Donna’s Picks – December 10, 2010

”Donna’s Picks” is my occasional feature to highlight other blogs, posts, or articles that may be of interest to my fellow genealogists.   Sit back and enjoy the following links:

Making the Past Alive in the Present – Via a travel blog I read called Vagabondish, I found a post called Reviving the Ghosts of Amsterdam.  It points to twelve photographs at My Modern Met also called Ghosts of Amsterdam.  All I can say is “Wow!”  Anyone who loves old photos – and what genealogist doesn’t? – will be blown away.  The Met article includes a brief interview with the photographer, Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse.  Of course, we have a similar talent in our midst – Jasia at Creative Gene did the same thing last year with Melancholy Too and it was equally brilliant.  This is definitely on my “to do” list for next year.

Myth-Buster Extraordinaire – Leslie Albrecht Huber at The Journey Takers Blog busts the “name change” myth in Your Family’s Name Was Not Changed at Ellis Island.  I laughed out loud when she calls it the #2 myth next to the “I’m-descended-from-royalty/Indian-princess/Charlemagne/noble-who-fell-in-love-with-a-peasant-girl-and-stowed-away-on-a-ship-to-America-in-order-to-escape-thePrussian-military myth.”

Jesus’ Matrilineal Ancestry? – Scholars and medieval legends think that Mary’s grandmother was Ismeria, a descendant of King David.  Read more at Jesus’ Great-Grandmother Identified.

Those Dreaded Christmas Letters! – Penny Dreadful stops by The Family Curator and gives us an idea of what if would have been like If Our Ancestors Wrote Christmas Letters: Dreadful Greetings. 

The Most Important Day I Never Lived – Craig at Geneablogie gives us another gem with The Most Important Day of My Life: December 7, 1941.  No, Craig isn’t quite that old, but he recognizes the importance of that historical day on his own life.