Genealogy Reviews Online

Origins of Mother's Day

I found an interesting article in the Washington Post today about a woman's quest for the origins of Mother's day.  Apparently Anna Jarvis, from West Virginia, is credited with starting a movement to create the holiday a couple of years after her mother's death.  Anna succeded and the special day for mothers was created in 1914.  The interesting part of the Washington Post story says "Her's the sad thing about Anna Jarvis: Mother's Day was her only baby.  And in the end, she was so put off by its success (i.e. commercialization) that she started a petition to rescind it and was promptly popped into an institution, where she died, alone, in 1948."  What a sad story...it almost makes me feel guilty for celebrating it.  Here's Anna Jarvis' obituary from the New York Times.

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Genealogy Gems - You've Got to Check this One Out

I'm sure most every genealogy nut viewed Rootstelevision's "Wild Roots" video contest back in June. There was one video in that contest that just cracked me up...I bet it portrays perfectly how genealogy fits into many of our lives. This video is called "Our Summer Vacation" and it took second place in the contest...I think it was the best of the bunch. I was excited to learn later that the producer, director and star of that video has a website called Genealogy Gems, but there's a twist - instead of writing about our favorite subject, she talks about it in podcasts.