"Jesus is the Reason & Christmas Trees are in Season!"

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A few Christmas Trees I have seen this year...

My photos do not do them justice for they were far more beautiful!

Photos taken by JGWest Click on the image to enlarge it.

Merry Christmas to all family historians

and the members of the Tri-State Genealogical Society

"My Christmas Present Just for Me!"

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This would be a genealogy Christmas present, of course!

It could be a new computer or genealogy software to record my family data... maybe even a new scanner to scan documents & photos for the history of my family. Maybe a research book with data about my ancestors & relatives. Perhaps a good gift would be a subscription to a genealogical magazine, society or to an Internet service like Ancestry.com. I could send off for military records or vital records. Or, even, hire a professional genealogist to research for me in a far away location.

I could upgrade my y-DNA testing or test for my mt-DNA. That WEST researcher in Texas and I still can not prove we are related (even though we both feel that we are). I can pay for half or all of a y-DNA on him to see if we match - just to find out one way or another on our families being related.

But, I think what I will give myself for Christmas is to find all of my ancestors with missing dates of birth and/or death dates... then find documents to establish a window frame of when the event happened and then try to make that frame as small as possible. Merry Christmas to me!!!

And a Very Merry Christmas to all of you!

- Written by JGWest

"Monopoly's Redding Railroad"

Reading, Pennsylvania is a haven for historians, with historical sites for the Civil War and 30 different museums. The city is also the site of the famous Parker Brothers' Monopoly game's Reading Railroad... one of 4 railroads' squares on the famous board game.

Thanks to Karin Schueler Donato for finally & officially retiring the age-old debate: is it pronounced "Reading" or "Red-ding?" The answer is that it is pronounced as "Red-ding" which is the way this PA city & railroad pronounce it. A cousin, Clint Hadden, said that the way the locals say it, is the way it is!

I hated to give in on this, as we always called it "Reading Railroad" saying it as it looks. The debate grew as my son tried to hold on to our tradition and his wife, Christie Schueler West - yes, Karin's sister! - fought, with Vigor and a few other people, against us! Christie resorted to having all of her friends on FaceBook to vote for her precious "Red-ding" version of the name.

Alas, as a true West, we will show our honorable side by admitting that we were wrong! Karin submitted this as her proof - the History of the Reading Railroad called Reading Railroad Online.

For a time in the 19th Century, Reading was the largest corporation in the world. As the coal business declined and truck competition increased, Reading's revenues signficantly declined. Reading entered bankruptcy in 1971. I wonder if they had pronounced the name correctly, would they still be prominent & powerful today?

- Compiled by JGWest

PS: The Schueler sisters are from Cincinnati for whatever that is worth.