ANGEL WITH VIOLIN

WISHING YOU WONDERFUL HOLIDAYS.... if not with your family then with your family of friends.

MARILYN MONROE FBI FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT - USES

If you'll go to the link above, you'll get to read Marilyn Monroe's FBI file, as found through the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT. You may feel that it's terrible that any person be so invaded in their privacy, and all wrong about obtaining someones file.

Right or wrong, the FBI files that you can obtain through the Freedom of Information Act can be very valuable to creating a family history or a biography.

IF THE PERSON WAS IN THE MILITARY but their MILITARY RECORDS "BURNED UP IN A FIRE" try an FBI file instead.

THE MANY LIVES OF MARILYN MONROE by SARAH CHURCHWELL

The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe: the title has nothing to do with past lives. Instead the author, Sarah Churchwell examines all the different ways that various authors of biographies of Marilyn have constructed or reconstructed her life from research, often dependent on each other's books. What really is true?

The mystery of who Marilyn really was and what her life - and death - were really like continues to intrigue many years past her death in 1962. Perhaps we are all projecting upon her and maybe she was the one who started telling stories on herself that were exaggerations or blatantly untrue as groomed by Hollywood and to enhance publicity.

What I as a genealogist want to look at here is how well the author(s) used resources that we would use as well to bring any ancestor back to life. In this book we see a copy of her birth certificate (and the uncertainty of her patriarchal lineage is sorted through). We also learn that someone unearthened her admission to the orphanage on September 13, 1935. (Just how many foster homes did she have?) Needless to say, a good researcher would find evidence of any and all rumored and known marriages. (As for Marilyn's medical records, I've learned that her shrink unethnically recorded her therapy, but that's another book.)

Then, to fight the rumors - or perhaps studio smearing - that Monroe was unable to act in the end, an addled mess, we find that the archives of Fox Studio, which shows that she had just negotiated the most lucrative contracts of her life for future films and that she was actually very in control of herself on the sets. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

Last but not least, Marilyn Monroe's FBI file was used for research... and we are linking to that here.

The book was published by Metropolitan Books - a Henry Holt Company - New York and is C 2004 by Sarah Churchwell

ELLIS ISLAND - IF YOU HAD A BETTER TICKET YOU GOT OFF AT CASTLE ROCK

It's true... while we have visions of poor people getting out of the steerage passenger compartment of the ship with all their worldly possession bundled in cloth we forget that many immigrants came to America on first and second class tickets and when the ship pulled into New York Harbor they were let off first at Castle Rock - not the Ellis Island processing point.

Not only that, but there were some people who were already using the steamships to go back and forth to Europe for business, and that includes women, before there was any better way to travel.

The average time across from Europe to America over the Atlantic on a steamship was 10 days.

AMERICAN HOLIDAY SEASON IS UPON US

Here we are - another holiday season!

For some this means a round of parties, seeing family, or maybe just noshing on ten pounds watching television specials. Holidays are distraction or a reward for working hard. Winter time, when the agricultural harvest was complete and the weather outside too cold to bear for long meant borrowing in.

I don't know about you, but I like to get into my cave. I bring out the crochet hooks and yarn about this time of year. I like making soup or stew in the crock pot, and coming home to the smell of that slow cooking.

The holiday season can be time to catch up on research, organizing your notes, or up or down loading.

HIS BIOLOGICAL FATHER IS CHARLIE MANSON

There were a lot of news articles on line to pick from but this one from THE SUN, has great photos showing the likeness that confirms that Charlie Manson, the infamous head of the Manson Family and Los Angeles DJ Matthew Roberts are father and son.

I'm posting this, not for the lurid aspect of this breaking news, but because adopted as children, many people feel it is important to find their real parents. It varies from state to state and the laws and contracts at the time of adoption, but through adoption registry sites, at the age of 18 a child can post seeking a parent.

This has to be one of the more rewarding areas of genealogical research for me, but at this point this is my advice to Matthew Roberts. Even when all paperwork and looks are persuasive, get a DNA test that confirms the match!

CZAR PETER

Did you ancestors live under a King, a Czar, a Prince or Princess, or a local Count? Or were they aristocrats and rulers themselves? (Pay attention to the history of the region they came from and learn who was ruling their lives.)
Many towns that were under occupation have changed names several times. For instance, some places in Central and Eastern Europe have names in German, Polish, Russian, and local languages. Likewise, the records you are seeking may be moved from one archive to another. In some European countries, records were kept by the Catholic church for many villages, because the priest may have been the only person who could read and write - and your ancestor need not have been a Catholic to be recorded.

In the United States large counties were split into smaller ones as populations increased. Don't get "county bound" and research paths of migration.

THE PEERAGE ! WOW !

Check out this link....if you're into royalty...

Look4Cash.com

According to this site, Mislaid Cash, Checks, Deposits, Securities, Refunds, and More can be claimed from State and Federal Treasuries. Several years ago I found $700 for a rich guy using various sites and links. Us poor ones didn't find a dime waiting for us. The rich guy didn't get around to paying me. The poor ones did. If you find some money owned you, use it all for archival fees!

RAYMOND MOODY and REUNIONS Visionary Encounters With Departed Loved Ones

Raymond Moody, whose book LIFE AFTER LIFE came out about 1973, was a ground breaker in the field of past life recall. In 1993 he followed that book with REUNIONS, written with Paul Perry.

REUNIONS is a good book about an ancient art updated; MIRROR GAZING. This is a means to revisit with passed on loved ones, through visions. It's something the Greeks once did, maybe the Egyptians too, and there's a way to build a little room with a mirror in it to get the same effect.

On page 100 they write: "Like the ancient Greeks, I had designed a psychomanteum, to which people would come to consult with the spirits of the deceased. It was clear that given the proper preparation, people could see apparitions of departed loved ones using these techniques.

I found this to be an exciting and useful notion. People who are saddened by the loss of a loved one could handle their grief in a more direct way. Instead of telling a therapist how they feel about losing a spouse or child, they could talk to the loved one directly.

Through my work in near-death studies I know that seeing departed loved ones is tremendously therapeutic. Encountering dead relatives is one element of the near-death experience that keeps it from being a frightening or traumatic event. Research has shown that near death experiences transform people's lives by making them less fearful of death. One reason they become less fearful is that they see that dead relatives are happy in the afterlife.

