Third blogiversary! Twentieth of twenty-six posts in the April 2017 Blogging From A to Z Challenge on the theme “Whispering Chimneys: My Altamont childhood” — where my genealogy journey began. Wish me luck — entering the home stretch!

Today I’m celebrating the third blogiversary of Molly’s Canopy — so I’m going off-theme for a bit of horn-tooting before resuming my childhood posts.

Looking back over these three years I can hardly believe Molly’s Canopy began as a way to chronicle my Union Army ancestor’s US Civil War years — and today is part of a second A to Z Challenge!

What an incredible family history journey it’s been — filled with new research, ancestral discoveries, friends, cousins and blogging experiences.

A year of challenges

Last year, I participated in  my first A to Z Challenge, and enjoyed it so much that I’m back again. The A to Z Challenge is a great way to meet other bloggers and to give and receive mutual support!

I’m grateful for all the comments and well wishes on Molly’s Canopy — and for all the interesting blogs and bloggers I’ve engaged with, too.

In November, I also participated in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) focusing on genealogy road trip tips to organize my notes into a blog-to-book outline. Now I need to follow up and get that published!

The sagas continue

Apart from blog challenges, Molly’s Canopy has evolved into a saga format featuring multi-part series on particular ancestors or families. In this way, I hope to slowly but surely bring my separate family lines together — and spur my research along the way.

Over the past year, I continued my paternal great-great grandfather Arthur Bull’s story by writing about his Civil War pension application process.

My paternal French-Canadian great-great grandfather Laurent Charbonneau, who arrived in New York’s Adirondack region in the 1850s, was introduced — and I wrote about the childhood of his oldest son, my great grandfather Will Charboneau.

For Laurent’s back story, I explored his early life in Quebec and the lives of his parents and siblings after he moved to the US.

This prompted a series about his sister Elise Charbonneau — who tragically lost her first husband and three children, taught school while raising her surviving daughter, and happily married a second time to a widower with three sons.

Short vignettes

Here and there, Molly’s Canopy featured single-post vignettes about my paternal grandparents visiting Times Square on New Year’s Eve 1937, my maternal grandmother’s cherry jubilee sauce recipe and  Geseundheit: A little linguistic legacy about heeding the smallest ancestral clues.

A series on Aunt Rosie Curcio — a younger sister of my maternal great grandmother — celebrated this single, career woman who lived to 105. My mom and I interviewed Aunt Rosie about our Italian ancestors when she was 95, and I wanted to tell her story, too.

My Dempsey (Irish) and Owen (Welsh) ancestors rounded out the blogging year in March when I chronicled my 1993 road trip to Baltimore, Md., their home city, and showcased photos of some of the landmarks in their lives.  Our Dempsey Cousins Family Research Team, which arose in part from earlier Dempsey blog posts, continues to share stories and family discoveries.

Please join me for year four

So that’s the third blogiversary review of Molly’s Canopy. I’ve learned a lot, I’ve grown a lot — and there’s still so much more to write about my beloved forebears and their lives.

Please subscribe or follow Molly’s Canopy — and join me for year four when weekly blogging resumes after the 2017 A to Z Challenge.

Up next – Under the pines: Family reunions. Please stop back!

 © 2017 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.

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