23 February 2009

MARTHA WASHINGTON GETS A MAKEOVER (Article From THE WASHINGTON POST) MT VERNON

Click on the title above to get to the Washington Post Article on MARTHA WASHINGTON which says that the dowdy - frumpy Martha we think of doesn't depict the young very tiny young woman who wore very hot wedding shoes when she married George! (I happened to have read around her, and she was also the richest widow in the colonies!) DON'T WE JUST LOVE AMERICAN HISTORY!?

20 February 2009

ACROSS TIME AND DEATH by JENNY COCKELL : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW

ACROSS TIME AND DEATH C 1993 Jenny Cockell, author 

A Mother's Search For Her Past Life Children Fireside book (Simon and Schuster) 


This short simply told story is written by the woman who, even as a young child in this life, had profound memories and worries about the many children she had left behind in a past life. Mary Sutton was an Irish woman who died knowing that her children had no one to take care of them or take them in. Indeed they were dispersed to various orphanages and it was her search for them that reunited many of the siblings. As Jenny in this life, the same soul would not rest until she learned the fate of those children, now older people. 

As an experienced researcher I am struck by Jenny's lack of expertise in knowing how to go about a genealogical search. (This is a woman who belongs to MENSA, the organization for people with genius IQ.) In order to ground her memories that come spontaneously and are then added to through hypnosis, she writes to many people whose surname she responds to from the phone book, asks priests and others if they remember the family, and eventually her son in the life of Mary Sutton, "Sonny," becomes a cooperative ally. Of course some of us know only too well that those plea for help letters to strangers often go ignored. 

Cockrell is also very much afraid that she will be thought of as mentally unstable for even suggesting that she may have past-life memories, and expects the majority to brush her off. But in the end she is able to prove that some of her memories were accurate and has the satisfaction of following her memories and learning the truth. As I read this book, I could feel Jenny Cockell's own hesitation, uncertainly, and reaction to obstacles. I recommend you read it!

C 2009 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy Blogspot

Note: July 2023 I restructured this older post which did not seem to be keeping the formatting.

18 February 2009

HELPING AFRICA IN THEIR DNA - LOS ANGELES TIMES article by TERESA WATNABE

Click on the title above to get to the article, which was the front page article today. Journalist TERESA WATNABE tells us that wealthy African-Americans are using DNA tests to determine what tribe(s) their slave ancestors were from, and then applying for dual citizenship, while also creating social programs for those people. Focusing on African-American actor, Isaiah Washington, who says that he dreampt African landscapes and find the faces of his ancestors in the Sierra Leone people he is genetically related to.

13 February 2009

HISTORY.COM has a fantastic VALENTINES LINK

Click on the link above to learn about the start of this holiday which so many people in the United States love. In time for you to send loving greetings to your friends and family... Let's remember our UNMARRIED LOVED ONES TOO - OUR SIBLINGS, FRIENDS, and CO-WORKERS !

12 February 2009

From CHILDREN'S PAST LIFE by CAROL BOWMAN

CHILDREN'S PAST LIVES
How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child
by Carol Bowman

C 1997 by Carol and Steve Bowman
A Bantam Book

Carol Bowman's son Chase reacted to the sounds of fireworks or a car backfiring with dramatic upheavals that took him hours to tearfully recover from. As a result, she sought the advice of a child psychologist and eventually had the boy regressed. Chase remembered dying in the Civil War, a life in which he was Black. Bowman did her research, collected stories from other parents of their children's memories of past lives, and eventually learned hypnotherapy herself... She is the author of two books on the subject, this one, circa 1997, is to my mind a classic.


CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE TO GET TO CAROL BOWMAN's OWN WEB SITE which includes a Forum.


Page 129 contains the story of Nicola, who had recently asked her mother why she wasn't a boy like before. This was a case of spontaneous memory.

