Online Genealogical Software

There are many genealogical software programs designed for personal use which are installed and used on your own computer. But what do you do if you want to have multiple users sharing and updating the same database from different locations? One answer is to use online genealogical software and databases.

For a detailed review of the some of the available options by the inimitable Dick Eastman of Eastman's Online Genealogical Newsletter: Click Here.

The Benefits of Thinking About Our Ancestors

The British Psychological Society

Research Digest Blog

Psychologists have shown previously that thinking about our own mortality - 'where we're going' - prompts us to shore up our cultural world view and engage in self-esteem boosting activities. Little researched until now, by contrast, are the psychological effects of thinking about where we came from - our ancestors.

Anecdotally, there's reason to believe that such thoughts are beneficial. Why else the public fascination with genealogy and programmes like the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? Now Peter Fischer and his colleagues at the Universities of Graz, Berlin and Munich have shown that thinking about our ancestors boosts our performance on intelligence tests - what they've dubbed 'the ancestor effect'.

To continue reading: Click Here.

Mountain Stewards

In the fall of 2003, the Mountain Stewards began to restore some of the traditional trails that meander throughout the Southern Appalachians. The origins of some of these mountain trails date to the time of the Cherokees. Others were built by the early pioneering families. Still other were constructed by logging companies and some were put in by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930's. All of these trails remain in existance. Indian Trail Trees dot the region, remnants of the Native American culture before the white settlers arrived in the nineteenth century. Settlers left their mark as well. Home sites can still be located and the debris from the stills of the moonshiners that once haunted these mountains still stand in some of the hollows. Aside from the occasional sign of our ancesters' presence, these trails weave through the natural wilderness of the oldest mountain range on the planet.

To check out their web site: Click Here.

Note: This site has a good deal of information and many pictures. Be sure to see the sections on their Trail Tree Project and Indian Trails Project.

Merry Christmas

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

"Brightest and Best"

“On Old Christmas Eve we’d sit fore the fire and Mom and Dad and Granny’d atell us about the baby Jesus born in a stable on this night, and they’d say that if we’d go out at midnight we’d see the elderberry bush blooming in the fence corner right in the snow, and that if we’d peep in through a chink in our stable and make no racket atall we’d see the cow and the old mule kneeling, paying honor to the little King of Kings. Then maybe Granny’d sing us her Christmas carol, “Brightest and Best,” in the old mountain tune, and we’d all sing some…That used to be our Christmas.”

Jean Ritchie, Singing Family of the Cumberlands

University Press of Kentucky, 1988

Brightest and Best

Hail the blest morn
See the Great Mediator
Down from the regions of Glory descend!
Shepherds, go worship the Babe in the manger,
Lo, for the a guard the bright angels attend.

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us Thine aid
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

Cold on His Cradle the dew-drops are shining
Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore Him in slumber reclining
Maker and Monarch and Savior of all.

Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
Vainly with gifts would His favor secure;
Richer by far is the heart’s adoration,
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

Shall we not yield Him in costly devotion,
Odors of Edom and offerings divine,
Gems of the mountains and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest and gold from the mine?

Note: Jean Ritchie (born in 1922) is the best known and most respected singer of traditional ballads in the United States. Born in Viper, Kentucky, she comes from a family of musicians who have preserved folk traditions for generations.

This Melungeon Studies blog entry was lifted shamelessly from a back issue of Dave Tabler's ever-excellent Appalachian History blog.

To visit it: Click Here.

For more on Jean Ritchie: Click Here.

Littell's Living Age: The Melungens, March 1849

We give to-day another amusing and characteristic sketch from a letter of our intelligent and sprightly correspondent, sojourning at present in one of the seldom-visited nooks hid away in our mountains.

You must know that within ten miles of this owl's nest, there is a watering-place, known hereabouts as 'black-water Springs.' It is situated in a narrow gorge, scarcely half a mile wide, between Powell's Mountain and the Copper Ridge, and is, as you may suppose, almost inaccessible. A hundred men could defend the pass against even a Xerxian army. Now this gorge and the tops and sides of the adjoining mountains are inhabited by a singular species of the human animal called MELUNGENS.

The legend of their history, which they carefully preserve, is this. A great many years ago, these mountains were settled by a society of Portuguese Adventurers, men and women--who came from the long-shore parts of Virginia, that they might be freed from the restraints and drawbacks imposed on them by any form of government. These people made themselves friendly with the Indians and freed, as they were from every kind of social government, they uprooted all conventional forms of society and lived in a delightful Utopia of their own creation, trampling on the marriage relation, despising all forms of religion, and subsisting upon corn (the only possible product of the soil) and wild game of the woods.

These intermixed with the Indians, and subsequently their descendants (after the advances of the whites into this part of the state) with the negros and the whites, thus forming the present race of Melungens.

For the complete article: Click Here.

Indian-Pioneer Papers

University of Oklahona

Western History Collections

The Indian-Pioneer Papers oral history collection spans from 1861 to 1936. It includes typescripts of interviews conducted during the 1930s by government workers with thousands of Oklahomans regarding the settlement of Oklahoma and Indian territories, as well as the condition and conduct of life there. Consisting of approximately 80,000 entries, the index to this collection may be accessed via personal name, place name, or subject.

To search or browse the collection: Click Here.