LINK TO RAYMOND MOODY BY CLICKING ON THE TITLE ABOVE.

A 57 minute Google Video is linked to the right!

ALL SOULS... HALLOWEEN... THE ANCESTORS

This blog is called ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY because I think that genealogy IS a form of ancestor worship... And Halloween is the time when they say that the "veil between the worlds" is the thinnest. Be it the Catholic celebration of All Souls in early November, or the Mexican tradition of THE DAY OF THE DEAD, remembering those who have passed on is tradition in many cultures...

EMBOSSED ARMOUR 1565

Back when men wore hose. This was not cross-dressing!

VIDEO RECOMMENDATION : HALLOWED GROUNDS

PBS HOME VIDEO
HALLOWED GROUNDS
America's Overseas Military Cemeteries
Robert Urth Director
Glenn Marcus and Robert Urth Writers

You may have seen the genealogy databases, microfilms, or books, titled something like "Veterans Interred Overseas."

This is the video to watch if you want to know more about how 125,000 American military men and women - including the famous General George Patton, band leaders, and nurses, ended up in cemeteries in Europe and the Philippines. Now the cemeteries are beautiful, and places where the living can show their respects. And indeed many Americans are still making a stop at an American cemetery in France, for instance, part of their vacation.

This video will bring a few tears to your eyes if you have an ounce of Patriotism. It will remind you, sadly, that wars have been fought in the past by Americans who were barely here; immigrants new to the country who had not yet their citizenship -and Japanese-Americans whose families were in concentration camps in California.


But like all good cemeteries, these are for the living to make peace.

LOOKING FOR CARROLL BECKWITH by CAPTAIN ROBERT L. SNOW

"Looking For Carroll Beckwith: by Captain Robert L. Snow, Commander, Homicide Branch, of the Indianap0lis Police Department is a short but highly interesting account of a man with dogged determination and research skills on a quest; to prove if the visions he had under hypnosis are accurate. Carroll Beckwith proves to be the artist he believes he has either genetic memory of or who he's the reincarnation of. In the end Snow is able to verify a number of facts that would indicate that his vision was accurate.

Like many research quests that seem at first fruitless, after hundreds of hours of research, Carroll saw the painting he remembered in a gallery when he wasn't looking for it, after he has pretty much given up. His research lead him to the artist's diary and unpublished biography.

On page 79 we read, "At the end of the wall, an easel stood in the corner holding a portrait. I gave it a glance and started on past,. but then stopped abruptly, as if running into a glass wall. Whirling around, I started open mouthed at the portrait, reliving an experience I'd had once when I grabbed onto a live wire without knowing it, the current freezing me in my tracks as huge voltage surged up and down my arms and legs."

On page 89 we read, "My whole belief system was no longer just teetering. it was falling. Everything around me suddenly had such a surrealistic feeling to it that I could have been in a Kafka novel...."

The artist lived from 1852-1917. He was a contemporary of John Singer Sargent. The book contains images of the artist as well as examples of his art.

LOOKING FOR CARROLL BECKWITH
The True Story of a Detective's Search for His Past Life
C 1999 by the author
Daybreak Books

From JOHN LENNON by PHILIP NORMAN - John a Reincarnation of Yoko's Great Grandfather?

JOHN LENNON
The Life
By Philip Norman C 2008
Ecco an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers


A couple years before John Lennon was shot and killed he went to Japan with his wife Yoko Ono Lennon and their son Sean.

page 762 of the hardback...

"A particular memory of the Japanese trip was to haunt Yoko in years to come. One day, leafing through a magazine, John happened on an old photograph of her maternal great-grandfather, Zenjiro Yasuda. Since the deal had always been that they talked only about his family, he knew nothing of the great Zenjiro, the Emperor's de facto banker, who enjoyed national fame at a pop-star level half a century before such things were dreamed of. Nor had Yoko herself ever put together the several ways in which Zenjiro's life paralleled John's - coming from the north of the country, being a musician and poet as well as a moneymaking phenomenon, having his portrait hung in homes and workplaces as an inspiration to others, always insisting on full partnership with his tiny but dynamic wife. Though Yoko did not learn this until much later, Zenjiro even had the same birthday as John. The only thing while, seemingly, marked him as from a different culture and more dangerous times was his fate at the hands of a young man professing to be his admirer.


"John was fascinated by Zenjiro's photograph, which - especially since his conversion to Japanese clothes and manners - seemed to bear a more than passing likeness to himself. "That's me in a former life," he told Yoko.

"Don't say that," she replied. "He was assassinated."

QUEEN MARY CUNARD LINE

The Queen Mary is in Long Beach California and it is said that it is haunted. I recall the scene in the 1956 book Marjorie Morningstar that took place in the swimming pool... You would have thought it was a mile long beach but the pool is so very basic there is hardly any room to really recline in one's bathing attire! The pride of the Cunard Line, which also brought thousands of immigrants to the United States of America!

GENEALOGY CANNOT BE COUNTED ON TO HEAL A FAMILY

A dysfunctional family is unlikely to be healed because some member decides to unify it with genealogy research! Still, persist! For you may just heal yourself in the process!

I've had students who were so lucky to have united family that documents seemed to arrive in their mail every week. They were able to create warm and fuzzy memory books with ease - never mind actual research. But announcing that you have a genealogy project - for the benefit of every family member - does not seem to cause cooperation when you need it, and you may find that some of your family informants will fall from their pedestals when your research proves that they are full of stories that are not true.

Such was the case when one student heavily relied on her aunt, the matriarch of the family. This matriarch spoke with authority and claimed credit for naming her siblings (some who proved to have been born before she was). She had also faked wedding dates to cover unplanned pregnancies and claimed a first wife had died rather than that there was a divorce and the kidnapping of a child.

She could be credited for INVENTING family, perhaps where there was none...

FORGOTTEN ELLIS ISLAND HOSPITAL

Just watched the PBS video "Forgotten Ellis Island" about the immigrants who were kept at the hospital before being deported back to their home countries or released as well into their new country. It's a terrific video so I recommend you get a copy to watch! You'll see the decay of the buildings themselves...

The link abve goes to a web site for the hospital....

It's being refurbished!

READING THE CENSUS and CALCULATING FOR INFLATION

Ever wonder if your ancestor was rich or poor? Ever compare siblings in different states and notice that one owns a home worth $10,00o in one state, while another is renting for $50 a month? Just how rich is rich and how poor is poor? Real estate has always varied a lot by location.

