Inspiration for Exploring Family Ties to Scotland

Many people around the world today will celebrate the Burns Night Supper in honor of Robert Burns, a poet who gave fame to the traditional dish Haggis in his poem Address to a Haggis in 1787.

Have you ever tried Haggis?  I haven’t and I’ll have to be honest here, it doesn’t sound all that appetizing.  Even still, I am curious.  When I happened upon the fact that today is Burns’ birthday which gives rise to the tradition of Burns Night Supper and the eating of Haggis, it brought the topic to the front of my mind.

I enjoy reading Lilian Jackson Braun’s books, The Cat Who…series and in it she mentions many traditions of Scotland  including the celebrated dish Haggis.  Since I first came across these references many years ago I have been curious about the dish.  We’ll see whether it reaches a point that I actually go out and try it. I guess I would likely have to make it since I don’t know any restaurants around here that serve it.

If you are researching your family history and find the path leading to Scotland you might enjoy this list of online resources to further your project.  Today seemed an appropriate day to make mention of this since little holidays like Burns Night are often incentive to revisit a genealogy project.

I enjoy exploring my family history and I like finding vintage items.  I guess it’s just interesting to ponder what went on in the lives of the people who originally owned the items.  How different their lives were from ours.  I wonder what makes some of us drawn to this kind of thing when others frankly think it is ridiculous.  If you’ve done any family tree research at all you know what I mean.  There are some who just couldn’t be more disinterested if they tried.  Is it age related?  I don’t think so (at least not always), I’ve been delving into our family tree for about 15 years now and I’m just past 40.  It was the Internet that did it for me.  Not sure I would have had more than a fleeting interest if I had to rely on the older, manual methods of research.

Being able to explore so many places online opens the doors wide for people from all walks of life.  No travel is required (although it might enhance things at times) and it can be done at our leisure.  Try plugging in a few family names in some of the more popular genealogy sites out here and see if you aren’t tempted to dig in.  I’m betting a good many of you will be.

My exploration of family history and enjoying vintage items inspired me to open White Oak Attic.  I’m finally able to pursue working from home full time and am exploring what I can offer there now that I have time to devote to it.  I have some pretty ambitious ideas for the site but for now it will have mostly Estate Sale items and new merchandise that just makes the home more “homey”.

I hope you will register for my newsletter (in the right margin).  I’ll send this out just once a month.  It will give a summary of the previous month’s blog postings, updates on what I’ve found to put in the Attic and a few other little tidbits that will only be found in the newsletter.  There will even be discounts and contest announcements.

Watch for more this week in the “Look What I Found” category of this blog.