Inherit the Wind

or How Come I'm Such a Blowhard?
Recent events have me thinking about traits we've inherited from our ancestors. I'm not talking about genetics, although that is currently a hot topic in genealogy. Scientific studies seem to be one of the traits I did NOT inherit. I conducted my own study--a limited search of family traits on google.com and, no, I cannot tell you how many hits I got, except to say it was a heck of a lot.
I wanted to share some of my findings with you so I've split the traits into categories:

• Physical -- hair (baldness), size (shortness), teeth (bucktoothedness or vampire-like);
• Health -- blindness, deafness, high blood pressure, cancer;
• Mental Health -- depression (Scottish problem), low self-esteem (American Indian), suicidal tendencies, insanity;
• Reproductive-- multiple births, family size (or lack of), predominately one sex born in a line;
• Personality -- shyness, easy-going, aggressive, agitated, stubbornness, humorous, sarcastic;
• Behavioral -- detail-oriented, good speller, methodic, handwriting (mostly poor), lack of interest in genealogy, loners (disassociating oneself from family), runaways;
• Creative/Artistic -- writing, art, music, story telling, craftsmanship;
• Occupations -- doctors, preachers, seamen and carpenters (i.e. families report that even when branches of a family have been separated for generations members still follow similar occupations);
• Abilities -- cooking, problem solving, inventiveness, and handymen.

Some may argue that every society has individuals with these characteristics and any reoccurrence in family trees is purely coincidental. On a genealogy forum, an inquirer asked whether certain families inherited psychic abilities. Public outcry was to pooh-pooh the whole idea as voodoo genealogy and that people should limit posts to true genealogical studies. However, off-list the inquirer received a number of replies from both males and females (too embarrassed to respond favorably in public) and all seemed to be from a specific branch of the family tree. As one of those who received the "curse" as many call it, I believe there's something to the idea of inheriting traits from our ancestors.

I am very proud to say that I have received a great deal of talent from my ancestors, as well as other things I'm not so proud to have inherited. I wonder what talents run in our lines and would love to hear what you, my cousins, have inherited from our ancestors. Who, for instance, can say they have "the luck of the Irish"?

But what do you do when these traits conflict? For instance, cousins Jena Bryant and Robert Bryant happened to mention the Bryant's laid back attitude. I have to agree that the Bryants are so easy going that it's very difficult to ruffle their feathers. They are so laid back that they bend over backward to avoid confrontation. I can really identify with this when I am online. I don't want to take part in the many arguments that go on in different newsgroups. I'm a frequent user of the delete key. If an argument heats up, I can be found to mass-delete all subjects with the same title, just to avoid getting bothered by it. (Of course I don't delete our Heycuz newsgroup's messages. I'm talking about the Rootsweb newsgroups.) I've even seen my Dad react the same way over different things, but must also acknowledge that once you do ruffle his feathers, he strikes a quick blow. But just as quickly he moves on, returning to his easy-going attitude once again.
On the other hand, or other side of my family -- the Rennies -- the trait is completely opposite. We are quick to get mad and we hold grudges forever. So in my research on family traits, I was amused to read on the official web site of the MacDonald Clan (of which Rennie is an off-shoot) that this very trait is mentioned on its home page:

• "If you are a MacDonald, your biggest family trait is to harbor grudges like nobody's business, mainly because it is the sworn duty of every MacDonald to make sure nobody ever forgets what those bastard Campbells did to them at Glencoe in 1692."