I found a calculator on line that I like called The Dollar Times Inflation Calculator. I learned that ONE DOLLAR in 1930 is equal to $12.22 today. That means that one of my relations house in Jersey would cost $165,000 today. Now is that $165,ooo in Los Angeles (good luck finding that shack!) or a great middle class home in, well, Jersey!

Try this calculator and see what you think! Click on the title above or on the link to the right!

BLISS BROYARD ONE DROP

More from ONE DROP by Bliss Broyard


From Page 315 of her book about discovering her "one drop" of African Ancestry;
Bliss' father Anatole Broyard, a New York literary critic, who became quite successful in his career, died having just revealed that he was from New Orleans Creole ancestry. Her search for her father and her heritage took her to archives and into interviews with previously unmet family members...

"When you love a family member of close friend, people tell you, to console you, that your loved one will always live on in your memories. They act as if this process occurs involuntarily; a biological trick to offset your grief, just as the brain suppresses traumatic memories that are too difficult to handle. Your friends don't tell you to record everything that your remember about the dead person because you will indeed forget many things over time. Nor do they warn you that your memories will become irreversibly mortared into a monument of the "dearly departed" --- some myth that your fashion to help organize your recollections to better retrieved them. Nor are you told about the contaminating influence of other people's stories, which seem all the more vivid compared to the familiar old statue in the corner of your brain. And absolutely no one will suggest that you might begin to wonder how well you knew your family member or close friend in the first place, now that it's too late to learn anything more firsthand."

Review of THE MONIED METROPOLIS by SVEN BECKERT

The MONIED METROPOLIS
New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie 1850-1896
by Sven Beckert of Harvard University C 2001
Cambridge University Press


America as a "classless" society? Only perhaps, compared to the Old World. For by the mid 1800's class was very much forming in America, and the rich elite of New York set the tone for who was who, as the merchant class rose to meet the Old Families. Sexism? The role of women was to enhance their families lives, and create the refuge away from the business world, to create society and culture in their time.


(On page 39) "Beyond these distinct gender roles, merchants defined their shared world by the design of the family dwelling. Its layout served to create the illusion of a sphere removed from the harsh realities of the market - a world in which "gentlemen" could recover from the world of exchange. Thick carpets, heavy curtains, and ornate wallpaper insulated the abode from the outside world, offering a physical retreat from the noises, odors and visual blur of the metropolis. Portraits of living or deceased family members lined its walls, denoting continuity, tradition, and stability...."


(On page 40) ... 1855, the average upper class New York household (assessed to have more than $10,000 in wages paid), had only 2.3 servants. (Servants who appear on census records are usually LIVE IN servants by the way!)


The women were leading the way when it came to entertainments and charities. And raising their children to Upper Crust manners and norms.

(On page 154) "Nothing quite expressed the confidence of the city's merchants, industrialists, and bankers better than the blossoming of social life among the economic elite's wealthiest ranks after the Civil War. in a distinct departure from the antebellum years, social events of this select and powerful group became more elaborate and more public than ever before. The social season following the war - one historian has estimated - saw 600 balls, and the amount spent on dresses and jewelry for these affairs ran to about $7 million."

This was the advent of the society column and reporters! Flaunting wealth became acceptable. Money started to speak up for those who earned it! And the broke aristocrats of the Old World were happy to trade titles for the income of a newly rich American bride or groom. And so came the day when the Churchill family of England demanded more of a dowry from the Jerome's of New York... Yes Winston Churchill's mother, Jenny, was an American (from prior reading I learned she was part Native American!)

If you love studies of the American Class System as I do, this book is a must read for you!

SHINING KNIGHT

Medieval symbolism is an interesting subject in itself.

LA YOGA MAGAZINE DR CUMES' TIPS FOR DEVELOPING A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR ANCESTORS

"Hold to your ancestors close to your heart like a beloved friend or family member. Do not take them for granted. They are your link to the spirit world and know when you stray from your true path or promises."

CASTLE

The development of Castles from wood and earthwork fortresses to built in cities in Europe is a fascinating one... And it's all tied in with the way power and military might were entwined.

REVIEW of ROYAL BABYLON by KARL SHAW

Ever get crazy to prove you have royal ancestry? Well, you might change your mind, when you read ROYAL BABYLON, a book that exposes the madness of the royal houses of Europe. Mental illness attributed to way too much intermarriage, which has reinforced genetic tendencies to be out of one's mind, is offered as a reason for outrageous behaviors including violence and perversion. No wonder some Princesses could not get marriage offers. No wonder some of us are more than happy with being common!

Yes, the author names names.

Yes, Princess Diana and the House of Windsor are mentioned. No, nothing about the situation in Monaco with Princess Caroline's incredibly wealthy German husband, who has been known to go berserk in rages, is here, but the author might want to do an update and include all that.

Here's what you need to buy the book besides the title and author above.
It's copyright by the author and published in 1999 by Broadway Books.

C Ancestry Worship Genealogy 2009 All Rights Including Internet and International Rights Reserved. Please contact us using comments if you wish to quote us.

KNIGHT RIDING IN PLUMES

1940 CENSUS coming up - WE CAN BARELY STAND TO WAIT!

The 1940 U.S. census is going to be released in a few months and most of us can barely stand to wait! Actually you don't have to. You can use CITY DIRECTORIES to get an address for a family, and then be ready to find the ENUMERATION DISTRICT for that address as a first step, as it will be some time before any of the INDEXED DATABASES catch up with the volume of need for information.

Of course, if you're using the 1940 to find someone who is not showing up on CITY DIRECTORIES or the 1930 census, someone who has, perhaps, been the victim of terrible handwriting or inaccurate indexing or transcribing to databases, this can be frustrating.

My advice is NOT TO BE AFRAID OF DOING THINGS THE GOOD OLD FASHIONED WAY!

At least half of my personal genealogy has NOT been possible to replicate using Ancestry Databases, to give you an example. And believe me I tried.

When you pull something up instantly on a database it's a blessing, because it will save you time. However, don't get lazy looking for your family... Don't hesitate to call the closest archive, library, or museum to find out about any local publications such as newspapers, trade magazines, ethnic-oriented club literature, and historical books, to get a better position in your research!

