The Shamrock Genealogist

It's hard to believe that December 31st has finally arrived and it's the last day of 2017. I don't know about all of you but I feel that 2017 was a rollercoaster of a year. Here's some highlights for what happened in 2017 for the Shamrock Genealogist: DNA tested paternal uncle and father at AncestryDNA . Bonus was my maternal grandmother tested on her own at MyHeritage . Attended two genealogy conferences, RootsTech and NERGC, which were both firsts for me.  Had proposals chosen to give lectures at Ontario Genealogy Society (OGS) Conference and Michigan in Perspective Local History Conference in 2018.  Was accepted to be a social media ambassador for RootsTech 2018 (which resulted in free r egistration for RootsTech !) Assisted with social media publicity for OGS 2018  Bought the domain rights for this web site Visited the New England Genealogical History Society library (twice!) and the California State Archives Started a Facebook page for my bl...

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah . In short it's a celebration of how the oil needed to heat the menorah of the Temple lasted eight days, when it should only have lasted one day. Growing up, I was raised to celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas. My mom was raised Jewish and my dad was raised Catholic and holidays were blended. My mom would make the potato latkes (pancakes). The menorah would be lit, with a new candle appearing each night until the final night when the entire menorah has candles. The menorah has candles added right to left but it's lit left to right. I was usually afraid of fire so my mom would take care of lighting the menorah. In some families it was the youngest child that would do the lighting. The menorah in my family was passed down, possibly from my great grandparents. I loved the menorah, it had such a bright bronze (almost gold) look. It played "Rock of Ages", like an old jewelry box tune. Since I moved out of my parents' house, ...