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knoxcotn-digest Friday, April 28 2000 Volume 01 : Number 085
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 19:26:35 -0500 From: "Sue Maniez" <smaniez@ridgenet.org> Subject: RE: [KnoxCoTN] Southeastern Genealogy Conference--Knoxville, TN Hello to everyone, This weekend is turning out to be a bang-up affair. On Monday, May 28, a 50th reunion for the Fountain City Grammar School Class of 1950 will be held with a reception and tour of the school and a luncheon to follow. If you graduated with us, please contact Ben Burnette at cyburnet@usit.net for additional information. Sue Clark Maniez
- -----Original Message----- From: owner-knoxcotn@rootsquest.com [mailto:owner-knoxcotn@rootsquest.com] On Behalf Of East Tennessee Historical Society Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2000 4:45 PM To: knoxcotn@rootsquest.com Subject: [KnoxCoTN] Southeastern Genealogy Conference--Knoxville, TN The East Tennessee Historical Society is gearing up for the 2000 Southeastern Genealogy Conference and hopes to see you there. The conference will be held May 26 and May 27 in downtown Knoxville at the Knoxville Hilton, just one block from the East Tennessee History Center. The conference is open to ETHS members and non-members alike and includes a variety of sessions geared to all levels of experience from beginner to advanced. Conference sessions will cover a variety of topics from research in various states associated with Tennessee migration, ethnic genealogy, research in special collections such as the ETHS First Families of Tennessee files, and the Draper Manuscripts. Other topics will discuss the cultural heritage of our ancestors including Scotch-Irish language, life on the frontier, and Tennessee Forty-Niners-- looking at those Tennesseans who ventured west to join the California Gold Rush. Speakers scheduled to present programs include Dr. George K. Schweitzer, Billy Kennedy (author of The Scots-Irish in Tennessee and other books of Scots-Irish history), and Michael Montgomery (one of the foremost experts in Scots-Irish and Appalachian language). Other speakers will include: R.P. Baker * Dorothy Boyd-Rush * Ron Bryant * Kevin Cherry * Steve Cotham (head of the McClung Historical Collection) * Robert S. Davis, Jr. * Walter T. Durham * Pat Spurlock Elder * Cherel Henderson (director of the First Families of Tennessee heritage project) * Shelia Steele Hunt * Doris Martinson (manager of the Knox County Archives* Billie McNamara * Dorothy Potter * Shane Rhyne * Charles A. Sherrill (Tennessee State Library & Archives). For a complete listing of speakers and topics, plus registration information, visit the East Tennessee Historical Society web pages at www.east-tennessee-history.org Follow the links for the Tennessee Family History Weekend to learn more about the Southeastern Genealogy Conference and other activities associated with the weekend including a history fair, barbecue picnic, and motorcoach tours. We look forward to seeing you May 26-28 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Tennessee Family History Weekend is presented by the East Tennessee Historical Society with sponsorship assistance from the Central Business Improvement District (CBID) of Knoxville, WBIR-TV, and grant assistance from the Knox County government. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 08:21:33 -0700 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] Fwd: FYI: NARA Reproduction Fee Schedule (Proposed) Forwarded message: The NARA proposal to revamp the system and fees for providing copies of Military Service Records, Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Files, and Pension Application Files has been published in the 25 April 2000 issue of the Federal Register. Public comment is invited and should be directed to NARA Regulation Comment Desk 8601 Adelphi Road College Park, MD 20740-6001 Fax: 301 713-7270 The comment period closes on 26 June 2000. NARA prefers that you use either the postal address or fax number to submit our comments rather than e-mail. A complete copy of the Federal Register notice is available from the NARA Web site at http://www.nara.gov/nara/fees-pro.html. The proposed Reproduction Fee Schedule covers a number of items, but the Military Service Records, and the Pension and Bounty-Land Warrants are of the greatest concern to genealogists. NARA proposes three major changes: 1. The NATF Form 80 would be discontinued, to be replaced by two new forms: NATF Form 85 to request both Bounty-Land Warrant application files and Pension files (more than 75 years old), and NATF From 86 to request Military Service Records (more than 75 years old). 2. For all three types of files, NARA would no longer send a selection of pages, but would send the complete file. This would eliminate the two-step process currently used and should be beneficial to most genealogists. 