DISCOVERING YOUR CHILD's IMAGINARY PLAYMATE is an ANCESTOR

I've heard of this happening more than once. What's the proof? More than one family roots searcher has found the unusual name of a great grandparent or other family member they knew nothing about - until they did their research - coming out of the mouth of a child when they go playing with their imaginary playmate.

I think it's time to consider that children aren't just making up their playmates as they go. Rather, I think the child sees or remembers from his or her's time on The Other Side, another soul (maybe from a family or other "soul group") that is serving as a sort of guardian for him or her in youth.

JACOBUS AWARD

The Jacobus Award is given for the best in research writing in the genealogy field. Treat yourself to reading about someone else's family to see what excellent writing is in this category!

From JOHN ADAMS by DAVID MC CULLOUGH - ABIGAIL ADAMS on PARIS, FRANCE

pages 303-304

She (Abigail) though Paris far from appealing, for all the splendor of its public buildings. And if she had not seen all of it, she had "smelt it." Given its state of sanitation, the stench was more than she could bear...... Everything looked filthy to her. Even the handsomest buildings were black with soot. The people themselves were the "dirtiest creatures" she had ever laid eyes on, and the number of prostitutes was appalling. That any nation would condone, let alone license, such traffic, she found vile, just as she fond abhorrent the French practice of arranged marriages among the rich and titled of society...

"What idea, my dear madame, can you form of the manners of a nation, one city of which furnishes ... 52,000 unmarried females so lost to a sense of honor and shame as publicly to enroll their names in a notary office for the most abandoned purposes and to commit iniquity with impunity," she wrote in outrage to Mercy Warren. "Thousands of these miserable wretches perish annually with disease and poverty, whilst the most sacred of institutions is prostituted to unite titles and estates." (Marriage)

On a visit later to a Paris orphanage run by Catholic Sisters of Charity, she was shown a large room with a hundred cribs and perhaps as many infants. it was a sign both pleasing and painful - pleasing because all was so admirably clean, and the nuns especially attentive and kind, but painful because of the numbers of abandoned babies, .... In an average year 6000 children were delivered to the orphanage, she was told ...'

C 2001 David Mc Cullough Simon and Schuster Publishers

ALL OTHER NIGHTS a FICTION OF THE CIVIL WAR by DARA HORN

I'm linking to Dara Horn's website here, and it can say more than I can about her amazing Civil War novel, which I just read - couldn't put it down. Stayed in bed most of the day reading, reading, reading...

It seems just recently in American history and genealogy that we've come to understand that though a small number of persons of Jewish religion or descent came as colonialists, some of them rose to great heights, including Judah Benjamin, whose picture was on Confederate money because he was the Confederacy’s Secretary of State.

In this novel, the extremely talented writer, Dara Horn, made her day job as a researcher for a history magazine pay off, basing some of her characters on men and women who actually lived in those times. There's a love story running through it too, but I don't want to spoil it for you...

THE PRESIDENTS OFFICIAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE

FactCheck.org is here with the jpeg files you can see yourself, to decide if President Barach Obama's birth certificate is official. For about a year there have been rumors and "proofs" that he was actually born in Kenya or that something was amiss on the certificate from Hawaii.

Though being born an American Citizen is a requirement to run for the Presidency, and some famous immigrants have wished to change this, BIRTH CERTIFICATES WERE NOT A REQUIREMENT IN ALL STATES OF THE UNITED STATES all at once or even all that long ago. Applicants for Social Security, who were born in other countries, often proved their age by the baptismals of their children, for instance. Our ancestors often kept their own accounting of their growing families by writing in the family's Holy Bible.

REVIEW of OUR SAVAGE NEIGHBORS by PETER SILVER

OUR SAVAGE NEIGHBORS
How Indian War Transformed Early America
C 2008 Peter Silver
WW. Norton and Co Publishers

When is the last time you read about Colonialist's being scalped and terrorized by Native Americans as a form of terrorism, or suspicion of the new German-speaking immigrants, the Palatines, being thought of as crude by the Philadelphia establishment?

How about the dread of a Catholic-Indian conspiracy?

Peter Silver reintroduces these subjects without concern of how history collides with some present-day politically correct assumptions about imperialism. The Colonial world is rife with inter-tribal and inter-ethnic immigrant conflicts, some more visceral than others.

In the cities this is merely discomfort. In the wilderness - the frontier that is pushed west - the fear is palatable. Thus, the title, Our Savage Neighbors, is just right, for a book that might get booed at major American Universities where just the opposite stereotype of Native Americans is authorized.

Now that political correctness requires rewriting history, we Americans tend to think of all Native Americans as peaceful, spiritual (New Agey), and passive victims (with Casino Rights), maybe it's time to read OUR SAVAGE NEIGHBORS and learn again about the real terror of Indian War.

Scalpings and the slaughter of innocents kept European cultured colonials used to different Rules of War, outraged and terrified, as if the MANSON FAMILY struck on a daily basis. (Some Indian tribes were known to enjoy cutting open pregnant women and ripping their babes out of the womb.) And so much for the prevailing notion that Indians didn't "own" land but shared it like a commune. They sure fought for their turf. And the gun proved to be the great equilizer.

Heavily referenced, this book's strength lies in its focus on the Early America of the Mid-Atlantic region and especially of Pennsylvania and the Ohio Territories, places where the English were followed by the Irish of Scotland (Scots Irish) and the German Palantines, who came into Philadelphia and moved - bit by bit - west, pushing the borders. An Indian raid that left mutilated bodies - scalped and limbs cut off - and farmers fled their homesteads, leaving crops to rot, for the relative safety of the cities, where they stayed for months. They were more afraid of the condition their bodies might be found in, of cut off limbs and rotting rather than being given a Christian burial, than death itself.

This book also illuminates the union of the French and the Indians against the British at Fort Pitt and surrounds, as well as the role of the Quakers and Moravians, who were not trusted for their friendliness to the Indians. It reveals the snobbery of those who arrived to the Colonies earlier, against the Scots-Irish and Palantine Germans, who waited in sordid conditions and disease hoping someone would buy their contract for servitude.

A truly exciting read!

Review C Ancestry Worship - Genealogy 2009 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International. If you wish to quote this review please contact us.

DATING PHOTOS

Ever go into an old attic and find some photographs stored away? Here is some termonology that may help you identify them ...

