How a free afternoon in DC led to a reunion of sorts

 Family Research, Travel  No Responses »
Mar 312012
 
How a free afternoon in DC led to a reunion of sorts

An afternoon of downtime in Washington DC a few weeks back afforded me an opportunity to visit Arlington Cemetery, and the grave of my great grandfather, Major Thomas Tidball Trapnell. It was a chance to get a few moments of peace in an otherwise hectic week, and to forge a connection with a man I never knew, and who was rarely spoken of in my family. When I last visited Arlington in 2000, on a side trip during a wonderful vacation with my daughter, Zoë, I had no idea I had a relative buried there, much less someone as close [...]

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Where are all the Byrnes?

 Family Research  No Responses »
Feb 262012
 
Where are all the Byrnes?

Did you happen to find this site while searching for your Byrne ancestors?  I’m glad you visited, but want to warn you up front there are very few Byrnes on ByrneFamily.net.  In fact, of the 18,000+ genealogical records on the site, fewer than 100 are Byrnes. The reason for the dearth of Byrnes on the site is that my line descends from an early American, John Byrne, born in Windham Connecticut in 1760.  Efforts at tracing this Byrne line back to Ireland or otherwise have been fruitless to date.  And there’s a wrinkle to the story in that John Byrne may [...]

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Found photos, found cousins

 Family Research, Site notes  No Responses »
Feb 222012
 
Found photos, found cousins

One of the pleasures of hosting a website filled with genealogical records is connecting with family members I might not otherwise know.  Neither of my parents were diligent about maintaining family connections, save for periodic trips to Santa Cruz or Los Angeles to visit my grandparents.  On very rare occasions, we would go on trips that might include a visit to a great uncle or aunt, but these were the exception, once in a lifetime events that were almost never repeated.  Consequently, I grew up able to count the family I knew on my fingers, unaware what I was missing [...]

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Dr. Renald Fernald: Early Settler of Portsmouth

 Family Research, Travel  1 Response »
Feb 122012
 
Dr. Renald Fernald: Early Settler of Portsmouth

A highlight from a recent New England trip was getting to spend some time in and around Portsmouth, NH.  The town has a rich history for shipbuilding, fishing, and as an important port for the region.  More recently, Portsmouth has become a popular tourist destination, and like most of coastal Maine, the town feels a bit overrun in the middle of summer. The reason for our visit to Portsmouth was to establish a connection with one of its earliest settlers, Renald Fernald, my eighth great-grandfather.  Renald (aka Reginald) Fernald came to Portsmouth in 1631 as the surgeon of Captain John Mason’s [...]

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How fear and loathing of I5 led to a San Francisco Chronicle travel piece

 Travel  No Responses »
Jan 212012
 
How fear and loathing of I5 led to a San Francisco Chronicle travel piece

There are uglier and more boring roads in California than Interstate 5, but none that I travel on a regular basis.  So the prospect this past summer of another jaunt to LA via that well-traveled corridor populated by truck convoys and manic Lincoln Navigators was more than I could bear. It was at this point that Nanette challenged me to find a new north-south alternative, well aware she was in for a better trip if I was in a more pleasant state of mind behind the wheel.  We’d long since worn through the coast-hugging novelty of Hwys 1 and 101, [...]

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Ryland Drennan and the siren song of the sea

 Family Research  1 Response »
Jan 162012
 
Ryland Drennan and the siren song of the sea

For many years, my grandparents dedicated a wall in their Santa Cruz home to old family photos.  They were mostly run-of-the-mill portraits and snapshots of aunts and uncles, with the notable exception of a blurry image of a dapper man in a white uniform, standing on the deck of a ship, circa 1920.  With a waxed moustache and beard, he looked like a cross between Archduke Ferdinand and King Oscar of canned sardine fame.  This regal-looking gentleman was identified as Uncle Ryland — long since passed away, and little spoken of by his nephew, my typically reticent grandfather.  In 1999, [...]

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Choosing a new CMS

 Site notes  2 Responses »
Jan 082012
 
Choosing a new CMS

One of the main barriers to revamping this website was the challenge of integrating my genealogy data, which is powered by The Next Generation (TNG), with a proper content management system (CMS).  TNG is the most robust platform for presenting genealogical data, and is well supported by both its author, Darrin Lythgoe, and an active community of users who help drive new feature development, or create their own add-ons and enhancements for others to use.   In addition to doing a fine job of presenting family tree data in a flexible and reasonably intuitive format, TNG has valuable security and [...]

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Rethinking ByrneFamily.net

 Family Research  6 Responses »
Jan 022012
 
Rethinking ByrneFamily.net

Relaunching this site on New Year’s Day was more coincidence than by design, but the timing is a good excuse for a little self-reflection on why ByrneFamily.net exists.  And while there is still a tremendous amount of work to do in the way of content, functionality, and design, having a stable site built on a popular blogging platform has given me new enthusiasm for the project. This site started out as an offshoot of a project to digitize genealogical materials compiled by my great-grandmother, Edna Valentine.  Edna started researching her genealogical lines and collecting family artifacts around 1910, and continued [...]

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Site overhaul in process

 Site notes  No Responses »
Jan 012012
 

Things are in motion right now with the site design & layout.  Looking for Byrne, Trapnell, Garland, or Asimov genealogy data?  Just click on the ‘Genealogy’ tab.

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