This past week has seen several very serious and often disturbing subjects addressed in this column, from civil rights murders to the horrors of slavery. To end the week, I would like to step back and offer some lighter fare.
Robyn Smith, of the “Reclaiming Kin” blog, has awarded the African-American Genealogy Examiner with the “Kreativ Blogger” award. This award was created by Hulda Husfrue, a Norwegian arts & crafts blogger on 5 May 2008. [Please note that her site is in Norwegian but you can translate the page using Google Translate.] From these humble beginnings the award has spread like wildfire, and the Geneablogger community regularly recognizes their favorite peers with this award. As part of the award, recipients are to provide seven unknown or little-known facts about themselves.
1. I started “doing” genealogy when I was not even ten years old – though this consisted of simply asking my grandparents and great-grandparents information about the family. I still have letters and notes from my great-grandmother received when I was nine or ten, and an “Our Family Tree” workbook that I filled out when I was thirteen.
2. I actually knew a few of my “ancestors”: two of my great-grandmothers and one great-great-grandmother did not die until I was in high school. (One of my great-grandmothers actually passed two weeks after I graduated from high school.) My great-great-grandmother was 103 years old when she died. They lived in upstate New York, near Albany, though, while I lived in the metropolitan Washington, D. C., area, so I did not get to see them too often.
3. I was first published when I was nineteen years old. For two years, I wrote avidly for small-press publications, though none were paying jobs. Among the topics that I covered were hip-hop and reggae music, including a review of Bob Marley’s final performance that I wrote from a cassette copy of the concert, and an article on assisted suicide.
4. Just to make things difficult for my genealogist descendents: though I have lived in Prince George’s County, Maryland, almost my entire life, I was born in Washington, D. C., was married in Howard County, Maryland, and my daughter was born in Montgomery County, Maryland. I have to keep them on their toes! My wife’s family is also helping to contribute to the difficulties: her mother never changed her name when her parents were married.
5. My mother’s parents were divorced when she was only three years old or so. She has absolutely no memory of—and has never spoken with—her “real” father. I spoke with him on the phone about ten years ago to get some information for genealogy purposes. Everyone considers my step-grandfather, who married my grandmother when my mother was eight, to be the only “Dad” or “Grandpa” that matters. He was a young widower with five children, my grandmother had four children, and they married and had twins... for a grand total of eleven children in a single home! Probably why everyone in my family talks so loud—we’re always shouting over each other!
6. My surname – “HAIT” – is pronounced “HATE,” but I only hear it pronounced correctly about 20% of the time. People instead pronounce it like “HYATT,” or “HITE,” or just look at me confused.
7. Today is my daughter’s fourth birthday.
The second requirement for recipients is to pass the Kreativ Blogger award on to seven other blogs that they admire. I would like to nominate the following blogs:
1. Blog Divided (Civil War-era)
2. The ProGenealogists (R) Blog (professional genealogy)
3. Genealogy’s Star by James Tanner
4. WeTree by Amy Coffin
5. Historic Wanderings (photographs of historic sites in Virginia, D. C., and Maryland)
6. African Roots Podcast by Angela Walton-Raji (African-American genealogy)
7. Quips and Tips for Successful Writers by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen
For more blog recommendations, see my older articles:
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