DAGUERROTYPES - pioneer

AMBROTYPES - glass negatives - sharply etched appearance

TINTYPES - civil war

CARTE DE VISITES (CALLING CARDS) 1860-s' 1870's

DVD RECOMMENDED HILLBILLY HISTORY CHANNEL BILLY RAY CYRUS

Watched HILLBILLY "the Real story" on the History Channel DVD, produced by Moore Huntley Productions, this weekend. Anyone interested in American History of the Appalachian region (the founding of the Wautauga Colony for instance), anyone with "Scotch-Irish" ancestry, anyone interested in moonshine making or marijuana growing, is going to find this one interesting.

Aimed at giving credit where it's due and erasing stereotypes where applicable, this one is definitely worth the time watching !

FATHER TIME ?

How did TIME get to be called FATHER TIME?

HISTORIC CHICAGO AFRICAN AMERICAN BONEYARD SCANDAL

This BLACK AMERICA WEB article is about the African American Graveyard in Chicago where bodies were being dug up so the same grave spot could be resold. A worker there, though afraid to loose his job, was the whistleblower. (And we want to congradulate him on his courage.)

"Officials estimate that at least 300 of 100,000 graves were tampered with at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., which is the burial place several famous Americans including civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till. Four former workers are charged with dumping exhumed bodies in a deserted field the size of four square blocks in order to resell grave plots. Till's grave was not disturbed."

"Thousands of bones may be mixed together. Investigators say it may be impossible to sift through them to match them to specific people and return complete remains to a single grave."

- Rupa Shenoy, Associated Press

Did You Know ? THERE ARE ABOUT 12000 NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTORS

At the University of California, Berkeley, in locked drawers under a swimming pool on the campus. Archeaologists discovered the bones on digs and tribes in the region have united to get the bones back and give them a decent, respectful, burial. These tribes of Native Americans believe that the soul of the person cannot get a good rest until they are buried....

NARA NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES

Just adding this WONDERFULLY USEFUL LINK ! Check out the Five Civilized Tribes databases!

POSTCARDS FROM HEAVEN by DAN GORDON

POSTCARDS FROM HEAVEN by DAN GORDON
Messages of Love from the Other side
C 2008 Dan Gordon
Freepress / Simon and Schuster

This short but eloquent book is about family who've died and the uncanny experiences that lead the author, Dan Gordon, to believe, that yes, they have let others know they are in heaven. From the appearance of a jackrabbit who uncharacteristically remained Buddha-like as a sign, or the way his son Zaki smelled sweet - and a grandparent thought of him in terms of dimming light - before a killing car accident just months out of film school, Dan Gordon presents those ah-ha moments.

Here is what The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles had to say : "Gordon hails from 13 generations of Chasidic rabbis, and while his immediate family has long shed strict, Chasidic Jewish tradition, the stories in his book illustrate, in secular terms but with the skill of a master Chasidic raconteur, the presence of God in everyday life. "The recirculation of the soul, kind of the belief in reincarnation, isn't foreign to Judaism at all or our literature," Gordon said. Orit Arfa writing.

Zaki had asthma. Page 85 "I had become aware of a sickly sweet odor that emanated from Zaki's scalp just before the onset of an asthma attack. I told his doctor this and it in fact never failed. From then on, the minute I smelled that smell on his hair, we started his medication as a prophylactic. Thus, when Debi said that he smelled like my deceased father, I immediately took a whiff. Maybe his asthma is about to come back, I thought, as if only asthma could do him harm. But the sickly sweet smell wasn't there.

"I don't smell anything," I said.

"Well I do!" Debi said defiantly. "I don't know how you can say you don't smell anything. He smells just like Uncle Abe!"

Debi seemed to be getting genuinely angry about the whole thing. I tried logic. "Debi, I said, "that's silly. I don't even remember what my father smelled like."

"We'll I do," she said, eyes flashing now in defense of the memory of my father's particular smell. "And he," she said, pointing at Zaki, "Smells just like him." ...

GERMAN ANCESTRY? Could it be from the HESSIAN SOLDIERS WHO CAME TO THE US TO FIGHT ON THE SIDE OF BRITAIN ?

From David McCullough's JOHN ADAMS.
Published 2001
Copyright the author,
pages 139-140


"The ships flying the Union Jack that arrived off New York at the end of June 1776 - the fleet from Halifax that one eyewitness described as looking like "all London afloat" - had been only the start of an overwhelming show of British might come to settle the fate of the new United States of America.

By July 3rd, 9,000 troops led by General William Howe had landed on Staten Island, where hundreds of Tories were on hand to welcome them. Howe himself had gone ashore on July 2, the very day that Congress had voted for Independence, and in the days following, up the Narrows between Staten island and Long Island, came ever more British sails, including an armada of 130 warships and transports from England under command of the General's brother, Admiral Richard Lord Howe. By mid-August 32,000 fully equipped, highly trained, thoroughly professional British and German (Hessian) soldiers - more that the entire population of Philadelphia were ashore on Staten Island, supported by ten ships-of-the-line and twenty frigates, making in all the largest, most costly British overseas deployment ever until that time.

By contrast , the American army faltered in defense of New York, digging in on Manhattan and Long Island, was optimistically thought to number 20,000 troops. These nearly all poorly equipped amateurs led by Washington, who in his year as commander-in-chief had yet to fight a battle.......

THANKS FOR THE TWITTER GENEALOGY NEWS!

Do you twitter? Link here if you do!

SOLDIER - FASHION IN OLD PHOTOGRAPHYS

One way to help date old photographs is to look at the clothing the subjects are wearing, and if it is especially stylish, you may be able to find out when such styles were in fashion by reading Fashion History books. Of course, then, as today, many people wear clothing that might not be considered the latest fashion, but which is their best clothing, in order to take a photo. How to know if your photo is of a 19th century fashionista, or a poor person in 20 year old hand-me-downs?

First, especially if the photo is a wedding photo, you can be more certain that the person is wearing their best clothing, or clothing purchased or sewn for the day. This is true for the wedding party too. Any photo that appears to have been worn for a religious ceremony may be assumed to be the person's newest or best.

Secondly, examine any jewelry worn. Does it appear to be expensive? Metal and jeweled costume jewelry was not easy to come by until the Industrial age. What about hair ornaments or combs.

