Serendipity Happenings

Tonight the blog views reached 26666, and tomorrow is my birthday on July 26. The past couple of weeks reading the book, Psychic Roots, Serendipity & Intuition in Genealogy, by Henry Z. Jones Jr. has helped to ease my mind in accepting the passing on of my mother. This Saturday it will have been a month and yet it still seems so surreal. For this post I would like to share some serendipity moments that occurred during this time.

Steps in Planning a Funeral

Following along last week's post on the passing of a loved one, this week the post is about the steps in planning a funeral. With recent experience in being involved in organizing a celebration of the life of my wonderful mother, it felt so important to honor her life and share the highlights of it with those who would be attending.

Passing of a Loved One - Life Goes On

Two weeks ago I wrote my last post on blogging fun and other time commitments. Little did I even think that my mother would pass away unexpectedly two days later. So for the past two weeks I have been naviating through funeral arrangements and estate processing, not having a clue where we as a family really stand legally. For as many wills, probates, funeral homes and cemeteries we deal with as genealogists this is certainly another aspect of how we handle the affairs of our lives.

Blogging Fun and Other Time Commitments

Today's review of my blog views shows 25,555. When it reached 25,000 views last week that was amazing, but this was the serendipity moment as the numbers all lined up. Lately things seem to be picking up again. There were two days in a row this month that were 120 and 110. In April 2013 I reached 1764 views for the all-time high of monthly views. May was 1708 and so far for the month of June it is 1423.

PAF No Longer Provided or Supported by Familysearch

With sadness we are losing access to one of the greatest personal genealogy databases ever created. As of July 15, 2013 PAF will no longer be available to download or install on your computer via the familysearch.org website. Lately it has become increasingly more difficult to find. Along with this announcement is the termination of new.familysearch.org on June 30, 2013.

Serendipity Within the Gates Family

Now, how would you feel if this email arrived in your inbox as this did in mine yesterday?

"Hello,

It was my good fortune last evening to have Googled my 3rd great grandfather's name and run into your blog! I knew very little about "Ardell" prior to that. I suspected he was an 1812 vet and had inklings he was down near Mankato at one time. A big issue for me was that I had 2 different death dates for him. Turns out he lived much longer than I imagined.

Serendipity Finds in Familysearch Record Search Browse

Yesterday was a day of interesting phone calls, especially those requesting me to speak for various groups. Most of the current requests are looking for someone to guide attendees in learning how to research familysearch.org with the recent changes. While the browse section on the record search page has been there for some time, very few people are comfortable using the digitized records that are so valuable in searching for our ancestors.