Follow Friday: Cory Booker’s Blue Eyes & Florence Nightingale’s Sweet Voice

This week has been insane. I’m one of the (least-effective) organizers of the Canton Festival of the Arts and our big event is down for tomorrow and Sunday (May 18th and 18th) from 10am-5pm. If you are anywhere near Canton, Georgia, it’s an excellent event. I’m especially looking forward to the photographers, jewelry makers, southern authors and storytellers this year!

Because of that, this Follow Friday is going to be shorter than usual because I haven’t had nearly as much time this week to read my usual blogs or to poke around and find fun links. That said, I still came across some good finds:

Articles

So I know I’ve already told you to follow Genealogy Bank, but if you don’t, do! Their latest fascinating article was Frakturs & Family Bibles Can Provide Proof of Marriage. I had never heard of a “fraktur” but apparently they are a form of German folk art commemorating big events – like marriages – in the form of manuscript art. (Think of our mom’s and grandma’s generation cross stitching or embroidering pillows, for example.) The article also gives tips on finding frakturs.

Black Ripley is another site I’ve already recommended, but Tiffany posted a very important and sad resource: The Lynching Calendar, African-Americans Who Died in Racial Violence in the United States, 1865-1965. She was actually even able to use this resource to solve an old mystery in Ripley, Tennessee.

The Things we Leave at Graves by Save a Grave – A detailed recounting of burial traditions and some of the origins and symbolism of items left at grave sites. Have you ever seen a penny on a grave? Find out what that might mean.

Blogs

My Twitter friend and geographical neighbor Tonia hosts the amazing Tonia’s Roots blog. Not only is she extremely organized and helpful when it comes to the genealogical research process, she is most likely related to me – at least by marriage – so she must be awesome, right? But seriously. We can all learn from her methodical (but methodical smart, not methodical boring) approach to research.

Videos/YouTube Channels

Transforming Art – this channel features mostly rare pre-WWII musical pieces, and this week I found where they had uploaded a very cool recording of Florence Nightingale’s voice!

You can also watch full episodes of the PBS Series “Finding Your Roots” online. I only found out about this when one of my favorite Twitter follows, Megan Smolenyak, mentioned Cory Booker’s ancestry and I, of course, wondered where those baby blue eyes came from. I highly recommended the Cory Booker/John Lewis episode. I totally teared up at the end and you’ll see why.

And now I’m off to help our vendors get all set up for the Canton Festival of the Arts. Happy Detecting!