I have found a simple, interactive FAMILY TREE that can be adapted. All you need do is follow the link, click the picture of the tree then add your names. http://genealogy.about.com/library/free_charts/bl_family_tree.htm It's really cool

That's great caz...thank you. it's really nice and even frameable...here's something to go along with it also.

 

Fast Fact
Free Charts and Forms

You can download free charts and forms to help organize and record your family history.

(Requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Charts include:

• ANCESTRAL CHART: Allows you to record the ancestors from whom you directly descend.
• CENSUS EXTRACTION: Allows you to record census information. Forms are available for U.S. censuses from 1790 to 1930.
• CORRESPONDENCE RECORD: Helps you keep track of those with whom you have corresponded.
• FAMILY GROUP SHEET: Enables you to compile complete, correct, and connect families.
• RESEARCH CALENDAR: Gives an account of every record source you have searched.
• RESEARCH EXTRACT: Summarizes information that may be time-consuming or difficult to reread quickly.
• SOURCE SUMMARY: Provides quick reference to information and sources you have found for a particular family.

 

Looking at the Bigger Picture Family members were cleaning out a seldom used closet and came across an old, much used quilt. Much of the fabric of the colored pieces had been worn away and I was asked if I saw any reason to keep it. As I was thinking whether we might want to "promote it to rags," as my mother-in-law would say, I unfolded it to look for unworn areas. It was then that I realized the overall effect was quite beautiful. So now this quilt has a new life, hanging over a balcony railing. I think there's more than one lesson here. One applies to standing back and taking a broad look at an old quilt's overall effect. The other applies to family history in general. We may have shreds of evidence that seem too sparse to be of any use. But sometimes, when we stand back and look at the bigger picture, patterns and relationships emerge from scattered details. For me, this has meant poking around for records of the siblings of ancestors, and finding time to read histories about some of the places where ancestral families lived.

The Year Was 1888 The year was 1888 and it came in with a roar. Following an unseasonably warm morning, on January 12, a violent cold front brought with it a disastrous blizzard with raging winds and sub-zero temperatures that swept across the northern prairies of the Midwest. Caught in the storm, often referred to as the "Children's Blizzard of 1888," it has been estimated that between 250 and 500 people perished, many of them children on their way home from school. And Mother Nature wasn't finished. In March, another blizzard struck the eastern seaboard states. Known as the "Great White Hurricane", the nor'easter dumped between forty and fifty inches of snow on the northeast region. Over 200 ships were sunk, and telegraph lines snapped, cutting off communication for cities like New York and Philadelphia for weeks. More than 400 people perished in the storm. Photographs from the aftermath in New York City are available on the NOAA website. Over the ocean in London's East End (England), fear spread as the police raced to discover who was committing a string of gruesome murders. Nearly 118 years later, the identity of "Jack the Ripper" remains unknown and the mystery has spawned books and movies that have horrified and mystified audiences worldwide. An election year in the U.S., 1888 culminated with the election of Benjamin Harrison, who defeated the incumbent Grover Cleveland in a particularly tight election, with Cleveland winning the popular vote, but losing key states and the electoral vote. Also in politics, Susan B. Anthony helped found the International Council of Women, an international coalition established to help secure women's suffrage and rights in many areas. Technological advances that year include a patent obtained by Thomas Edison for his "Kinetoscope" used for motion pictures. George Eastman began the Eastman Kodak Company and introduced rolled photographic film. With the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest," he led the way in an industry that has given family historians (and the rest of the world) glimpses into the lives of their ancestors and preserved memories for future generations.

Celebrating Revolutionary-War-Era Ancestors

by Paula Stuart Warren, CG

In the United States, the Fourth of July is a time for fireworks, beach trips, family vacations, and apple pie in commemoration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the country's struggle to reach that point.

For genealogists, this date also reminds us about researching our patriotic ancestors. If you have walked on a battlefield where a war was fought, you know that special feeling that comes over you. You can find many records related to families who lived at that time and who had some type of service related to the Revolutionary War effort. Recently someone asked me how to do research on an ancestor who may have served in the Revolutionary War. That is just the kind of question I like to get; the resources are phenomenal.

Pension and Other Records
Military research is fascinating. Hopefully you have learned that for some wars related to U.S. military efforts, there are pension records. Don't forget to see if there are also enlistment, pay, muster roll, service, and bounty land records for a particular war. Chapter Eleven of the third edition of The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy is especially helpful for this era.

What is "Out There" for Research
Today's column is not about all the available resources. Just try typing the words "Revolutionary War" into a search engine such as Google or into any online library catalog. Be prepared for thousands of results.

Among the things you will find are books, CDs, websites, indexes, articles, organizations, and references to pensions, bounty land, service, and other records. You will be able to learn more about the war in connection with battles, individuals, states, counties, towns, countries, the army and navy, Loyalists, ethnic groups, and burials--and those are just the beginning. A county history may list residents who served in the war. An ancestor may have had patriotic service that did not involve any actual military skirmishes.