3. The fees for all three types of files would be raised. For Military Service Records the new fee would be $17.00, regardless of the number of pages included in the file. For Bounty-land Warrants the fee would be $17.25, again without regard to the number of pages. For Pension Files the fee would be $40.00, regardless of the number of pages. Finally, the proposal would go into effect on 1 September 2000, if approved. Many genealogists may consider the proposed fees to be excessive. NARA specifically invites comment on the proposed fee schedule. The FGS/NGS Records Preservation and Access Committee urges everyone who wants to comment to carefully read the full proposal before submitting comments. The proposed fees are intended to cover the actual cost of locating, copying and mailing the records, plus 10% as authorized by law, and are based on the average size of the files. NARA states that the average for Military Service Records and Bounty-land Applications is somewhere under 20 pages, while the average for full Pension Files is 105 pages. The FGS/NGS Records Preservation and Access Committee will be looking at the NARA proposal carefully, and will submit comments as appropriate. Individuals who would like to provide input to the Committee's evaluation are welcome to do so but are also encouraged to comment direct to NARA at the address given above. Comments for Committee consideration should be e-mailed to fgs-access@fgs.org, or mailed to Federation of Genealogical Societies, Attention: RPAC, PO Box 200940, Austin, TX 78720-0940. In order for the Records Preservation and Access Committee to adequately evaluate such input it must be received by 26 May 2000. The deadline for comment to NARA, however, is still 26 June 2000. Posting of this message to other mail lists is encouraged. A copy of this message will also be available on the Records Preservation and Access page of the FGS Web site <http://www.fgs.org/fgs-recordsnews.htm> and on the NGS Web site <http://www.ngsgenealogy.org> ****
Community email addresses: Post message: TN-all@onelist.com Subscribe: TN-all-subscribe@onelist.com Unsubscribe: TN-all-unsubscribe@onelist.com List owner: TN-all-owner@onelist.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 09:58:32 -0700 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] 27 April 2000 Sunday Afternoon Rocking I'm a little late getting this forwarded -- sorry! But, this one is worth the wait.... ======================================================== "The Good Old Days" (from the "Sunday Afternoon Rocking Series") Afternoon All, I have been thinking a great deal about the "good old days", something we are all prone to doing now and then, and perhaps more so the older we get. We think about the days when we were growing up, raising our children. We think about the days early in our career... and we think about the stories our elders told of years gone by and not even a part of our own memory. I have often wondered how true it was that any of those times were really "the good old days". I think of those long ago days we have all heard tell of from elders, or read of. Would we really want to live in a world where death was a breath away, at any given moment, and we were even more so at the mercy of our luck at avoiding disease and injury, hostile groups to our own, the weather and climate? Not that any of us can be assured of tomorrow, but for the most part, generally we are safer, more secure, and certainly have more advanced medicine. The pictures we have in our minds of "the good old days" don't really include those things. And fact is, most of us have had enough "brushes" with a medical condition, that had we lived in those "good old days" we would not have lived to see the age we are now. It was quite another perspective I heard once from an elderly aunt when reminiscing was being done. "The good old days! Humph!", she said, "No way I am going back to those days! Wasn't nothing good about them!" <smile> And of course, unlike the idealized picture in my own mind, she was remembering the truths of it. She was remembering scrubbing clothes on a washboard after pumping the water to scrub them with from a well. She was remembering chopping wood (after a family member felling trees) simply to have heat or to cook. She was remembering seeing her breath hang in a fog on the air right in her own room when she woke up in the morning. She was remembering that room that was "hers" actually being shared by three other siblings. She was remembering when every bite the family had to eat rested upon the year-long work of an entire family, and the weather. She was remembering when the roots and herbs of the forest failed, and no doctor in sight. She was remembering how hard it was to get to town and literally walking five miles to get to a one-room school composed of all eight grades under one teacher. She was remembering breaking ice to care for the livestock before the break of day, and she was remembering one pair of shoes a year with cardboard to patch the holes. Oh yes, a far different perspective. And yet, like many of you, I believe sometimes