There’s a lot of good family history information available on the Internet. Here are five places we’ve enjoyed visiting this week:
Kerouac of the Canyonlands. Everett Ruess was a free-spirited writer and painter who left his California home at the age of 17 in 1931 to wander through the forbidding deserts of the southwestern United States. Before disappearing in 1934, Ruess had swapped prints with Ansel Adams and began building the legend that would eventually lead to comparisons with Jack Kerouac and Billy the Kid. But the myth of Everett Ruess that grew for 75 years was recently laid to rest.
Items from Parker Museum sell at auction. For most of his life, Mylo Preheim worked as a barber or sold television sets and stereos. But Preheim also indulged his passion for local history, gobbling up artifacts and antiques, many of which ended up in the museum he ran in Parker, S.D., for the past 50 years. But Preheim, who is now in a nursing home, recently sold off his collection.
Belle Costa Da Greene : ‘Girl Librarian’. Belle Costa Da Greene was an enigmatic figure for all of her 71 years. The product of a mixed marriage, she claimed to be of Portuguese descent. A strict non-believer in personal history, she burned all of her personal papers shortly before her death. But her lover of 40 years kept his letters from her and they form the basis for her biography, An Illuminated Life : Belle Costa Da Greene’s Journey From Prejudice to Privilege.
Saving the Family Bible. Genealogical superstar Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak has written another tale of orphan heirlooms, detailing her search for a proper home for a 150-year-old family bible.
I like [good] pies – a personal history. Robert H. Moore II has a passion for pies and this mouth-watering essay explains why. Warning to fellow pie lovers: Don’t read this when hungry.
Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.
Flickr photo courtesy of terren in Virginia.
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