"Let me introduce my new Rocket 88.
Yes it's great, just won't wait,
Everybody likes my Rocket 88.
Baby we'll ride in style, movin' all along..."
-from "Rocket 88" by Ike Turner

In the late 1940s my father inherited some money from his grandfather
and bought a 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 Convertible. 1949 was the first
year the car was made. My father took this picture in 1952.

It was considered a hip car back then and seems even hipper now. The
car was so cool it inspired the first ever rock 'n' roll record,
"Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats. The song was
written by Ike Turner and recorded by his band in 1951. Jackie
Brenston plays sax on the record and sings the lead vocal. It was a
number one hit on the R&B chart.

April 2012 is the 100th anniversary of the voyage and sinking of the RMS Titanic. I recently rediscovered and updated three posts on my Genealogy Roots Blog about the last Titanic survivors (all now deceased). You can find the blog posts here:

Last American Survivor of the Titanic Dies (May 2006)

Lillian Asplund's Shoebox Full of Titanic Memories (April 2008)

Millvina Dean, Last Survivor of the Titanic, Dies (June 2009)

For online Titanic passenger lists and related records see the New York section at:
Online Ship Passenger Lists

I have posted 8 photographs of swans in shadows at:
http://swanlight.posterous.com/

This is a picture of my father's old Polaroid 800 Land Camera from the 1960s. It used the peel-away type of Polaroid roll film, which is no longer available. When I was a kid I had a Polaroid Square Shooter. Today I have a Fujifilm Instax camera. See: Wheat Sky - Instax Photo on Flickr. Instant film still lives on.

Here's a set I found on Flickr that shows the Polaroid 800 in action: Polaroid 800 Land Camera

This post was updated on 3 October 2011

These genealogy blog posts list recent updates to four of my directories of online genealogy records and indexes...

Death Records

Online Indexes for Cemeteries, Obituaries and Death Records (USA) - Newest Additions
(posted October, 2011)

Online Indexes for Cemeteries, Obituaries and Death Records (USA) - Recent Additions
(posted July, 2011)

Online Indexes for Cemeteries, Obituaries and Death Records (USA) - Latest Additions
(posted February, 2011)

Naturalization Records

Naturalization Records and Indexes (USA) - New Additions

Military Records

Online Military Records and Indexes Website - Latest Updates 

Birth and Marriage Records

Online Birth and Marriage Records Indexes (USA) - Latest Additions

FamilySearch Genealogy Record Search
You'll find all sorts of genealogy indexes and records here with more
being added fairly often.

National Archives Online Public Access Search
This is a prototype that searches the online resources of the National
Archives, including the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) and Access to
Archival Databases (AAD).

Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records and Obituaries
A directory of indexes for death certificates, death records,
newspaper obituaries, cemetery burials and probate records.

Online Birth and Marriage Records Indexes
A directory of birth and marriage indexes.

Online Military Indexes and Records
A directory of online military indexes grouped by individual wars.

What Passenger Lists are Online?
Internet sources for digitized or transcribed passenger records and indexes.

Online Naturalization Records and Indexes
A directory to help find naturalization records.

Some Free Online Census Records and Indexes
A directory of some free census records and indexes on the Internet.

The Social Security Death Index
Search over 88 million deaths that were reported to the Social
Security Administration since c. 1962.

Bureau of Land Management (BLM), General Land Office (GLO) Records
Here you can search for some federal land records from the BLM.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
A growing collection of searchable digitized newspapers (1860-1922)
from the Library of Congress.

Linkpendium's Genealogical Data Search Engine
Here you can search numerous genealogy websites across the web.

Maria von Trapp in the Social Security Death Index includes a postscript about the real Maria von Trapp's appearance in the Sound of Music movie

The von Trapp Family in Federal Records includes immigration records for some von Trapp family members

Declaration of Intention for Maria von Trapp of the Trapp Family Singers a digitized copy from the National Archives on Flickr

Don't know what a Declaration of Intention is? See:
Types of US Naturalization Records

May also be helpful:
Online Searchable Naturalization Indexes

Taken at Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado
You can see another version of this photo here: Face in the Cemetery Stone - Blue

The German Roots website -- online since 1998 -- has a new home. It's now at:

http://www.germanroots.com/

While the German Roots website was originally designed for Americans
with German ancestors, it has some sections with general USA genealogy
resources. Some popular webpages on the German Roots website are:

Online Birth and Marriage Records Indexes for the USA

What Passenger Lists Are Online?

Online Searchable Naturalization Indexes and Records (USA)

Finding U.S. Naturalization Records - a Genealogy Guide

What's in U.S. Census Records? Clues and Research Tips

The Online Death Indexes section of German Roots was expanded into a
separate website in 2003:
Online Searchable Death Indexes and Records

The Online Military Indexes section was expanded into a separate
website in 2004:
Online Military Indexes, Records and Rosters of Soldiers

If you have any links to the old website's pages (at
home.att.net/~wee-monster), please update them. Thank you!

Photograph of a trumpeter swan cygnet floating on a Monet-like surface of water.

Also see: Swans - Photographs on Flickr by Joe Beine