Whew...2000 photos

It's so wonderful to be back home in America, although I loved going to Iceland. Just going to the grocery store and driving my own car in my neighborhood and resuming my life is exciting. I may not be going back to school, but now I'm looking forward to opportunities to share my experiences this past two weeks in magazine articles and classes that I will be teaching. My first class starts next Tuesday. I have four students already enrolled in FIND YOUR VOICE-a class in creativity based on Julia Cameron's book "An Artist's Way." but first I'm trying to recover from jet lag and very swollen ankles from so much traveling. I'm getting too old for this! Lol...

Where to start with my trip to Iceland is a dilemma, but I'll just begin with experiences I haven't shared and photos on my blog these past two weeks and there are many-2000 photos. So be patient. Overall, I was very impressed with Iceland. It's a calm, safe country to visit with a variety of gorgeous scenery everywhere: volcanoes, lava fields, waterfalls, rivers, glaciers, seasides, etc. It has such amazing scenery and a history that goes back to 870 AD not to mention the calm polite people who are so friendly. I met many new cousins related to my 2nd great grandmother. See some of the new relatives above and below:

Perhaps I'll start there-the family history side of my vacation. Seems that Iceland has a book called in English "The Icelanders Book" that lists the names of all living citizens of this country and their genealogy as far back as it goes. This is open to anyone listed in the book. In America would be considered an invasion of privacy, but over there it's a way to connect with long lost family members and cousins many times removed. The director of the Snorri Plus program had us turn in our Icelandic ancestors genealogy and then traced down out living cousins and called them to come meet us at a reception.

I met one family that way and they Einar Oddsson and his sister (in the first photo) invited me to come to a family party and meet the rest of their family. Their great grandmother Girdis Thordardottir was a sister to my 2nd great grandmother Vilbrog Thordardottir. I didn't expect the party of 30-40 relatives that I was taken to as an honored guest. Einar had made a BIG POT of lamb stew and some of the new cousins had prepared lovely Icelandic pancakes with whipped cream and fresh blueberries. There was a family display of old and current photos of the entire family. I gave them a copy of my history of Vilborg and told her story briefly. The older relatives were very interested. It was a delightful evening.

We talked in English or they interpreted my remarks to those who didn't speak English-the older women. I gave them a history book of my ancestor to keep. They gave me love and acceptance as a long lost family member. One of the 90 year old great grandmothers in broken English told me I had the eyes of their grandmother Gerdis. They gave me a lovely pair of hand knit woolen gloves and a small Icelandic flag. It was a really special highlight of my trip. Each of the seven of us participants from Canada and US met many of our relatives. More on my Westman relatives soon.

I was amazed that so many spoke such good English, my Icelandic was sparse and mostly mixed in with the little Swedish I learned years ago. But we communicated through smiles and hugs with others translating for us.

Reykjavik to St. George

All packed and ready to go, my bag is heavy!

Airport at Reyjkavik-it's going to be a long long day

Goodbye to Iceland and its beauty in art and culture!

It's not New York City just Las Vegas

Hello statue of liberty in Nevada!

My exit in Utah, home is close but first...

time for a Texas BBQ lunch then a long long nap

and catching up with mail and newspapers

Article #163 Family Gatherings

Publishing a history is just the first step, then comes distributing it to your family. When relatives gather at reunions, marriages, weddings, graduations, baby blessings, holidays and even funerals, these are good times to share your history with those who are interested.

We hold a regular Johnson family reunion each year. At these gatherings I make available my latest histories including my own life story because it includes genealogy information on my parents and grandparents that I’d like to share. When I distribute paper copies, I charge printing costs to cover my expenses.

Family histories can be saved as PDF Portable Digital Files and burned inexpensively to CDs or DVDs to hand out for less than $1/each for those with access to computers. There is software available to make decorative labels just like a cover for a book, but smaller to fit round CDs and DVDs. If you give out both printed copies and a CD or DVD with a PDF copy of the history those wishing to print out the history can do it on their own printer or at a copy center.

Interviews of a family member or yourself can eliminate the writing and printing effort, but do require special software for editing and good equipment for recording. Many older individuals are more comfortable talking than writing about their lives. Audio-video record-ings can be saved to disc also. It’s fun to see the person be-ing interviewed. Old 8 mm home movies can be converted to digital, as can old audiotapes.

I have some old vinyl records that my uncle had made talking with my parents when I was a young child. What a thrill to hear my father’s voice as he died 66 years ago. I transcribed his words and put them in my history and I could have made a sound clip of his actual voice to publish digitally online or on a CD or DVD-a new dimension in publishing that needs to be explored more.

For my mom’s funeral we scanned old photos and snapshots of her throughout her life to make a DVD slide show, adding appropriate music to make a lovely tribute to play on a video screen during her viewing at the mortuary. The options for publishing your family histories are limitless with the new technologies being developed all the time. It just takes some planning and effort.