Here’s a wonderful photo of my grandfather that really lends itself to studying it, and thinking about the time and place that it was taken. It’s a photo that was in my grandfather’s collection. My grandfather was Ted (Edward Thomas) Sexton (1902-1980). Ted grew up in Bemidji, MN, one of twelve siblings. As a young [...]
Archive for January, 2009
Photo – St. Paul to Canada Road Rally, 1920s
Posted in Photos, tagged Minnesota history, Minnesota, road rally, Model T, St. Paul, history, University of Minnesota, St. Paul to Canada, Old photo on January 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The Power of Words
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged inaugural address, Obama, presidential history, presidents, tag cloud, words on January 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Words are powerful. A well chosen word can serve to make an entire line of reasoning clear to someone that you’re communicating with. They can also be incredibly evocative. A single word can connect the listener with long forgotten memories or tap into deep emotions. As I listened to Barack Obama’s inauguration speech, I found [...]
The Lucy Show — Preserving Our Voices for Future Generations
Posted in Legacy, tagged Audio History, Creating Podcasts, Family history, Podcast, Preserving Audio, StoryCorps, The Lucy Show on January 21, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Out of all of my family history artifacts, the few audio recordings that I have are among my most cherished. My paternal grandfather had an early tape recorder that he carted around to family events in the 1960s. He’d pull out the microphone and create a little variety show, asking various family members to “come [...]
Ancestry.com and New Subscribers
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged Ancestry, Ancestry.com, Subscriptions, Trial Membership on January 13, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Here’s a modest proposal for Ancestry.com on a little trick that they could use to get new subscribers. (With all apologies to Johnathan Swift and only a slightly intentional reference to eating your young). I recently got a short e-mail from a cousin who was interested in starting to do some research into one of [...]
Great-Grandpa Bill in the Lumber Camp
Posted in Photos, tagged Bill Sexton, Gus Sexton, Lumber Camp, Lumberjacks on January 6, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I like Randy Seaver’s idea of occasionally posting a photo from his personal collection, so I’m going to start doing that as well. Here’s one of my favorites. This is a photo that a family member got from the Minnesota Historical Society, entitled “A lively crowd of old time lumberjacks at Gus Sexton’s camp”. My [...]
99 Things Meme
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged Meme, travel on January 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
These memes are a little addicting. In this case, no one tagged me. I just liked this meme, so I wrote it up for myself. (And I’m lazy, not tagging anyone else). So if the mood strikes and you blog, go ahead and pass this one on. And then post a comment here, linking to [...]
Short Form or Long Form?
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged blogging, twitter on January 3, 2009 | 3 Comments »
This will be another unusual post for me—merely a ramble of sorts. I generally think quite a bit, prior to writing a new blog entry and I try to create something of real value. This generally means that I write pretty long posts. It also means that I spend a huge amount of time either [...]