Well, thank y'all so much for the praise and flattery about the ATC with the transparency door! I did decide to make a couple more; one's done, the other will be soon. (Tally, check your mailbox.)
I realized I'd only done two with hedgehogs (part of the "Forest Floor" theme of this year's Artfest) so I might incorporate them into a couple more ATCs. Plus, woodland mythical creatures -- when else am I going to get such an opportunity to use the various brass/transparency/stamped wings in my stash? This is also a great chance to put to work some of that Greek mythology clogging my brain.
In other news, I made some calls to relatives about more genealogy stuff. I'm distantly related to the head pastor of a prominent African American church in the South, and he clarified a couple of relationships. It gets hard to keep track of these people, since most of them were farmers with lots of kids, who named their children after their siblings: "Bob Smith" names his daughter "Mary" after his sister "Mary," who was named for her aunt "Mary."
But I figured out that if I can get a death certificate for the pastor's grandfather, I'll figure out more about my own grandfather's female relatives. Generally, men are easier to track down than women, since their names usually stay the same for life. (And they're never listed as "Mr. Wife's Name" in official documents.) But our family genealogy expert explained to me that death certificates often list a person's mother by her maiden name -- which of course helps you find other relatives. Here's hoping.
I realized I'd only done two with hedgehogs (part of the "Forest Floor" theme of this year's Artfest) so I might incorporate them into a couple more ATCs. Plus, woodland mythical creatures -- when else am I going to get such an opportunity to use the various brass/transparency/stamped wings in my stash? This is also a great chance to put to work some of that Greek mythology clogging my brain.
In other news, I made some calls to relatives about more genealogy stuff. I'm distantly related to the head pastor of a prominent African American church in the South, and he clarified a couple of relationships. It gets hard to keep track of these people, since most of them were farmers with lots of kids, who named their children after their siblings: "Bob Smith" names his daughter "Mary" after his sister "Mary," who was named for her aunt "Mary."
But I figured out that if I can get a death certificate for the pastor's grandfather, I'll figure out more about my own grandfather's female relatives. Generally, men are easier to track down than women, since their names usually stay the same for life. (And they're never listed as "Mr. Wife's Name" in official documents.) But our family genealogy expert explained to me that death certificates often list a person's mother by her maiden name -- which of course helps you find other relatives. Here's hoping.