Christmas Trees - 1 December 2014 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories

When I grew up, in my family, the Christmas tree moved in on December 23rd, always. Usually it was I and my dad who decorated the tree while mom was preparing the food for Christmas.

Then for a while I lived in an apartment with no room for a tree, and I missed having a Christmas tree a lot.

Lately, since we moved to the house, the tree moves in a couple of days before Christmas Eve which makes it feel like Christmas lasts longer. The tree never is thrown out before January 13, you know "tjugonda Knut - då ska julegranen ut".

So, the perfect tree might as well as being totally symmetric also be a tree with a lot of personality. I think most any tree looks beautiful when you got it decorated with the Christmas lights and ornaments. If the tree is not perfect, it is usually very charming in my opinion.

I try to have a different color theme every year. Red and silver ornaments mixed looks nice and traditional. Or just silver. And the dog likes the trees as well :)

Christmas tree of 2011 - and the dog

Unidentified people and unknown place. But they have a nice Christmas Tree

During December 2014 I will blog inspired by the blog prompts of Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories at Genabloggers.com.

The Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories (ACCM) allows you to share your family’s holiday history twenty-four different ways during December! Learn more at http://adventcalendar.geneabloggers.com.

I have also joined #blogg24, a blogchallenge to post a blogpost everyday started by Fredrik Pallin from December 1st until December 24.

Sports Center Saturday - Borås Grand Prix 1942

Among my grandfathers photos I found this one from Borås Grand Prix in 1942.

Borås Grand Prix 1942 - Photo by Erik Berlin

Friday's Faces from the Past

Last weekend my local genealogy society celebrated its 30-year birthday.

On my to-do list was making place cards for the board members since we were to host a table or two each.

So, I wanted to make something more special than just an ordinary card and this is how they turned out:

How I did:

• I bougt letters of cardboard at my local craftshop.
• I printed out old photographs I had scanned on my computer. Cut them in the right sized and glued them onto the letter.
• On the other side of the letter I glued paper with nice patterns, like scrapbooking paper. On one letter I also glued an copy of an old document. 
• I used glitter glue to decorate, both around the letter and on the pictures.
• I glued a nametag on the letter.
• On the bottom I typed the date and the name of the person or persons in the picture.

At my table I had an L of course. In the picture was my grandmothers uncle Voldemar Verno (a blog post about him: http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2014/02/sibling-saturday-part-5-voldermar-verno.html ) which led to an discussion about doing genealogy in Estonia and cyrillic handwriting.

Treasure chest Thursday

My dad has been busy scanning old photos. Every other day when I talk with my parents there is another album that has been digitized. I love watching the photos on my computer or on my iPad, so easy to zoom in and look at details that is not as easy to notice when looking at the paper copies.

This picture is my great grandfather Nils Anton Berlin and is from 1937.

Sympathy Saturday - Lighting candles at cemeteries in Sweden

At the Pet Cemetery in Helsingborg

Today,  November 1st is All Saints Day in Sweden. A lot of Swedes goes to a cemetery lighting candles. This year it is even possible to light a candle through a webpage at certain cemeteries.


It is really a beautiful sight to visit a cemetery this day when its gotten dark, lit candles everywhere and even the local pet cemetery is filled with candles.

Råå kyrkogård, Helsingborg.
Erik och Lilly Kvist

Kropp Cemetery

Kropp Cemetery

#sfd2014

This upcoming weekend, last weekend of August, it is time for the biggest Swedish event in family history research, Släktforskardagarna. This year it is held in Karlstad.

I am looking forward for inspiration, news and lots of fun!

New DNA Family Finder matches

Yesterday I got some new matches at FamilyTreeDNA. Most exciting was that I got a match with a person that has a predicted relationship range of 2nd - 4th cousin. This person is also the closet match I got so far (except for my dad) which makes it even more interesting.

Since I got my own test results in November last year, I get about a handful of matches every month. Most of them are distant, 5th cousin or more and yet I haven't been able to find the connection on a single one.

In a way, I am surprised I have got so many matches. When doing traditional genealogy I don't run into many people researching the same family.

It is fun and interesting with the matches, you know for sure you are related but you don't know how. Sometimes the matches are a surprise as well, I have some matches in England that I don't understand. And a couple of matches in the US where I can't see that the match has any obvious connection to Sweden (or Estonia).

For me the DNA-genealogy really brought a new dimension to my research. From looking into records trying to find relatives I now have about 100 relatives where I need to find the records that shows how we are related.