My Many Thanks...

What An Honor!
This past weekend, two of my fellow genealogy bloggers - Greta at "Greta's Genealogy Bog" and Cindy from "Everything's Relative" awarded me with the Janice Brown Puckerbrush Blog Award for Excellence! I am completely humbled and honored by their decision to nominate me, for I gain inspiration from their writing as well.  Thank you so very much!  For fun, I also designed "thank you's" for each of you.  I hope you like them!




Award Background
As Cindy explained, "This award was started by Terry Thornton at the Hill Country of Monroe County Mississippi blog. In his post about the award he writes:"


"In honor of our absent friend, Janice Brown, whose delightful blog Cow Hampshire continues to inspire through all her archived articles, is my attempt to recognize a few writers and their blogs ---those I consider the best in the blogging world and whose work has influenced me the most. Janice told us all about the word "puckerbrush" in an article she posted August 27, 2007, at Cow Hampshire Blog. "


Janice's definition of the puckerbrush is as follows: "On any land allowed to go fallow and left untended, a wild assortment of wild plants grow – in some areas, this wild growth results in such a thicket of plants that it is almost impossible to push your way through the growth."


Terry stated further: "So it is with the growth of blogs --- so many that it is impossible to read them all. But in the puckerbrush eventually a few plants/trees become dominant and influence all who view them through the thick surrounding puckerbrush.And it is those outstanding blogs whose influence spreads beyond just the surrounding rabble of puckerbrush that I'm honoring."


Terry's challenge: "Henceforth these awards will be called the Janice Brown Puckerbrush Blog Award for Excellence. All blog authors are hereby challenged to name the ten blogs which have influenced their writing the most and list them as a tribute to Janice --- the Janice Brown Puckerbrush Blog Awards for Excellence.

Paying It Forward
I am always astounded at everyone's blog posts.  It's fun to see other people's thoughts, feelings, creativity, research, photography, and art - not to mention the jokes.  Each person's passion is evident in each post, and everytime I read a new one, I learn something new.  Maybe a new research technique, or a new photo editing technique that I try to absorb then try to infuse my own passion and thoughts into the technique in hopes of creating something new to share.  There are too many blogs to list each and every one that I read and learn from, but please know that I learn a little something from everyone.  My job in being given this award is to select ten that have influenced my work.  Technically, though, I guess it would be twenty in this case, but I'm cheating a little in order to get my "thank you's" out in a timely manner!  Please visit [if you haven't already] the following blogs, for they are wonderfully and creatively instructive and some are just plain funny:

• Janine at Janinealogy [I have to add that she's my "cyber sister" & possibly a very distant cousin]
• TCasteel at Tangled Trees [Because of some swashbuckling adventures of a certain pirate, we are probable distant cousins, too!]
• Denise Olson at Family Matters [For bringing genealogy technology to those of us who aren't so "techie".]
• footnoteMaven [Her abilities, research, and creativity leave me speechless. O.K., not speechless, but you get the idea...]
• Randy Seavers at Genea-Musings [A special "thank you" for you below.]
• Vickie Everhart at BeNotForgot [Her designs stop me in my tracks, and make me drool with envy!]
• Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers [I'd be lost, and still wondering how to do all this without his blog.]
• Harold's Daughter at A Couple of Bubbles Off Center [She shares my deep desire to bring our ancestors alive.]
• Amy at We Tree [Her research abilities are astounding, and her humor & sarcasm are hilarious - probably because it's like mine!]
• Chris at The Genealogue [His irreverent genealogy news through humor is, well, humorous!]

A special thank you goes to Randy at Genea-Musings for listing my last post about "Time and Mercy" in his Top 25 of the week.  It means a lot to me, so I made you a "Thank You" design, too.  Please go visit Randy's list of Top 25.  You won't regret it!



Caroline