This week I am being honored with the Liebster Blog Award. For those of you who have never heard of it before, the Liebster is given to newer bloggers with less than 200 followers. Liebster is the German word for “favorite”. The award is typically passed on once you receive it, being a sort of the chain letter for blogging. Once you have been nominated you need to answer eleven questions posed by your nominator, select eleven blogs you would like to nominate, and then come up with eleven questions for the new award recipients that you want answered. Whew!

I was honored by ljhlaura who writes the Branch and Leaf Blog. She was one of my earliest followers. Since I am still relatively new to blogging, I had a hard time coming up with eleven blogs with less than 200 followers. Many of the blogs that I follow at this point have large followings so they are ineligible for nomination. Two examples are Judy Russell’s The Legal Genealogist and Hinges of History. If you follow genealogy blogs, you KNOW who Judy is. Hinges of History is a blog that I only discovered this last week. Its entire focus is the WAVES of World War II. The WAVES, or Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, were women who enlisted in the Navy. More than 100,000 of these amazing women signed up during World War II. I would like to think that my grandmother might have signed up if she had been 10-15 years younger and had not had a family at home to care for.

I tried to be diligent and make sure that the blogs I nominated had less than 200 followers. Unfortunately, not all the blogs I am nominating have their numbers of followers posted so I tried my best. Many of these bloggers welcomed me right from the start and I can’t wait to read each one of their new posts every day (or week).

1. Mustang.Koji and his blog Masako and Spam Musubi
2. Jenn, aka the Writer Gril, and her genealogy blog Unveiling My Past
3. Donna Catterick and her new genealogy blog This I Leave
4. Grant Davis and his blog The Stephen Sherwood Letters
5. Kaitlin and her blog Keeping History Alive
6. Chris Wimsatt at The Buff Genealogist
7. Sheryl and her blog A Hundred Years Ago (I know she’s just over 200 followers, and I don’t care!)
8. Jacqui Stevens  and her blog A Family Tapestry
9. Gpcox at Pacific Paratrooper 
10. Jaggh53163 at “Greatest Generation” Life Lessons
11. Susan Buck and her blog Branches of Our Family

So here are the questions I was asked and my answers:

1. When did I start my blog? I started my blog over this last Thanksgiving on November 23, 2012.
2. What motivates you to write? I am not sure I have an answer to this one….I feel a great need to share my grandparents’ letters and to write down some of my family research before the stories or the letters get lost forever. I never really thought much about being a writer so I feel somewhat odd calling myself one.
3. Do you have closer to a dearth of a plethora of writing ideas to bring to fruition? I love the word plethora. We used the word a LOT in college. I would say that I have a plethora of documents and a whole heck of a lot of source material to draw upon. I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.
4. Did you have a hard time naming your blog? I’ve gone by the moniker genealogy lady for awhile now (cough…well over a decade). My husband starting using it as a nickname for me when I would disappear into the office and not emerge for hours. It just seemed like the natural name for my blog.
5. Where were you born? I was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
6. How far to you currently live from where you were born? I am about as far as you can be and still be in the continental United States.
7. Where would you live if you could live anywhere? I love the idea of living in Ireland, Scotland, Great Britain, etc. but I would probably be happiest somewhere in the mountains, in the woods near a lake, with very few people around.
8. What’s your favorite season? Tough one as I like each season individually.
9. Why is your favorite season your favorite? I like Winter for the snow and the holidays; I like Spring for its sense of newness and everything being reborn and the coming of warmer days; I like Summer for its heat, childhood memories of lazy days of camp on the lake, and its carefreeness; I like Autumn for the beautiful fall colors (which I rarely see anymore) and changing temperatures and the year end rituals of harvest & Halloween
10. More introvert or extrovert? Hands down I am an introvert, and proud of it!
11. What kind of people inspire you? Fearless & brave people; those who are not afraid to fight for their causes or against injustice; people who stand up to bullies and defy the odds.  Whether it was the brave women who fought for our right to vote, abolitionists who helped slaves escape the south, Germans who hid Jews during World War II, or the kid who stands up for his friend against the bully on the playground.

My questions for my nominees: 1) Why did you start your blog? 2) Name a hobby besides genealogy/writing that you also love. 3) Who is your favorite ancestor? 4) What is your favorite book? 5) If you could meet one of your ancestors, who would it be? 6) Why did you choose that ancestor? 7) If you could go back in time, what period would you chose? 8) Who is your most frustrating brick wall ancestor? 9) What is your favorite ice cream flavor? 10) Are you a professional genealogist or do you just this for “fun”? 11) Cat or dog person?