I subscribe to several of the online genealogy sites and blogs.  I recently received a great post on About.com.  Their writer Kimberly Powell gives great insight to the overwhelming task of researching you family history.  I appreciate the work that is put into her postings.  I find them very helpful and I always read them. 

If you are a busy person and you do not always have time to visit all the genealogy sites.  This is one that I feel you will always benefit from. 

 Here is an excerpt from her site:

Family Legends – Fiction or Fact?

By Kimberly Powell, About.com

Nearly every family has a cherished story or two regarding their distant ancestors – one that has been handed down from generation to generation. While some of these stories probably have a lot of truth in them, others are actually more myth than reality. Perhaps it’s a story that you’re connected to Jesse James or a Cherokee princess, or that a town in the “old country” is named after your ancestors. How can you prove or disprove these family stories?

Write Them Down
Hidden in the embellishments of your family’s story are probably at least a few grains of truth. Ask all of your relatives about the famous legend, and write down everything they tell you – no matter how insignificant it may seem. Compare the different versions, looking for inconsistencies, as they may indicate those parts are less likely to be rooted in fact.

Ask for Backup
Ask your relatives if they know of any items or records which may help document the family story. It doesn’t often happen, but sometimes if the story has been carefully handed down from generation to generation, then other items may have been preserved as well.

Consider the Source
Is the person telling the story someone who was in a position to have experienced the event first-hand? If not, ask them who they got the story from and attempt to work your way back to the original source. Is this relative known as the storyteller in the family? Often “good” storytellers are more likely to embellish a story so as to elicit a favorable response.

Bone Up on History
Spend some time reading about the history of the time, place or person which relates to your family’s story or legend. Background historical knowledge may help you prove or disprove the legend. It’s unlikely that your great, great Grandfather was a Cherokee, for example, if he lived in Michigan in 1850.

Test Your DNA
While your genes may not have all the answers, a DNA test may be able to help you prove or disprove a family legend. DNA can help you determine if you descend from a particular ethnic group, your family came from a particular region, or you share a common ancestor with a particular person.

I find it helpful to bookmark or subscribe to this site.  Check it out.  I think it will give you new insight. 

This subject recently came up for a very dear friend.  She and her husband have been friends of mine for over 30years.  They no longer live in the area and haven’t for years and that makes it hard to help when things go wrong.  Our good friend Jeff lost his fight with cancer.  If you have ever been in those shoes my heart goes out to you. 

Loosing a loved one it tough enough, but then there is the planning of the funeral.  A few of my friends and I were chatting a bit about genealogy and how you can use this to honor that person.  Here are a few of our ideas:

Use the photos that you have collected, baby, graduation, special events, and happy/funny odds and ends.  Funerals are hard enough and a laugh with love is usually appreciated. 

Prepare a photo collage or memories movie.  In the past so many years these have become very popular.  Most computers now come with a program that will help you make your own, but there are professionals out there that will also do this for a price of course. 

Place the family book on a table at the service where anyone attending my look through.  This is a nice touch and many may find there are many things they were not aware of about this person.

If the person was in the military, their medals and awards as well as the military photo could be displayed in a frame.  (I have seem this done and it was beautiful)

For larger funerals, especially for well known persons, a computer webcasting may be used to reach those persons not able to attend.  This is the computer age.  This can be archived on several formats and watched again later.  Also video clips from the service may be of use for other family functions later on.  I know this sounds a bit odd, but I have heard of a special niece singing at her uncle’s funeral and that clip was used later at a family reunion.

Gravestone microchips are become more common.  This is a microchip that is embedded in the person’s headstone that contains photos and personal information.  Anyone interested can use a cell phone to access this information.  Along these same lines some savvy people are engraving a personal website on the headstone so that anyone looking for information may access it there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiIPhYKgNsI&feature=related

For anyone that is creative in any way, displaying the items they made is a great way to honor them.  If that person wrote a book, poems, histories, worked with wood, handcrafts, etc. any of these things would show that persons personality and their love of a craft.  Information about these things may help future generations to understand who the loved one was. 

Music is always a huge part of funerals as I know them.  Traditional music from each culture can add a strong sense of the heritage of the person.  One example is bagpipes or lutes played for those from Scotland or Ireland.  Each country or culture has its own music.  Not long ago I attended a funeral were AC/DC the rock band was played.  It was John’s favorite band.  This too can help to more about who the person really was. 

These are just some of the ideas out there.  Use your imagination and I have no doubt you will find your own great ideas to honor your loved ones.  We all work hard to gather our family history and this is one more way to make it work for us as well.