Third, look at hair... is it done in an elaborate style that might have required a hairdresser or maid to assist? Does the person appear to be well groomed? Is their hairstyle home-made ? (The bowl haircut on children)

Fourth, is the person wearing a uniform? If so does the uniform identify the country or side or a battle they may have been on? Are they posed in an official way?

Did You Know THOMAS JEFFERSON and JOHN ADAMS BOTH DIED ON JULY 4th 1826 ?!?

Reading Pulitzer Prize winning David McCullough's JOHN ADAMS, a tome over 600 pages hardback published by Simon and Shuster, copyright the author in 2001. And it turns out that Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who had a life long friendship that went through many phases and who had a correspondence in their old age, died on the very same day, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence from Britain! YES!

These kinds of things make me think that so much is fate.

It's a great book and I highly recommend it to you!

TREE

CHILDREN'S PAST LIVES by CAROL BOWMAN - CHILDREN WHO SPEAK FOREIGN LANGUAGES FROM ANOTHER LIFE

CHILDREN'S PAST LIVES
How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child
by Carol Bowman
C 1997 by Carol and Steve Bowman
A Bantam Book

page 184

"Another form of knowledge beyond experience is the ability of small children to speak in an unknown language that they could not possibly have learned through ordinary means. This phenomenon is called xenoglossy. Since language requires months and years of repetition and practice to learn, science is at a loss to explain how anyone, especially a young child, could speak a language that he has never been exposed to. In the context of past lives, however, xenoglossy is simply another example of something learned in the past that carries over to the present life.


Quoting a case in "Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery," Bowman says that a prominent New York physician and his wife found their twin baby boys conversing between themselves in an unknown vernacular. The children were eventually taken to the foreign language department of Columbia University where none of the professors could identify their speech...until a professor of ancient languages happened to pass by and was amazed to discover that they were speaking ARAMAIC, a language current at the time of Jesus Christ....

"The boys weren't just mimicking a few words: they were conversing with enough proper Aramaic syntax and vocabulary for the expert to be able to recognize the language.

In one case as two year old boy remembering the life of a 19th century sailor, used terms like "spanker" sail. and when he knocked over a jelly jar, asked his mother if he would have to do "haze," the correct term for punishment in vintage sailor slang..."

C 2009 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

DO YOUR TINGING FINGERS LEAD YOU TO THE RIGHT INFORMATION ?

I've been told by one researcher that he actually feels his fingers tingle when he is getting real close to the information he's seeking!

SUNDAY JUNE 21st 2009 IS FATHERS DAY - TODAY!

In genealogy we often find much more information - documents - for the males than the females, and the fathers more than the mothers. Reading through microfilms of Catholic Church records for small towns in Hungary, for instance, I found that baptismals (which usually closely followed births) did not always even mention the mother's name. When the surname is common, and the given names are repetitive, this represents a research block that can be impossible to get around. Jewish records for about the same time and place however not only gave the names of the parents but the midwife and the rabbi who circumcised the male child!

This emphasises the importance of keeping family records NOW for generations in the future!

CARL JUNG (FATHER OF JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY) and SYNCHRONICITY

Click on the title above to go to a site that explains about Carl Jung and his theory of SYNCRONICITY!

ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY

SPOOKY ANCESTOR LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER ?????

Ever had a spook touch you on the shoulder when you were reading, concentrating deeply, spinning microfilm, or looking at your research work? This is the perfect time for a spook who really is an ancestor to try and contact you. And a touch on the shoulder that makes you look around is one of the classic ways they will make their presence known.

One person told me that they were struggling with trying to read some pretty difficult handwriting and had not not found the family they were looking for on a census. They were just about ready to give up when they felt one of the LDS missionaries who staff the local Family History Center, touch them on the shoulder. Except no one was there. And when they looked down to the microfilm desk again, they realized that their family group was right on that page!

We're readinig POSTCARDS FROM HEAVEN by DAN GORDON

The reviews make it sound very interesting and exactly what we like here!

As quoted in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, "Gordon hails from 13 generations of Chassidic rabbis, and while his immediate family has long shed strict, Chassidic Jewish tradition, the stories in his book illustrate, in secular terms but with the skill of a master Chassidic raconteur, the presence of God in everyday life. "The recirculation of the soul,. kid of the belief in reincarnation, isn't foreign to Judaism at all or our literature," Gordon said.

Orit Arfa writing.

CAT STEVENS - YUSUF ISLAM FATHER and SON

ANCESTRAL P S I ?

...is psychic phenomena that aids people who are tracing their family roots...

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD in PENNSYLVANIA by WILLIAM J. SWITALA

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD in PENNSYLVANIA
by WILLIAM J. SWITALA
Stackpole Books - Pennsylvania C 2001

This is a book recommendation. Get yourself a copy if you're interested in seeing maps with routes. Now the maps leave much to be desired. They don't show the TOPOGRAPHY of the terrain, and so what may look like an easy trip of fifteen miles as the crow flies is actually over Appalachian mountains, rivers, etc. Still, this book gives us the strong impression of the abolitionist movements, the slave catchers, the safe zones (relatively speaking) and much more; on the route to Canada or other places where a slave could be a free human being, there was a lot of help. The Quakers, Presbyterians, Baptists (but not the Southern Baptists), and many others were by conviction against slavery.

Of course millions of people on this earth are still slaves! Check out the National Geographic for reports on this issue.

Are YOU Suffering From GENEALOGICAL MYOPIA ? !

Are YOU suffering from Genealogical Myopia?

I know that sometimes stepping away from your research for a while, though it may take time to reorient yourself to your notes, is a good idea because getting too sure of your theories may actually prevent you from having some new tactics.

When you IGNORE documents because you've decided too soon that they are not valuable to your research ...

When you believe without question what a family member or other informant has told you about people, places, or the loss of documents ...

You may have a case of GENEALOGICAL MYPOPIA !

FORENSIC GENEALOGY ?

Forensic Genealogy is the practice of using public and private documents to find a relative for legal purposes such as probating a will, verifying citizenship, or claiming graves.

From PSYCHIC ROOTS by HENRY Z. JONES - HELEN HINCHLIFF's Forward

By Helen Hinchcliff, in PSYCHIC ROOTS - Serendipity & Intuition in Genealogy
by Henry Z. Jones C 1993
published by Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc.

