Donna’s Picks, Link Love, and More: Advent Edition

Happy Advent! My niece waiting for her first Christmas, 2005

Meanwhile, back at the laptop…

November was a rather quiet month here at WPiP – I can’t believe I only posted once! But I wasn’t as lazy at it first appears – I managed to write four articles for The Catholic Gene instead.  During November, I posted the following:

09 Nov – The Mother of All Churches was more of a “filler” post and a photographic tribute to the Churches mother church.

11 Nov – Serving Those Who Serve: Military Chaplains is one of my favorite articles so far.

13 Nov – The Immigrant Saint: St. Frances Cabrini is an expansion of a post I first wrote here about America’s first naturalized citizen saint.

27 Nov – Changing the Way We Pray is a personal reflection about the introduction of the “new” translation to the Catholic Mass.

Donna’s Picks

I’ve been tardy in my “Donna’s Picks” occasional feature of noteworthy articles, so here are a few recent goodies:

Beware of family traditions when it comes to genealogical research! Michael John Neill dispels the myth of “what’s supposed to be” and several other beliefs and assumptions that may be stalling our research in Is Your Brick Wall in Your Head? [Nov 28 by Michael John Neill on RootDig.com – reprint from 2004’s Ancestry Daily News]

I really enjoyed Death Certificates: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in which Valerie discusses the value – and dangers – of one of the common genealogical resources, death records.  She says, “Just like any other record, you need to obtain it, evaluate it, and decide how trustworthy the information is.”  Great minds think alike – I used the same title in reference to the SSDI back in September, 2009 – only in that case the SSDI actually just got way uglier. [Nov 21 by Valerie on Begin with ‘Craft’]

I value creativity, so it was interesting to learn about the 7 Deadly Sinds of Creativity.  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned… [Nov 28 by Marc on Marc and Angel Hack Life]

Then again, creativity doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t act on your ideas.  Get inspired and learn how to use your super power with Creativity Alone is Not Enough! [Nov 30 by Sharon Hurley Hall at Get Paid to Write Online]

Finally, Amy Coffin proposes The Hypothetical Ancestor Trade-off in which we trade our research- challenged ancestors in the hopes that some other researcher will have more luck than we have.  I love this idea, Amy, and I’ll trade you your great-great-grandmother Mollie for my great-grandmother Elizabeth! [Nov 30 by Amy on We Tree]

What’s Past at What’s Past is Prologue ~ What You May Have Missed

One Year Ago:

• Ho! Ho! Horror! – Was your annual photo with Santa ever quite like these?

Two Years Ago:

• ‘Twas Just Days Before Christmas – This was actually a repeat from 2008, but December 2009 was a slow posting month.

Three Years Ago:

• Remembering St. Nicholas – The real inspiration for Santa
• A Letter from Santa? and A Letter from Santa: the Next Generation – My niece gets a letter from Santa, but back in the day all I got was one from his elf!
• When Times Change – A reflection on the death of a friend, the VCR.

What’s Prologue at What’s Past is Prologue ~ Coming Up

I’ve had some ideas in the works for months but I never seem to “get around” to writing the posts, so I’m not going to jinx those ideas by mentioning them again (some for the third or fourth time!). But I do plan on writing about how my new favorite television mystery-writer/crimefighter can help us with our genealogical research. I’ll also look back on how I fared with my 11 research goals for 2011 and come up with some new ones as well as my annual year-end reflection.

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