It's true! I harbor a grudge forever and Steve, my significant other, will gladly argue with anyone who refutes it. (I think he gets his arguing tendencies from his mother's side, by the way.) My mother is the same, and her father is the same, and so on. What gets me is that it doesn't even have to be over any big deal. Heck, I'm still mad at a girl in my fourth grade class who took off with a piece of costume jewelry even though I got it back.So how do I reconcile these two traits? I don't know, but I wonder if I've discovered a reason for my schizophrenia?
What's New?
Speaking of family traits, don't forget to check out our newly reformatted site, The Family Album, to see whether those big ears of yours came from Uncle Eddie Sullivan, or perhaps Roy Buchanan. I want to thank all of the contributors who so generously shared their photographs. We're a pretty good looking bunch, if I do say so myself. When you visit The Family Album you'll see that I've added a search engine and also made the site much easier to update. So keep sending in your photographs to me and I'll try to get them posted in a much more timely manner. Also check out the site to make sure there aren't any errors. (Let me know if you find any.)
We have some new files to be added to the Share the Wealth section of the Game of Lifes including the applications filed by Rubin H. Bryant and others for the Guion Miller Cherokee Indian Fund. These files have been contributed by cousin Jena Bryant and I want to thank her personally for her valuable contribution. The extractions of these documents are also available. Contact me for information.
Also, Wanda Talbot has sent in her extractions of the Dickson County, Tennessee Turnbull Creek Primitive Baptist Church records. She, with the assistance of Char Sullivan, has spent a considerable amount of time extracting these difficult to read records. We are all indebted to her for these incredibly informative records. She has extracted half of the files and is busy working on the remainder. In the meantime, we can look up your surnames up to 1854. Contact Wanda Talbot or me and we will do lookups for you. I should also mention that a few of the pages are available in the Share the Wealth section including the baptism of Joseph Lampley and a letter to the church from Nancy Tidwell.
Also revisit The Past Lane and read the recent submission by Robert Bryant, "Memories of Growing Up on Mill Creek." It was so inspiring to me that I sat down and wrote of my own childhood search with my Dad and siblings for "The Perfect Fishing Hole." I also finally located the lost files of Thoughts and Memories of My Father Gilbert Russell Sullivan contributed by Dan Sullivan. When our previous server dropped us, these files had been lost. I enjoy re-reading it as it makes me feel closer somehow to my Sullivan ancestors.
I've also added a search engine to make your experience on our website a little more fruitful. To use it go to the first page of the web site and type in the First and Last name of the individual you would like to find.
Also note that we have added a lot of new individuals to the Family Tree so check out the Who's New? index to see if you have any new cousins.
And, til we talk again, "May the Road Rise to Meet You....

• Love,








• April

Old Man Davis

I mentioned a while back that one time when we were kids we were shot at. Though I said I'd tell you about it later, I thought I should share it while it was fresh in my mind. Chances are getting increasingly strong that I'd forget it.
Anyway, Old Man Davis had the coolest lot in the neighborhood. The house has since been torn down, but it was heaven to me and all the kids who met there every day after school in the late 60s.