"She said her family had lived in a gray stone house that was in the 'middle of four houses joined together in a row" and next to railway tracks; her mother wore long skirts, the same Victorian -style clothing her dolly wore now, and the town they lived in was Haworth; she and her dogs roamed the fields around her house and her "other Mummy" always warned her not to play near the railway tracks, but one day she was always warned her not to play near the railway tracks,. but one day she was playing on the railway tracks when a train "came up fast and knocked me over." Men took her to a hospital where "I went to sleep and died and I saw God in Heaven before I was born. But I didn't really die. I came to you instead and you got to be my other Mummy."

"This flood of detail could not be ignored. Little Nicola's story was so convincing that Kathleen (her present-day Mummy) took her to Haworth, a short drive away, to see if her daughter would recognize anything. Neither Kathleen or Nicola had never been to Haworth, but as soon as they got there, Nicola skipped down streets and unmarked lanes leading to the outskirts of town. She took her mother directly to the house she'd described: one in the middle of four graystone townhouses. Everything matched Nicola's description perfectly, including the surrounding fields and the railway tracks.'

"Kathleen pursued her daughter's past life memory. Since she had a name and an address as leads, she decided to check the records of the parish church to see if she could verify the accuracy of Nicola's recollection. She opened the yellowed pages of the old census book and her heart "skipped a beat." She found the Benson family listed (an unusual name for that parish.) They had one son, who was born in 1875. But the next census, taken six years later, listed the same Benson family with two young girls, aged three and six months - but no son! Since the census required that each family member always be listed, Kathleen concluded that the little boy Nicola remembered must have died when he was between five and six years old.

09 February 2009

OLD LOVE LETTERS ? WRITE TO THE ONE YOU LOVE TODAY !

Old love letters are often very informative and can help you in your quest to understand your ancestors. We have Internet and e-mail, Blogging, and interactive chats, and so many ways to have long-distance relationships of various kinds through the Internet, but some good "old fashioned" love letter writing will never really go out of style.

How to ? First buy a commemorative, decorative stamp, to affix on the envelope.
Then, find some good writing paper, the acid free kind that can last the years. Sometimes this is sold by the sheet.

A good pen - flowing gel ink for instance - and your best handwriting are key.
Of course writing FROM YOUR HEART is the best and only thing to do.

Written, walk that letter to the mailbox and put a kiss on it before you mail it.
Vibes... the best!


02 February 2009

WHEN SCOTLAND WAS JEWISH by DONALD YATES and ELIZABETH CALDWELL HIRSCHMAN

WHEN SCOTLAND WAS JEWISH
by Donald Yates and Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman

DNA Evidence, Archeology, Analysis of Migrations, and Public and Family Records Show Twelfth Century Semitic Roots.

McFarland and Company Publishers -Jefferson, North Carolina and London

Fascinating! The DNA evidence may be the clincher to a controversial theory that the authors intend to prove to their best ability, that common assumptions about Scotland and the Scottish are erroneous,and that many people of Jewish ancestry came to prominence, developing the culture of the country. Bagpipes were a Middle Eastern instrument first, for instance.

The population of developing Scotland was heavily influenced by an influx of Sepphardic Jews from the 12th century on, and many of the famous CLANS and SEPTS have this root heritage.

Covered here are Campbell, Forbes, Fraser, and several other surnames thought commonly to be genetically Scottish. The evidence begins with portraits from the National Gallery showing the portraits of early famous aristocrats sporting head-wear and faces that are considered to be Semitic. It moves onto the DNA testing of representatives of these surnames from around the world.

Did Presbyterianism have had its roots in Proto-Jewish communities that practiced a Torah aware version of Christianity as a kind of cover for Judaism? These researchers think so. Yates and Hirschman also dip in to the whole Knights Templar, Freemasons, and Cabala controversy which of late seems to also wind up in Scotland.

These researchers started out a few years ago with their pioneering research into the Melungeons of the South-eastern United States, a heritage they both share, and also believe to have begun in Iberian - Mediterranean Sepphardic-Jewish and Arabian populations.