Nuts From the Family Tree: Thank you, Randy Seaver and Genea-Musings

I'm coming to see that I'm a sort of odd ball genealogist. It's on again and off again because of how my life is, and I'm still a learning amateur, and totally embrace it. My document filing is sporadic, my file names need a good clean up, and my methodology is patchwork because I learned on the fly. I'm probably not alone in that regard:)

I'm a second generation genealogist and am working off a tree Mom built and is still working on now and again. Mom is 95, in case you haven't met her! She has about 70,000 names on that tree and they mostly were born, resided and died in the area around Western Maryland, the adjoining state of West Virginia, and south west Pennsylvania. I consider my genealogy research skills, such as they are, to be half-assed at best. I only do what I do because I'm perched on Mom's tall shoulders. Besides, it's the stories I love.

Because I'm so ragged around the edges and always trying to do better I was pretty much shocked out of my PJs and fuzzy pink bedroom slippers this morning when I read Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings blog post entitled "Best of the Genea-Blogs for 2013" and found this blog sharing number 16! Can that be right??!! Yup, it's what he said.
Wow. Just wow. Thanks Randy. I mean it, thanks so much.

Randy and I are two very different kinda folks, I gotta say. He's a real numbers guy and I love that about Randy. And me, I'm so very, very not. Look at this post by Randy on Genealogy Industry Benchmarks. I have a feeling that Randy gets goose bumps compiling this stuff because he's so excited about it. Look at what he did there.

And here's a Randy post that blew me away: 52 Ancestors Friday: Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922). See what he did there? That's pure Randy. I scrolled down, impressed, looking at all the data he's collected about his ancestor and great grandfather, and honestly my mind sort of froze up along the way, until I came upon this:
Family stories about Frank Seaver include that he was a dapper, handsome man, and had black curly hair and brown eyes, and looked like his mother, Lucretia Smith. He was about 5'10" tall. He was jolly and full of fun, but liked to drink beer, and smoked a pipe.

There he did it! He got me right there and an image of Frank Walton Seaver formed in my head. Did they call him Frank, I wondered as I read it? Yeah, I bet they did. A dapper jolly man who liked his beer and smoked a pipe would be called Frank. Good ol' Frank, they'd have said about him.

See, that's me all over. I collect the data and record it dutifully. But I long for the story and the photo, especially the candid one. Can't help it. Just my nature.

Seeing my name and blog listed in Randy's blog post is gold plated encouragement. Guess that if Randy mentioned this blog 6 times last year I should stick with it. Thanks, Randy:)