{"id":3040,"date":"2016-07-24T16:35:48","date_gmt":"2016-07-24T16:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=3040"},"modified":"2016-07-24T16:35:48","modified_gmt":"2016-07-24T16:35:48","slug":"thoughts-from-the-floor-grandmas-rag-rug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=3040","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts from the Floor: Grandma’s Rag Rug"},"content":{"rendered":"

All family ephemera is not on paper. Nor are all items\"grandma_rug\"<\/a> older than the genealogist. That’s the case with the item illustrating this post.<\/p>\n

It’s a picture of a\u00a0rag rug made from the flannel lining of a sleeping bag I had as a child. There’s some additional fabric included to add visual interest.<\/p>\n

There’s a little bit of family history behind this item. My Grandmother Ida (Trautvetter) Neill cut the lining into strips approximately an inch or two wide sewed the short ends of the strips together \u00a0and rolled up the resulting long strip into what we jokingly called footballs.<\/p>\n

The footballs were then taken to Grandma’s cousin Florence who would turn the footballs into rugs. Grandma seemed to always have a few footballs around somewhere in the house and periodically she would take them to Florence for their conversion into rugs. There was never a specific trip made to see Florence. The drop off of footballs and the pick up of the return product was always a part of a larger trip, sometimes to Quincy, Illinois, to see a doctor, to Loraine, Illinois, to visit Grandma’s relatives, or to Ursa itself to visit Grandma’s sister-in-law. All I ever knew about Florence was that she lived in Ursa.<\/p>\n

It did not take much work to learn that Florence’s husband, Arthur, was the actual relative (his mother was Ida Etta [Trautvetter] Henerhoff, a sister to my Grandma Neill’s father, George). Florence’s obituary (which appears to be reproduced on her\u00a0FindAGrave<\/em><\/a> page) mentions her loom and the rag rugs.<\/p>\n

\n

Notes\/Lessons:<\/p>\n

If a\u00a0FindAGrave\u00a0<\/em>page includes “obituary-like” material and sounds like an obituary but does not cite or reference any actual obituary, do not refer to the text as an obituary. Cite the\u00a0FindAGrave<\/em> page. Personally I would look for an obituary as\u00a0FindAGrave\u00a0<\/em>memorial pages sometimes are compiled by individuals with a knowledge of the deceased that has been hastily acquired.<\/p>\n

Consider watermarking your images. We will discuss watermarks in a future series of posts. This illustration’s watermark may be a little excessive, but we’re looking for something that serves the purpose and isn’t overwhelming.<\/p>\n

A “cousin” to Grandma may not quite be a “cousin” in the way you think. Try and ask the relative for specifics of the relationship, if possible. If that’s not possible (or Grandma tells you to “bug off”), consider the “cousin” relationship as being indicative of some relationship more distant than parent, child, sibling, grandchild, and possibly through biology, marriage, or long-term proximity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All family ephemera is not on paper. Nor are all items older than the genealogist. That’s the case with the item illustrating this post. It’s a picture of a\u00a0rag rug made from the flannel lining of a sleeping bag I had as a child. There’s some additional fabric included to add visual interest. There’s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}