The house was made of stone, and set back far from the street in a jungle of apple, apricot, lemon and avocado trees. Behind the house there was a pond that was full of life, mostly gorgeous, gushy tadpoles. Once we delivered bags of them to the kids getting out of Sunday School and were disappointed to learn that the parents didn't think it was such a great gift to give children dressed in their Sunday best. Imagine that?
Old Man Davis was the grumpiest man you've ever met. But we knew he loved us. On Halloween, he would make his homemade peanut brittle and never seemed to notice that we came back to his house three or four times to get this delectable treat. His wife, Anna, was soft spoken and the perfect adopted grandmother. We lived too far away to visit our grandmother so she became the neighborhood grandmom.
There was one special tree on Old Man Davis's lot with branches that formed a great big tent. We had converted it into a clubhouse. You had to be "in" to get in and rarely did my older brother Curtis consider me "in" enough to get in. Inside the tree there were old tires used for seats, an old chest used to hold drinks, and a old Hillsboro Bros Coffee can, to hide the stash collected from pop bottles in case money was needed. Usually we could also get money, for movies drinks and candy, by picking the fruit off Mr. Davis's trees and selling them down at certified market. They'd give us a quarter a bag. Anna wanted us to pick the fruit before it fell to the ground and rotted, so she never minded that we did this.
Anway, on one day I was allowed inside the clubhouse with my best friend Cathy. Her brother George and Curtis said they had a neat game they wanted to play, "spin the bottle." We were playing that game even though I was totally grossed out, when Curtis kept spinning the bottle and kissing Cathy. Anyway, on George's turn the bottle came to me. "No way!" I yelled and started to stand up. Then, outside we heard a yell, "Who's there?"
"Get out of there before I blow your head off" we heard old man Davis yell.
Suddenly a gun went off and I nearly pe'ed my pants. Curtis grabbed Cathy and said run this way. And took off.
George grabbed hold of my hand and said "no we gotta go this way." Before I knew it he's pulling me in the direction of Old Man Davis. I let go and ran down the stone wall that lined the other yards of houses that bordered Old Man Davis's lot. When I discovered I was cornered, I turned around. George was no where in sight. I looked and about 15 feet away, Old Man Davis, had a shotgun pointed straight at me.
He was squinting to get a look at me, so I squeaked, "It's me. April!" Unfortunately, in addition to poor eyesite, he was quite deaf and didn't hear me. Fortunately, what felt like the hand of God grabbed me by the hair and the back of my shirt and lifted me over the stone wall and into safety. Curtis had jumped one of the neighbors fences, climbed onto their big black dog's house, and yanked me over the wall. Curtis never let me forget that he saved my life, risking the rath of blackie's teeth to do it.
It was quite a while before I had the guts to play at Old Man Davis's house again. Actually I only went back once or twice after that, at Anna's request. The last time I remember going there, Anna had asked me to take out some old papers to the trash. When I did, I saw Old Man Davis crawling around looking for something. So, I started to help him. Not really knowing what it was I was looking for I kinda just turned things over then turned them back again. When I didn't come back for my pay, Anna came out to see what was keeping me.
"What are you doing?" she asked me.
"Old Dan lost something," I replied. "I'm helping him look but I don't know what he lost"
"His mind," she muttered, as she shook her head. She turned and went back in the house.
Heycuz.net

A Family Legacy

By now, you’ve probably already received your copy of the long-awaited family history by G. Wayne Bradford, “Descendants of William M. and Artemese E. Green Sullivan.” I received it several weeks ago but my family’s busy schedule wouldn’t let me give it an adequate study. In our busy world, we are losing the opportunity to share not only the histories of our parents and grandparents but our own personal stories. Kids rush off to computer games after dinner while we attend a meeting, so there’s no lingering over the table to share family experiences. We send e-mails instead of writing letters. If someone in front of us at the grocery store lingers to tell us something funny that happened to him, we get irritated for the delay. Wait. Stop. Slow down—A book of gigantic proportions (1,040+ pages) and gigantic impact is whispering—well actually yelling—to me to spend some time with it. This book is not a simple family tree with names and dates, rather it is a collection of so much more. It is not just a simple history of the struggles the families faced, but a endearing tribute to those who have made our histories. It brings a level of intimacy to a family that was already close. Wayne Bradford took the time, three years in fact, to track down the descendants of William Sullivan and Artemese Green and he didn’t stop there. Wayne not only provides the names and dates of their descendants but he sought out and collected these marvelous stories and photographs that will live on as a legacy to our family. I wasn’t surprised when he told me that people are ordering three and four copies at a time. It’s a project that’s been sorely needed for a long, long time. Not only does it provide a wonderful tribute to our ancestors but it provides a legacy to our children and grandchildren.
I don’t know how he did it, but Wayne managed to track down and include so many wonderful photographs too. All but one of William and Artemese’s children are featured. In addition to the photos included in the family history, there are two photo albums (over 180 pages!) to include every branch of the Sullivan family.
Being very modest, Wayne did not insert his own biography, which I really missed. He did give credit to all of the researchers who had contributed to the book. I am a little embarrassed to see my name quoted in there so much, but I am pleased that Wayne was so adamant in documenting the sources of the information included. I am also pleased that when faced with a disputed fact, Wayne made every effort to include sides of the argument.
I am extremely grateful to Wayne for this lovely and humongous book that will hold a place in our home forever.