The Year Was 1829

The year was 1829, and in Scotland, there was a catastrophic flood. According to a paper online at the website of Fettes College, Edinburgh, Scotland, the Muckle Spate (large flood) of 1829, began on August 3, 1829 in northeast Scotland and was "the most severe catastrophic flood in modern UK history." It extended across a large area of Scotland, from Inverness to Montrose, and devastated homes and agriculture in the affected areas. The Edinburgh Advertiser from August 11, 1829 provides detailed coverage of some of the affected areas, including the excerpt below:

The Dee was first observed to increase about four o'clock on Monday afternoon, and it continued to rise until about eleven o'clock on Tuesday forenoon, when it remained stationary for a few hours; after which, it began to recede with considerable rapidity. In some places, it attained an elevation of eleven feet above its ordinary level. . . The low grounds in the vicinity of the river were completely inundated, and so great, in some parts of its course, was the space over which it extended, that it presented the appearance rather of a lake than a river. . . Vast quantities of hay, straw, timber, &c. have been swept away; and so great was the force of the torrent, that many fields were stript of their soil, and covered with sand and stones. A good many cattle and sheep may have been drowned; but as it is customary, in the upper parts of the country to leave numerous flocks scattered over the hills, it will be impossible, for some time to ascertain with accuracy the numbers that have perished. Fortunately, notwithstanding the imminent to which many people were exposed from the suddenness of the inundation, no loss of human life has arisen from the overflowing of the Dee. Several cottages have, at Ballaster and other places, been carried away; and so completely were others surrounded with water, that a stranger could scarce have told on which side of the river they stood. A good many people were rescued, by means of boats, from being drowned in their own houses, and were obliged to resign their furniture, &c. to destruction. With the exception of the bridge near Aberdeen, and that at Potarch, all the bridges over the Dee have either been swept away, or sustained more or less injury. . . .

(Click on the newspaper images in the blog version of this article to read more from page 5 of the newspaper. Further details are on pages 4-6 of that issue.)

In the U.S., Andrew Jackson became the seventh president of the United States. A hero of the War of 1812, he had also been a senator and representative for Tennessee, and Justice of the Tennessee Superior Court. Nicknamed "Old Hickory", he appealed to the common man and held a public reception at his inauguration at the White House.

The U.S. had banned the importation of slaves in 1808, but unfortunately, it didn't stop the trade. In 1829, a boat assigned to patrol the African Coast looking for slavers, intercepted the "Feloz" and a group from the interceptor boarded the ship. A first-hand account of the horrific conditions from one of the group, Rev. Robert Walsh, can be found online at EyeWitness to History.com.

That year, Eng and Chang Bunker, the original Siamese twins arrived in America where they traveled around in exhibitions. They went on to tour through England and other countries in Europe for the next ten years and later settled in a small town in North Carolina, where they married two sisters.

In the world of technology, William Austin Burt invented and received the first American patent for the "typographer"--an early version of the typewriter. Burt also held patents for a number of other inventions and did extensive surveying in the areas that are now Michigan and Wisconsin.

I thought you might be interested to see my Ancestral home of my Mothers side

 

The Murray of Tullibardine,s better this is the place that rob Roy Magreggor was kept as a working prisoner.......I managed to get this far back on my Mothers side..... The Palace of Scone

Scone Palace	<INPUT type=radio CHECKED value=1 name=Image>	<INPUT type=radio value=2 name=Image>	The Library
The Drawing Room	<INPUT type=radio value=3 name=Image>	<INPUT type=radio value=4 name=Image>	Lady Elizabeth Murray and Dido

Have to say i was really gobsmacked when I got back to finding this in my family tree

I am by birth on my fathers side a Mclean of Duart...

 

The Island i lived on was owned by the McLeans and during the Highland Clearances it was kept safe by one man the only Mclean to keep it safe for the return of the Islanders .....this was not to happen for another 60 yrs

The Castle

Duart and the Macleans

The first recorded mention of the Macleans of Duart is in a papal dispensation of 1367 which allowed their Chief Lachlan Lubanach Maclean to marry the daughter of the Lord of the Isles, Mary Macdonald. This it is said, was a love match, and her father was persuaded to allow it only after he had been kidnapped by Lachlan (an incident in which the Chief of the Mackinnons was killed). Thus the Macleans came to own much of Mull, the Mackinnon lands being granted to them by the Macdonalds as a dowry. Almost certainly, Lachlan built the keep that stands today though the great curtain walls were probably of the previous century.

The Macleans continued to use Duart as their base but they were always fighting for one cause or another. They were part of the loose alliance of West Coast chiefs who supported the Lord of the Isles. Hector Mor, born in 1497, succeeded his father in 1527 and was described as good, kind and brave. The power of the Lord of the Isles was now broken, the Macleans were wholly independent and the King of Scotland, James V, was making himself felt in the islands. Hector Mor was kidnapped, with many other Chiefs, by the King's Lord Lieutenant at a dinner on board ship off Aros Castle. Hector was only released when he agreed to the destruction of all his galleys. Hector Mor was also a builder.

He strengthened the South East buildings in the courtyard and added the gatehouse. Sir Lachlan, 16th Chief, was created a baronet by Charles I in 1631 and so began the century of unswerving loyalty to the House of Stewart which was to result in the Macleans losing all their lands.

Sir Lachlan joined Montrose and his Highland Army but when General Leslie invaded Mull in 1647, he was unable to hold Duart Castle against him. Sir Allan briefly recovered the castle after the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660. Sir Allan remodelled the North East range of buildings in 1673 only to lose the castle to the Duke of Argyll (pressing for repayment of considerable debts) in 1674.

The castle and lands were returned to Sir John (pictured on the left), son of Sir Allan, in 1681 when the Duke of Argyll fell out of favour with the King, only to lose it again in 1691 when Argyll was once more in favour with the Whigs.

The castle became ruinous and was purchased by Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 26th Chief, in 1910. He then began the enormous task of repairing the building.