Travel Tuesday: Plans to Visit the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Reading Room

“Travel Tuesday”  is a daily blogging prompt listed on the site of Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers. This blog topic was suggested by Susan Donaldson of Family History Fun. The “Travel Tuesday” daily blog prompt is described as follows:

Do you have images, quotes or stories about trips your ancestors or family took during their lives? Or have to ventured out on travels to your ancestral homeland as part of your genealogy research?

MY “TRAVEL TUESDAY” BLOG PLANS

This blog prompt has given me quite a few ideas about genealogy travel. In addition to the ideas mentioned above, I plan to write “Travel Tuesday” blog postings about "plans for future trips and reports on activities of the actual trip to research repositories and historic sites, both local and distant." I am fortunate to live within driving distance from numerous research repositories and historical sites which I believe will be of interest to the genealogy community. I also hope that writing about my future genealogy travel plans will keep me more focused when I get the opportunity to visit these places.

PLANS FOR VISITING THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

I will begin my first “Travel Tuesday” blog posting with writing up plans to visit the Library of Congress in Washington, DC sometime in the near future. I can either drive or take the train. 

In preparation for this visit, I decided to research this library via YouTube and the Library of Congress website. As a result of this research, I would like to do the following during my visit:

1. Take the hour long tour.
2. Obtain a LOC library card.
3. Browse the subscription databases which are only available for use at the library.
4. Spend time in the Reading room. I am interested in looking at books on “Rush County, Indiana history”, “Leavenworth, Kansas history”, and “United States Color Troops.”

I plan to blog about my visit and hope that this will help other genealogists who visit the Library of Congress in the future.

For additional information about the Library of Congress, see links and videos below:

• Library of Congress Online Catalog, https://catalog.loc.gov/
• Visitor’s Guide, https://www.loc.gov/portals/static/visit/documents/Visitors-Guide.pdf

How to Find Stuff at the Largest Library in the World

The Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress Is Your Library

Inside the Library of Congress

Sacred Sunday: Easter Fashions of the Past

(Left to right) Sister Odell Hayes and my Grandmother, Emma Johnson Thornton
Newport News, Virginia, Photo taken during 1950s

Today, I'm making a commitment to begin blogging again. One of the series I began in 2008 was called "Sacred Sunday" which highlights religious and church history and traditions.

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This is one of my favorite photos of my maternal grandmother, Emma Johnson Thornton (1922-2011) because it represents Easter fashions of the past when women wore hats and gloves to church.  The lady on the left was Sister Odell Hayes (1926-1994) who was a member of my family's church,  The photo was taken sometime during the 1950s in front of our family's church, Gospel Light United Holy Church, Inc., located in Newport News, Virginia, when my mother was a child.

The women of Gospel Light not only wore hats on Easter, but on every Sunday because they believed the scriptures in the Bible written by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11: 4-5, which states: "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.  But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven." I’m not sure where the tradition of wearing white gloves originated.