gift and took a monthly
subscription to Footnote.com and straightaway found some
Revolutionary Pension files on another Barrows and two Barker
relatives, as well as another encounter with the name Jessie
Tuttle. More on that in future posts.


Also, I dl Family Tree Legends and am very impressed with it. It’s
much easier to make reports and charts than with PAF and there’s
more types of each to choose from. Editing is easier too I think. But
I’ll be interested to see what more experienced genealogists like
Randy at Genea-Musings think of FTL as compared to the others.


OK, I think I am ready for bed.

GENEALOGY GRIN

Janice Brown over at CowHampshire has posted about a
genealogy seminar she'd like to see and I am honored to be
listed among the.. umm..presenters.


Now all I have to do is come up with things to do with a
flutaphone!


Thanks for the mention, Janice, and for a laugh that I
really needed!