Geneabloggers Winter Games

I'll admit it, although I love reading the Geneabloggers themed posts, I don't often participate in them myself. Not because I don't want to but more because I've either got something else to rant, rave, observe, vent, chit-chit, brag about or because I just don't have the photos or files for whatever the particular theme may be; I am not the holder of family tombstone photos, I've only got about two or three myself right now (with plans for more coming in the Spring/Summer), so tombstone Tuesday would only happen maybe twice. You get the idea. But the new theme to coincide with the Olympic Games in Vancouver this winter is a great one that I think everyone can, and should (to the best of their abilities keeping in mind any other obligations, of course) participate in no matter what their skill level, experience, specialty, etc. may be.

And besides, it's already pretty fun. The first step is creating a flag for yourself. I must say, I liked that part a lot. Here's mine














When you go to the flag site, http://www.wearemulticolored.com/, they ask you where your home is, what other country has affected you, and where you have always dreamed of going. While these questions may be not directly be what we're trying to accomplish or focus on for these games, it is a great start. From those questions, I narrowed things down to just three. I wanted to keep America on the flag because it's my home and has been the home of several lines of both my Mom's and my Dad's families since the 17th and 18th centuries. I like knowing that I have lines with an American history going back to the beginning and continuing to the present and thought it would be important to show that.

The two other flags incorporated into my flag for the Geneabloggers Winter Games are the flags from Germany and from the United Kingdom. I chose the German flag because that is where nearly all of my recent immigrant ancestors have come from. The Boldas, the Kleinerts, the Siegmunds all came from various parts of Germany between 1880 and 1900 and they are all lines that I would love to be able to know more about one day. The other flag incorporated on my own flag is of course, the flag for the United Kingdom. Maybe this was too obvious a choice but I used it because it represents two big research problems-I have three lines that stretch back to America in the 18th century that supposedly came from Britain, according to the passed down family history at least. But I haven't been able to find proof of that for any of them yet. Mostly because immigration records in the 1700s are virtually non-existant, with only a few exceptions, from what I'd been able to gather. So that part of the flag represents both the possible beginnings of those lines as well as the time and commitment it has and will continue to require to prove it.

The next step of the Games will be to start actually doing the work, beginning with citing sources. I need to go back into my files and cite everything that needs a citation. "Everything" might be a little too ambitious, but who knows. 10 citations will get me a bronze medal, 20=silver, 30=gold, 40=diamond, 50=platinum. So I should be able to get into the files this week and figure out what needs to be done. Wish me luck!!