Wordless Wednesday - First Communion circa 1914

 

1940 Census Ambassador

I have been accepted as an 1940 Census Ambassador! What does it mean? It means that I will use my blog to encourage others to help index the 1940 Census so that it will become searchable sooner rather than later. I am going to present a program on indexing to our local genealogy group next week.

I have been indexing for both ancestry.com and familysearch.org for about 3 years. It is easy, rewarding and fun! You can preview the type of record you wish to index and each batch has plenty of help available. The types of records available are of a wide variety. There are birth and death records, tax records, draft records, and church records in addition to the census records.

Your parents and grandparents may be in the 1940 census! There is a lot of new information that will provide new insight into family research. Not only will the census reveal where your family lived and what they did in 1940 but it will also indicate where they lived in 1935, which could be helpful in establishing a timeline.

Sign up today and help index the 1940 Census!

Family Recipe Friday - Flumped Up Cheese

Growing up in the 1950s Friday dinner was a meatless meal. Usually it was tomato soup or vegetarian vegetable soup with grilled cheese sandwiches. Sometimes it was a tuna, potato chip, mushroom soup casserole. On occasion it was "flumped up cheese".

I don't know where the idea came from, maybe it was an effort by Mom to save bread. Big families used lots of bread when sandwiches were on the menu. Flumped up cheese was simply a slice of bread topped with a slice of cheese and broiled until the cheese puffed up and turned a golden brown. Mom would fill a cookie sheet with these open face sandwiches (about 6 to 8 to a sheet) and broil them all at once. It was a fast way to feed a crowd. The sandwiches had to be watched carefully as they could go from golden to burnt in the blink of an eye.

Eating the sandwiches was fun and easy. Just pierce the puffed skin of the cheese to reveal the yummy goodness underneath. Sometimes the crusty top of the cheese was peeled off and eaten out of The exposed bread crust was also toasty crisp while the bread itself was warm and soft. Today I might try a slice of tomato under the cheese!

Thankful Thursday - Thanks for Facebook Pages

I am very thankful for Facebook and the ability to share with others that Facebook provides. My brother has launched a page where he uploads family pictures that he has access to. In posting these family pictures, he has made them accessible to siblings, nieces and nephews, and cousins that might like a copy for their personal use.

By encouraging others to send him photos that they wish to see posted, he has opened the lines of communication and reached out to our far flung family. I love watching the comments and discussion develop as we try to determine exactly who is in the photo and who they look like.

Cousins and siblings from CA to NJ and FL to WA have made use of this site and added valuable insights to our knowledge of our ancestors. Thanks Paul for creating your site!