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How To Search A Cemetery, Respectfully When it comes to locating a relative or ancestor in a cemetery there are a few things I’ll call “cemetery manners” or “cemetery etiquette” that I believe everyone should know.  Here are a few tips on how to search a cemetery, along with some do’s and don’ts.   To begin, you will not need to start at the actual cemetery. Before you visit the land where your ancestor is buried, start your search online. Below are resources on How To Search A Cemetery.   Online resources The bulk of my ancestors graves are located in the State of Florida.  Fortunately for me Jim Powell has done a great job in creating an online Search the Virtual Cemetery application.  Jim and his extended family, have done much fieldwo ...

Surrounded by biological family.  Second row: Cathy (in the orange cap).  Front Row: Uncle Buddy (86) and Uncle Jean (80).   My friend Cathy is a retired judge in Florida. At first meeting, you notice that her personality has a kick. Call it spunky, self-assured, outgoing, or whatever you choose. There is a quality about Cathy that exudes, self-confidence and a comfortability in her own skin that few people have.  Cathy is also adopted.  We grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida, attended the same elementary school, high school, and university.  Our paths diverged after college, but we recently reconnected via Facebook. That is when she told me the amazing adventure of meeting her biological family for the first time.  When she told me her story, I knew this is one for the My Roots Founda ...

Avoid Pitfalls In Family History Discovery and Sharing Part Three In your family history detective work, you should strive to avoid pitfalls.  The family discovery you put out is just plain wrong.  You have published as fact – information on the wrong family, family lore or myth.   Question. How could I have been so wrong?   If you spend 15 minutes talking with anyone whose done family research for any length of time and you will hear about agony of chasing down the wrong family thinking they were your kinsfolk.  Researching family history involves a fair amount of guesswork and uncertainty. Either earlier researchers may have entered the wrong information.  Mistakes can be made in transcriptions of documents from one location to another; even tombstones are known to sometimes ha ...

On a brisk Saturday morning, about 20 boys piled off a bus onto a 40-year-old family business and experienced real farm life for a few hours.  They learned about the hard work of a farmer, the care of farm animals, and the importance of family.  My Roots Foundation had the honor of hosting boys from the Blue Ribbon Mentor-Advocate (BRMA) for a workshop event.  The event was Saturday March 4, 2017 at B-Bar Farms in northern Durham County.  We are extremely grateful to the folks at B-Bar Farms; Carolyn Wilson (owner), Todd Flowers, and a host of wonderful volunteers.  We can’t say it enough – “Thank you!”   BRMA is a Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools support program designed to improve the achievement of students of color. BRMA provides students with mentoring, advocacy, tutoring, socia ...

Avoid Pitfalls In Family History Discovery and Sharing Part Two In your family history detective work, you should strive to avoid pitfalls.  In the first scenario we talked about an experience in which you share your findings online and suddenly you find that you have been cut off from that newly discovered family tree.  When you question the online tree owner, s/he informs you that you could not possible related to them because of xyz.   The photo above is of an actual newspaper headline and a photograph of my grandfather, Ned Felder.  I still remember the day I discovered this clipping from a 1918 Florida newspaper.  We all hope to find new and interesting items concerning our ancestors when we set out on our genealogical journeys; but finding out my ancestor made headlines for bein ...