"In 1983, in honor of my recent discovery of genealogy, my brother, Timothy Hinchcliff, made a yarn painting for me entitled Old Soul. Without really knowing a genealogist's sources or methods, Tim used thousands of colored threads to depict his view that I am a sojourner between the living and the dead. Coincidentally, the picture captured the essence of this book. In the lower left corner, lighting my path with magic crystals is Old Soul, most easily imagined as a friendly white ghost. In the center are my ancestors, ranged in a circle. They are connected by a mysterious umbilical cord to Old Soul and to a second circle composed of my living relatives who reside in the upper right corner. Guided by Old Soul, I trace a path between them, learning from each, communing with each."

From BARBARA BUSH - MATRIARCH OF A DYNASTY by PAMELA KILIAN

Reading...

On pages 138-139 we read that on July 17, 1989 President George Bush and his wife First Lady Barbara Bush went to Leiden, in the Netherlands. It was the first visit by a president of the United States to the country. President Bush spoke and learned from the mayor that there were two Bush family ancestors who had sailed on the Mayflower to America in 1620 who came from Leiden! They were Francis Cooke, a signer of the Mayflower Compact and Hester De La Noye, who had a daughter named Jane who was Bush's "grandmother" 11 generations back. The mayor also announced that Hesters' sister Marie had a child named Philippe,whose grandchild - seven times removed - was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "Two sisters, two presidents," Mayor Goekoop said.

This book is published by Thomas Dunne Books - St Martin's Press and is copyright 2006 by the author, Pamela Kilian. The excerpt above is slightly altered.
Barbara Bush's genealogical relationship to various French aristocrats has been explored in other publications. Is it true that that most elected presidents have more "royal" blood than the candidates they beat?

BRIAN WEISS - A CONTEMPORARY PAST LIFE RESEARCHER

Go to the link above for more information on discovering your own past lives via famous author and researcher Brian Weiss.

BRIAN WEISS COM

It's 2021 and I'm going to be posting on Weiss again.  Have read several of his books and have respect for this man, who is one of the great American researchers when it comes to reincarnation, past life memories, near death experiences, and so on.

ACROSS TIME and DEATH by JENNY COCKELL : ABOUT HYPNOTIC REGRESSION

page 34 paperback.... A Fireside Book - Simon and Schuster 

"Hypnotic regression began with a French psychoanalyst and hypnotherapist, Colonel Albert de Roches, who in 1903 wrote a book in which he claimed to have regressed people through their childhoods, through pre-natal ... and even further back through past lives. (He also claimed to have patients who had given accounts of future lives. My own experience shows that this type of awareness is also possible without hypnosis.)

TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE DATABASE

Here is the link to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, an incredible resource!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY - OUR MATRIATCHAL ANCESTORS !

Our matriarchal (female line) ancestors are often more difficult to document than our patriarchal (male). Women simply did not "count" in many records.

Examples include baptismals that only have the child's father's name. Wills that cannot have included females because females were not allowed to inherit, and so much else that we now -for good reason- consider to be sexism.

"HOBBIT" HUMANS AN ENTIRE OTHER SPECIES

Link now to the breaking Yahoo News article about the tiny humans that scientists are calling "another species."

"About a metre (three feet) tall and weighing 30 kilos (65 pounds), the tiny, tool-making hunters may have roamed the remote island as recently as 8,000 years ago. Their fossils are about 18,000 years old.
Many scientists have said Homo floresiensis, as the creature is now formally known, was a prehistoric human stunted by natural selection over millennia through a process called insular dwarfing."

---- Marlowe Hood

Do you have a GENEALOGY RESEARCH Story to Share ?

Would you like to share a genealogy research story that involves sychronicity, dreams, intuition, serendipity, or some form of communication from ancestors in the spirit world? Please contact us!

CAROL BOWMAN's CHILDREN'S PAST LIVES : THE STORY OF JENNY COCKRELL

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 says that children can remember past lives spontaneously, through hypnotherapy-past life regression, or through dreams. On pages 250-251 of her book she tells the story of Jenny Cockrell who had childhood dreams and past life memories while a child in England in the 1950's. She saw herself as a grown woman, named Mary, who lay dying, sobbing with grief and tormented by guilt because she was leaving behind eight children.

"By the time she was an adult, Jenny had enough information from her dream and from her waking visions to trace her former identity to Mary Sutton, a woman who had lived in a small town north of Dublin, and who had died of fever, leaving behind eight small children. Jenny's long quest to discover her past life identity culminated in an emotional reunion with Mary Sutton's grown children in Ireland. Almost every detail that Jenny remembered was confirmed, including some things Jenny knew about Mary that no one outside the family could have known. Most importantly, after this contact with her children from a former life, Jenny was healed of the guilt and sadness that had tormented her since she was a small child...

"Across Time and Death" is the book...

SOUTH AFRICAN's HAVE THE GREATEST GENETIC MIX - AFRICANS THE MOST DIVERSE IN A RACE

Yahoo news brings us this article... click click click!

About Henry "Hank" Z. Jones

If YOU'LL CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE... you'll get to the official Hank Z Jones website. There are only 50 Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists elected and Hank is one of them. I got interested in Hank because of his books, which I'll be quoting some excerpts from in this blog.
One of the reasons I appreciate his books is that they include the testimonials of both professional and hobbyist genealogy researchers who believe in dreams, intuition, ancestor spirit research guides, and receiving information on roots quests that comes from extraordinary means, proving that not all genealogists are afraid of this! There are many stereotypes of whose into genealogy that are not true. One of them is that genealogists are mostly members of the Latter Day Saints (formerly known as The Mormons), because they do seem to have a vast amount of archived data.

In the diversity of this United States of America (and the world!) genealogist are practitioners of many different faiths or spiritual viewpoints.

CUNARD SHIP LINE

Cunard had the Queen Mary into the 1950's. The Queen Mary was much much larger than the Titanic, which was one the Whitestar line.
There were many smaller ships, smaller lines. For the steamship, the depth of the harbor had everything to do with what ships could dock there. Le Havre, France to Southhampton, Britian, to New York City, was a popular route during the Industrial Era immigration to the United States.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PAPERS FOUND IN LONDON - FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR !

As reported this morning in the Los Angeles Times, and in this on-line Science Daily article (click on the title above) important papers relating to Benjamin Franklin's diplomatic work in finding horses and wagons so that the British could take Pittsburgh from the French and Indians has been found in London by Alan Houston, professor of political science at UC San Diego.

