All the news that’s fit to print…
First off, my apologies for any Leonard Legends spam you may have received earlier today. I was implementing a new “feature” here at Leonard Legends & Legacies and inadvertently added something like 166 “new” posts to the site. What they really were, were a handful of articles from a few of my favorite genealogical-type bloggers.
It’s all a very thinly-veiled attempt to cover up my own inadequacies in my blogological (it is TOO a word) duties. I’ve been neither attentive nor diligent about my family history or this site in recent weeks and I’m not sure it’s going to get any better in the foreseeable future.
[continue reading...]Recent Posts
For your enjoyment and edification... here are seven headlines from a few of my favorite genealogy blogs.
About this Site
This site grew out of my life-long curiosity about my great-great-grandfather Daniel "Uncle Dan" Leonard. To hear the family tell it, he was a legend in his own time, an Iowa pioneer, a bear of a man who arrived by covered wagon and rose to fame and fortune. He told tales of his encounter with Frank and Jesse James, of the Indians who used to hunt these very lands, of the men and women who built communities where there were none before.
For a young man raised on black-and-white westerns, John Wayne movies, and Little House on the Prairie... the stories were irresistible. But were they true? Surely there must be some exaggeration? Initially, decent documentation was a little hard to come by. Then, little by little, bits and scraps of information began to turn up.
First, it was an 1881 county history. Then, the original land grant, dated 1855 and signed by President James Buchanan. Buchanan preceded Abraham Lincoln, which raised questions about the Civil War. And what of the rest of Uncle Dan's family? Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents... little did I realize it would take me all the way back to the Mayflower...
Contact me!
Those of us who've been doing this family history thing for a while have come to realize the rest of the world thinks we're just a little, uh, "off." Their eyes glaze over as we launch into what we think is a fascinating family story about someone long dead a buried.
So it's especially exciting when a new cousin steps forward and admits their interest. There aren't enough of us and we need new recruits to keep the memories alive, to dig and scratch and uncover the truths about our common past.
So, if any of this sounds like something more than incoherent rambling, drop me a line and I'll see if we don't have something in common. ;-)
Writing your own obituary…
C'mon now, have you really read all those obituaries and not given any thought to your own? How do you ...
Yes, Virginia, there WAS a Santa Claus
Spoiler alert! If you are now or ever were a believer in Santa Claus, this post may disrupt your space-time ...
Yeah, THAT Obama
Remember "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon"? It's a trivia game based on the concept of the small world phenomenon and ...
Welcome to the Family!
Thanks for stopping by… And welcome, again, my friends… to the show that never ends… and the newly re-designed Leonard Family History Web site. If you’re new here, feel free to poke around. If you’re an old friend, uh, feel free to poke around….
Legends & Legacies
Pass the gravy… Pilgrim I am nothing if not irreverent, but what kind of Mayflower descendant would I be if I let this Thanksgiving holiday pass without a few notes on our Pilgrim progenitors?
Questions & Ancestors
Solomon Decoded Let’s face it, most of us are in this genealogy game for the intrigue. Why did so-and-so disappear? Why did he/she change his/her name? And who did Solomon Leonard really marry?
Inlaws & Outlaws
Skeletons in the closet In all the years I’ve been doing family history, I can honestly say that I’ve never come across that truly deranged ancestor that everyone seems to think we all have…. until now.