I would gladly take the risks and learn to handle the hardships (hoping myself able to withstand), simply to have lived in the time... And so I have often wondered...what is this fascination most of humanity seems to have for "the good old days? We seem to live in the "good days" now in so many ways of speaking! In contrast, so many more opportunities abound for us and our children now! If medical science has a great many things to conquer still, it has indeed conquered a great deal that was of tremendous concern to our ancestors! Transportation is rarely an issue, education is there at our doorsteps, most of us have electric and running water, more than just the basics line the kitchen pantries...and the list goes on. The fascination with the "good old days" goes on as well... And I wonder...could it have to do with the things WE know about our own days...our own perspective? Could it have something to do with understanding that the price we pay for the world we live in is a hectic, stressful, fast paced lifestyle? Could it have anything to do with many of us rarely feeling there is any time for anything that is not productive to keeping that lifestyle? Could it have anything to do with the sick feeling of knowing we have raised our children without the quality time we wanted, that we do not have the time to know our own families as we wish to? That we have to force ourselves all too often to take a walk simply to look, really look, at the ribbons and wrappings of the nature that is ours and freely surrounding us? That it often takes a real crisis in our life before we stop long enough to really think, examine ourselves, reflect on what is really meaningful and important...and what is not? Could it... could it have something to do with a yearning for a more simplistic way of life, if a harder one? I think so. And I think all around us are signs of that. I think it can be seen in the current emphasis on family involvement in schools. I think it can be seen in the lengths many churches are going to in order to foster family activities. I think it can be seen in the self-help section of a book store. I think it can be seen in the tremendous number of "inspirational" poems, books and messages that are passed on and forwarded. I think it can be seen in the sheer number of people looking for family roots on the net. I think that at the same time most embrace this world of ours purchased at the expense of nerves and stress, most of us also feel an emptiness, and that whether we consciously realize what that emptiness really is stemming from, at some point or other we recognize, however briefly, a strong desire for a more simplistic way of life. We also tend generally to not really know how to return to it, and certainly the world around us is not supportive of that. I tend to believe that our ancestors were trying from their beginnings in this country to carve a niche that would "make life easier" for their children and their children's children. I doubt any would argue with that. And ...they did it! We are living the result of their sacrifices at home and abroad, and we live secure and healthy for the most part, with opportunities much of the world does not enjoy. I also tend to believe that while they had no clue just HOW successful they would be, in the limited perspective of their own worlds long ago, they never dreamed the price that would also be paid by those descendents...and that had they known, they would have been as appalled by this as they would have been amazed at the strides forward! Wouldn't it be wonderous to dream a "new dream"? To dream a dream of the best of two worlds... To dream the same dream of our ancestors, carving a niche that will "make life easier" for our children and our children's children....doing so with the best of today's bounties....but daring to choose between "necessary" and "extra", daring to learn how to return to a simplistic lifestyle, and daring to upset the "status quo" until our world around us was not only supportive of it, but the majority were all attempting to do the same? Wouldn't it be wonderful to embrace medical cures and technology, educational opportunities, the physical security of our nation, but live in a world where materialism was not quite so important, where "keeping up with the Jones" had the same answer the oldtimers gave it? One of my aunts says, "We were all in the same boat. Wasn't no keeping up with the Jones! Wasn't no Jones!" That was of necessity. But what if...we CHOSE to say this? What if..."we were all in the same boat? Wasn't any keeping up with the Jones? No one wants to be Jones anymore?" Just a thought, jan c2000janPhilpot ________________________________________________ (Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety. Thanks, jan) Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to Sundayrocking-subscribe@egroups.com _________________________________________________ ------------------------------ End of knoxcotn-digest V1 #85 ***************************** |