GARY ZUKAV from THE SEAT OF THE SOUL

"Impulses, hunches, sudden insights and subtle insights have assisted us on our evolutionary path since the origin of our species. That we have not recognized guidance that has come to us in this way is a consequence of seeing reality through only five senses. From the five-sensory point of view, there is no other place from which insights and hunches can come.

"From the multi sensory point of view, insights, intuitions, hunches, and inspirations are messages from the soul, or from advanced intelligences that assist the soul on its evolutionary journey. The multi sensory personalty, therefore, honors intuition in a way that the five-sensory personality does not. To the five-sensory personality, intuitions are curiosities. To the multi sensory personality, they are promptings from, and links to, a perspective of greater comprehension and compassion that its own."

page 147, as in More Psychic Roots, by Henry Z. Jones, Jr.

HENRY LOUIS GATES - W.E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African- American Research

Click on the link above to learn all about Henry and his research!

We're reading THE JEWS OF THE UNITED STATES by Hasia Diner....

From a small boat load of Brazilian Jews into New Amsterdam, to a mere 2000 at the time of the Declaration of Independence as a beginning, the Jews immigrated by the millions and have since participated in and effected American life. Today, particularly because of those who perished in the Holocaust, Jewish genealogists are documenting their heritage and family life.

This book is quite interesting a read for anyone, Jewish or not, interested in American History. And as most genealogist know, reading around the history is likely to give you clues when you are researching, especially when it comes to following patterns of migration.

Jews of the United States
1654-2000
by Hasia R. Diner
University of California Press

SYCHRONICITY IN GENEALOGY ?

I think anyone who has spent some earnest time tracing roots knows that sometimes the information you are looking for comes to you in unexpected ways. I'll be talking about some of the stories I've personally heard and sharing with you from Henry Z. Jone's books...

Check back in !

We're reading IN SEARCH OF OUR ROOTS by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Subtitled "How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past... featuring a whole lotta great people like Quincy Jones and Tina Turner, Ophrah Winfrey and Maya Angelou, the author spent three years conducting genealogical research on nineteen "compelling" African- Americans.... Can't wait to write more about this one!

GENOGRAPHIC PROJECT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY and YOU !

Click on the title above to get to the official site for the National Geographic Society's GENOGRAPHIC PROJECT... Now, my friend who told me about this said that participation is free and reading the site, this is not so. It costs about $100 for the kit you use to include yourself in the project, which aims to trace the human migration out of Africa and throughout the world. But this is an exciting project so check it out!

PENNSYLVANIA BONES MAY BE 19th Century IRISH IMMIGRANTS WHO DIED

Quote: "Historians at Immaculata University have known for years about the 57 immigrants who died in August 1832 but could not find the grave. Human bones discovered last week near the suburban Philadelphia university may at last reveal their final resting place — and possibly allow researchers to identify the remains and repatriate them....

"We feel a kinship with these men," said Immaculata history professor William Watson. "Righting an injustice has led us to this point."

Imagine leaving Ireland behind, immigrating to the United States to help build the rail road, and dying of cholera before you could... NOW THE GRAVE HAS BEEN FOUND !

DNA REVEALS STORY OF DAD's APPEARANCE

Here's a story from The News and Observer.com, in an article by Ruth Sheehan... DNA once again makes impact on the lives of two researchers who had a family mystery to solve... Click on the title above to get to this story...

ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY's REVIEW OF ABRAHAM's CHILDREN by JON ENTINE

Abraham's Children
Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People
by Jon Entine
Grand Central Publishing - New York

This book was utterly fascinating, as Jon Entine examines the question of Who is Jewish now, and Who was Jewish when? Is being Jewish about belief - conversion - practice ? Or genetics? Or a unique combination of BOTH?

DNA plays the strongest role in this process of discovery yet does not give us the definitive answer on this quest.

Of great interest to genealogists, DNA evidence for heritage, be that ethnic group, tribe, or race, seems to leading some of us on paths we didn't know we would take. Jon Entine gives it his best, examining and contributing to the controversies.

KNIGHTS at the TIME OF THE NORMANS in ENGLAND

Family Crests or Shields are fun for Americans to use, as are clan symbols, tartans, and so on. But usually the actual use of these is strictly regulated and usually passes from oldest son to oldest son, meaning that even the second and third and fourth son cannot use them and the daughters are out of the picture altogether.

OUT OF WORK ? WHAT A GREAT TIME TO WORK ON GENEALOGY !

Getting into your genealogical research and niche history while you are unemployed and looking for work can PRESERVE YOU ! Now is the time you never have when you're putting in 40 or more hours a week to GET INTO YOUR ATTIC TREASURES, contact family members for photos, send away for inexpensive or free documents, and ORGANIZE YOURSELF ! Break up your Internet job hunt with INTERNET RESEARCH!

SAME FAMILY REINCARNATION From RETURN FROM HEAVEN by CAROL BOWMAN

RETURN FROM HEAVEN
by Carol Bowman C 2001 EDIT
Beloved Relatives Reincarnated Within Your Family
HarperCollins Publishers

Page 140-141, hardback about how a soul selects its next life...

"All the regression studies agree that the planning process is done in collaboration with the spiritual guides. The guides present the soul with options for the next life. The soul's previous actions, or karma, determine the parameters and limits of its options. based on its past performance, the soul is offered a menu of lives that will teach it what it needs to learn next. It does not have unlimited choice. If that were the case, why would anyone choose a life of hardship or tragedy.'

"Even with karma limiting the options, the soul still has a mind-boggling number of lives to choose from. The coordination it requires to choose the right one is complex, a matter of balancing multidimensional factors in intricate ways. The decision must consider not only the needs of the soul, but must also coordinate its choice with the needs and plans of other souls it expects to join - particularly the parents... Relationships are vital to our learning and spiritual growth. So, arranging to reunite with certain souls in the coming life is a central element of the reincarnation plan. All the studies agree that we often reincarnate with souls we have been close to in other lifetimes. We may choose to return to those who nurtured and supported our growth in the past... To learn forgiveness, we may elect to return to someone who hurt us or did us wrong. ....Because relationships are so important, and because family relationships are so intense, it makes sense that a soul would have many, many reasons to return to the family it just left. This is why, I believe, same-family reincarnation is so common."

Note: December 2024.  Just got this book from my library and reread it!