April

Yep, We've Moved!

"You say Yes. I say No.

You say Why? I say I don't know.

Oh,

I don't know why you say goodbye.

I say hello."       --- Lennon-McCartney

• What kind of world would this be if I didn't zig while the rest of the world zagged? After all, I have a history of choosing the other lane, don't I? Examples: When everyone else disco'd through the 70s, I rocked out with Ozzy. When my childhood girlfriends oohed and ahhed over the likes of David Cassidy and Michael Jackson, I proudly displayed my Al Unser and Mario Andretti posters. My entire family left the state of California, and here I sit, happy as a lark.

So, what do you expect me to do? Join the thousands of genealogists who have bought into the MyFamily.com craze? No, not me. I've been completely happy with the outcome of my past decisions, and so with confidence, I have decided to leave the likes of MyFamily.com and their sister site "Freepages" at Rootsweb. The truth is that freepages wasn't exactly free. Visitors were bombarded with ads, both pop-ups and banners, some of them so largethat the visitor couldn't even tell that our website was underneath it. In addition, visitors were placed on a spam e-mail list that added insult to injury. In the good old days, freepages were actually free and I am grateful that they gave us the opportunity to grow there. However, they were bought out by MyFamily.com, which is dedicated to the idea that you can make a buck or two on genealogy. They soon began charging us to access our own family trees, which they placed onto Ancestry.com without even asking. When we started in 1996, we were just a group of cousins who wanted to share our research and I am delighted to say that, even though we've grown by leaps and bounds, we still have the same philosophy. It is my hope that the only brick walls we run into are in our family trees and not our wallets.
So I'm breaking out and I'm taking you with me. I hope you don't mind. I hope you don't miss the non-stop pop-up windows. I hope you don't miss the banner advertisements. I hope you don't miss the spam from Ancestry.com promising to solve all your problems if you just send them your credit card number.
I had planned to do this much later when I could afford to get my own server. Right now, I simply bought a domain and paid a service provider to host our site. It is a little lower cost than it will be when we have our own server. It is limited in size to 4 gigabites. Believe it or not, we've grown that big. As a result, I haven't completely brought everything over. I am still trying to make everything fit. I haven't managed to get our Family Album on our new site yet, but hope to soon.
You might also wonder where our search engine has gone to. Honestly? I can't get it to work on this server. Having to write my own code is one thing, but getting the server to recognize it is another. In short, I am still working on it.
In the meantime, please take a look around. Let me know what you think. If you see any broken links or errors, please let me know. This is your site as much as it is mine and I need all the help I can get.

