Thursday, February 14, 2008

Now that the writer's strike is over...

It's time for awards!

In particular, it's time for the First Annual Academy of Genealogy and Family History iGene Awards. These are awards given out by genea-bloggers for their best posts in the previous year. According to the stated rules posts between Jan 1 and Feb 15th are permitted to receive awards.

Here are the categories:

Best Picture

Sphinx Chinning on some sandbags

Even though for sentimental reasons I like looking at the photo of myself at age 13 with my grandparents, I think my favorite photo is of my grandfather in Egypt during WWII. The combination of history with family is appealing. The sandbags make the photograph unique.

Best Screen Play

It was difficult choosing a family story I shared which I thought would make a good movie, because I haven't shared many family stories. One story I considered briefly I decided deserved a different award. I then realized that the best movie could probably be made, not from something I wrote, but from something a collateral ancestor of mine wrote.

Mother – a poem by Ida Green


This poem covers a lifetime of struggles and hardships. It would be a depressing movie, with few special FX. Not the typical movie I like to see. Which probably means it would be a critical success. I don’t know who I would like to cast as I don’t know what any of the key players looked like.

Best Documentary

It wasn't difficult choosing the most informational article about my family's history

August 31, 1902

Here I took the marriage certificate of my great-grandfather’s brother, and researched what I could from the names, and places I was given. As a sidenote: the second-great-granddaughter-in-law of the Cantor found the article and left a comment, and I found a few more links for her which can be found in the comment thread.

Best Biography

The winner of this category is the one I briefly considered for Best Screenplay.

The Vicious Chiffonier

The post is mostly a partial transcript of an audio tape. It narrates a tragic event in Transylvania as told by my grandfather and his brother seventy years afterwards.

Best Comedy

The final category was the one with the stiffest competition. I like humor. My choice:

Olo Chubb Baggins of Pincups

GeneaBloggers were challenged by CowHampshire to post something funny, and this was one of my contributions. I went to a Hobbit Name Generator and converted the names of all my ancestors through four generations and then created a tree-chart using my genealogy software.


Excuse me!
What's the matter?
This is your grandma!
I recognized your voice, Grandma.
You have four grandparents, and you had five categories, and still, you forgot me!
I didn't forget you.
With everything you've written about the Dudelsacks, you think you could have found an award for one of those posts!
I did Grandma.
Which one?
The last one. Selig is the only ancestor whose Hobbit-name I mentioned in the commentary that went along with the post.
Oh. Well, I guess...
And you're going to be in my next post.
I am? Well, alright then.

2 comments:

Lidian said...

I really enjoyed reading your iGene posts - especially your really excellent analysis of the Great Synagogue wedding certificate, and the Vicious Chiffonier (such a tragic story, and such a great title).

Janice said...

John,

What a marvelous collection of posts. I had read The Vicious Chiffonier previously, but I read it a second time--it is a fascinating read.

Janice