• April

In Loving Memory

I need to apologize to all the members of heycuz. Lately, I haven’t been responding to any queries on the group or working on the web site and I need to explain why. Ever since my Aunt Josephine Sullivan Davis passed away, I’ve had a hard time getting motivated. In addition to the great pain over the loss of my Aunt, I found it difficult to participate in a group that she helped start. The group started in 1998 so that my aunts and I could keep up e-mail communications without losing the threads. From her enthusiasm in the beginning, to her storytelling and encouraging words and contributions, she made me feel proud of what we had started so long ago. Aunt Jo became such an important part of heycuz – and in my life – that I wondered how I could continue the group without her. It was emotionally draining to even open my e-mail program. Her name is the first name in my e-mail address book and I have kept a folder of all of our e-mails to each other. I finally realized, however, that she would want the group to go on.
I last saw my Aunt two years ago and I thank God that we got to spend so much quality time together. She was wonderful, vibrant, and welcoming. I enjoyed seeing her new home and, as always, was impressed with her wonderful sense of style. Every room was hand painted, every piece of furniture carefully placed. She proudly displayed the things she loved and took me through each room explaining every item from her collection of everything from crystal birds to her mother’s ambrosia bowl. (My great-grandmother only used that bowl for ambrosia salads and it brought back special memories for Aunt Jo as I listened intently to her recollections of her beloved mother, Anna Ruth Buchanan Sullivan.)
Aunt Jo also showed me collections of antique hairbrushes and curling irons, a few of which were owned by her grandmother. I was blown away when – as I was working on scanning some of her old photographs – the smell of my favorite meal wafted into the room. Not only did she remember that my absolute favorite meal of all time was barbequed ribs, but she also knew that it wasn’t complete unless there was corn on the cob served along with it. The day before, we had gone to a tourist attraction together with my son, Lucas, my Aunt Kittie and her grandson Nick. Aunt Jo was so healthy and vibrant that whole day that I never had the slightest inkling that something was wrong. But, shortly after I came back home, I learned the truth about her health, and that after a lot of testing, the doctors diagnosed her with cancer. She battled it bravely and never seemed to give up hope.
The prayers that you said on her behalf really meant so very much to her and I want to thank you for that. It was hard for me to understand what happened because I am positive that your prayers saved my life. It was incomprehensible to me that they didn’t save hers. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.
I didn’t even take her name off of the group address list, thinking that one day she’d drop me another line. Just a quick update on anything that she was working on – her hand-made bird houses, her garden, amusing anecdotes about her husband Dick’s model planes, or fishing and hunting trips, maybe the birth of another grandchild – to let me know that she was just as busy as ever.
Aunt Jo was the youngest of my grandmother’s sisters and her passing still doesn’t make any sense. One day, my Uncle Dick called and asked to remove her address because he couldn’t deal with the flood of e-mails. I knew that I should have already done this, but still it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I couldn’t do it, in fact, until my hubby, Steve, stood behind me and wouldn’t stop pushing me until I hit the delete button. I was shaking so bad.
Many of you came to know Aunt Jo as just about the kindest woman you’d ever met. No matter what the situation, she had only kind words to say about everyone and I always hoped that her positive thinking would rub off on me. In fact, that is the thing I had most marveled at about her. I wish that I could be a big enough person to have that kind of strength of character.
She was also very, very talented. She was quite an artist with an uncanny talent for color and depth. When I visited her home as a child, I was always impressed with her paintings and also the exquisite way she decorated her home. No bland white walls for Aunt Jo! Her impeccable taste was apparent in her elegantly furnished surroundings. And, her sense of style wasn’t just indoors. She also had a “green thumb” which showed in her beautiful roses and the other plants in her garden, as well as in the rest of the landscape. Her taste was also apparent in how she was always beautifully dressed. As a child, I thought that my Aunts Jo and Rose were the most beautiful women I’d ever seen and I wished some of their “style” would rub off on me. I loved the hand-painted cards she often sent me so much that I saved them all.
I know how important the group was to her and I wouldn’t let the group fold away, but I may still be a little slower with things as I deal with her loss. I found a new source of inspiration, however, when I decided to dedicate this group to her memory.
Thanks for your understanding,

• April

 


From The Flint Journal:
Davis, Norma (Jo)
DAVIS, Norma (Jo) - Of Otisville, age 63, died Friday, April 9, 2004 at Genesys Health Park. Funeral service will be 11AM Tuesday, April 13, 2004 at St. Francis Xavier Church, Rev. Fr. Francis Faraci officiating. Burial in Flint Memorial Park. Prayer vigil to be held at the funeral home 7PM Monday, April 12, 2004 with visitation on Sunday from 6PM-9PM and Monday from 10AM-9PM.

What are Friends For?

My girlfriend Carol and I were very close. We were getting home late from school and we were so worried that we would get in trouble for being late that we decided to take a short cut through a junk yard. I'll tell you right off the bat that this wasn't my idea. Carol was tough. She was so tough you didn't say no to anything she said for fear of getting popped in the jaw. So, I agreed and we climbed up over the chain-link fence.
We were casually strolling through the yard and had pretty much made it safely through when suddenly we heard the low growl of a monster. Carol grabbed my hand in fear which really shocked me because as I told you she was bad. I glanced over my shoulder and the mangiest dog you have ever seen was plowing down on us fast. I swear that dog was foaming at the mouth. I was sure that he knew he was about to get a nice dinner of two little lambs. The dog wasn't more than a foot away from us when I realized we weren't going to out-run him. Self-preservation kicked in and I grabbed Carol, turned her around with my arm locked around her neck, and used her as a barrier between me and the mutt. I dragged her kicking-and-screaming carcass backward toward the fence. With each kick, the jaws of that mangy yellow dog snapped inches from her toes. Carol didn't know whether to hit me with her one free left arm or focus her attention on the dog. She flaled her arm behind her toward me in a vain effort to free herself. I WAS NOT letting go.
Finally, I reached the locked gate which opened enough for me to squeeze through. I dropped Carol as I backed butt first through the thin opening of the gate while the dog approached his unwilling victim's kicking feet. I turned to run and realized that I was safe and I'd better not leave Carol for dog food. But if...I debated, if I do save her she's going to kill me. Well my heart got the best of me and so I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her through the fence gate. Unfortunately, she lost her shoe to the dog and her pants legs were ripped to shreds but that's the price you pay. Luckily, for me, Carol was so relieved to get out of there alive that she only hit me in the arm. ;-)
Heycuz.net

Publish or Perish

I always liked those Dell Logic Puzzles. You know the kind I’m talking about—
 John wore a red shirt and liked green lollypops. Fred wore a shirt of another primary color and played basketball. Suzy’s dress did not match Fred’s or John’s but she liked both lollypops and basketball. What color was John’s hair?
Then they’d give you a table to use to assist your thought process. OK OK. I know that the puzzles are a little easier than that. But at least you know that there IS a solution for the puzzle and so you keep going ‘til you’ve solved it. I’ve often thought that a genealogical question should be solvable with a logic puzzle formula. A problem arises though when you don’t know if you have all the clues, or have too many clues that don’t pertain to the problem.
Recently on Heycuz, Dan Sullivan voiced his frustration over solving the dilemma over the parentage of Owen Sullivan. “With all the information that we have collected, why can’t we know for sure who his parents were?” he wondered.
I know exactly the frustration Dan feels. I think every one of my lines has reached a dead-end. Now, more than in the past it seems every one of my lines has a road-closed sign. I keep hoping that if I keep looking, one day that long-lost (document type here) will be found and solve our deepest most agonizing quandaries.
Hugh Sullivan, on the other hand, changed the rules of the game by changing the equation from “who is he?” to “who is he not?” and said that he made the decision about his Sullivan ancestor by using a preponderance of evidence and challenged others to disprove it. Hugh has battled this for years. For instance, a while back he wrote on the Sullivan-Rootsweb list:

"I was guided by the Sherlock Holmes philosophy - eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be fact. Unfortunately I can't eliminate all the impossible. So, at some point, I switched to the task of finding the most probable (and least improbable) - I have done that. I think I know my entire lineage. But it is based on preponderance of evidence, circumstantial evidence, logic, proximate location and a little "everybody’s gotta be somewhere".
Both Dan and Hugh battled over the decision whether to publish the information they had, since neither could provide proof. They finally decided not to publish. Robert Bryant countered that he would prefer that his children know at least something about his family’s history, being careful to note what was proven and what was conjecture. One of my cousins, Wava Boyd Tory, has a ton of information that makes my head spin, but repeatedly says she will not release it until she has absolute proof. I know where she is coming from, yet I mourn the loss of such a great vehicle of information, work and time.
As a publisher, I have had a lot of experience dealing with the idea that errors will occur in my finished product. After pulling many all-nighters scouring every page to eliminate an error, you finally "put the paper to bed" and inevitably when you pick up a freshly printed piece there's the error slapping you in the face. Publishers deal with this because we have deadlines. We also have the saving grace of retractions.
In research circles, educators and scientists also have their own "excuses" for publishing data that might contain errors. Institutions with a publish-or-perish philosophy fund most of them. Errors or not, they are contractually obligated to publish a certain number of works. Of course, no one wants to publish errors and so every effort is made to keep them to a minimum. The best-case scenario is that the error is only a typo. Worse case is that your entire piece is based on previously accepted, but false assumptions.
How is genealogy any different?
Listening to genealogists on this subject, one would get the idea that the field of genealogy is somehow different from any other field of research. Many say that they cannot publish because they haven't proven everything absolutely. The volumes and volumes of work that have been lost because of this excuse break my heart. I am certain that Wava and Hugh have been working on genealogy for at least 20 years, if not 30. If a scientist or researcher has that number of years under his or her belt, he is given the rank of "Expert." Having a number of conversations with Hugh over the years, I wouldn't hesitate dubbing him an Expert on the subject of North Carolina Sullivan genealogy or Wava as an expert on my particular family line. I have incredible respect and admiration for the information for both of them. If Wava says something is true, it’s highly likely that it is. But, they and many, many other genealogists with just as much experience, are robbing us of their work because of some unforeseeable repercussions.
What could happen if you do publish an error?

2.     Your great-great-great-great grandfather is not your grandfather. Well, you know what I mean.    
3. Someone copies and republishes your work along with its errors. Happens all the time, and in increasing numbers with the Internet.
4. Someone checks your sources. You did list them, didn't you? Tell me you did!
5. Somebody proves you wrong. Hey, isn't that what you wanted all along? The Truth?

I can hear the comments now: “Oh you would say that April; Look at your own website.” I have. I wrote it and continue to rewrite it. It's an evolving website with lineages based on information I have today. Tomorrow it will be different. Every effort has been made to note when something is not proven, to correct every error and yet I know there are errors on it. At least family members have found a home to share their research and reconnect with their cousins.
What could happen if you don't publish?

2. Absolutely nothing. Cousin Mary won't know that you found her great-great-great grandmother moved to Minnesota of all places, remarried and had a whole other family; you'll never meet the many cousins who were related to the man whose crumbling tombstone you stumbled across in dilapidated cemetery; and young budding genealogists will never praise your name, because after all you didn't publish.

 Many genealogists also drag their feet because they don't have all the "facts." But let's not forget the sources that genealogists use, as facts are often wrong. One example:
Funeral records state that Preston James Sullivan died January 26, 2000 in Nashville, Davidson County, TN. The obituary, published the next day, also stated the same place. However, his daughter Sylvia Lane explains how the "facts" are wrong.
"He wanted to die at home (Nashville), but he was taken to Baptist Hospital and because of the severity of his Alzheimer's, he was transferred to Tennessee Veterans Home in Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, TN. … My father opened his eyes, smiled at me, and closed his eyes again. He was gone." She was there when he died, so obviously she knew his place of death better than the so-called "facts." Unfortunately, most of the time we don't have living sources to tell us the truth. That is just one example, and I've run into many errors from vital records to errors by court clerks while transcribing documents.
If genealogists wait until all the facts are gathered, they'd never publish. If a newspaper waited until they had the "Truth," we wouldn't have many daily papers. If a scientist waited 'til they had the "Truth," we wouldn’t have many cures.
My advice for the genealogist: Don't let your work perish, publish.
Elsewhere:
My mind and time have been occupied lately on a variety of projects, so I have not written the annual“New Year’s Resolutions.” Looking at last year’s column, I see they haven’t changed much anyway. It’s not that we haven’t accomplished a lot. We have added a number of new members, corrected family lines, and moved to our new home at heycuz.net. I am still in the process of moving everything from the freepages website at Rootsweb with my focus right now on getting the Family Album over here to this site. The problem is that the software that I used to use for cataloging and writing the captions for all the photographs is incompatible with my new computer. This means I’ve been copying the information for each photo one at a time. The second area of focus is to write the script for a search engine to make the vast amount of information more accessible to visitors.  So far, I haven't been satisfied with any of my efforts.
April