Welcome to the family blog!

Welcome to the new family blog! I'm starting this blog with a picture of Blouza because it's hard to believe sometimes that Blouza is a real place and not some mythical homeland. I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I peruse the archives looking for clues about our shared patrilineal ancestry. Where is our family from? Looking through census records and other historical documents reveals many inconsistencies in our family records but the one fact that is always consistent is where they came from. On every record the place of origin is Blouza, Mt. Lebanon, Syria. This is both a reminder of where our family is from and why they left. The early 20th century was a tumultuous time in the Middle East (was it ever peaceful there?) and the Persian War of the first part of that century involved many from Syria. Almost 50 years later Mt. Lebanon gained independence from Syria and later France to become Lebanon. These events may be part of the reason our family left and that portion of our history will require some much deeper digging. When they left though, they started a new history for our family, and that one is found in the census records, obituaries, marriage records, and other public and private documents that can be found and searched for in archives all over the United States. I started this blog so we can all experience the rediscovery of that history together.

I wanted to start this partly out of frustration for the lack of records and stories that have been handed down to us, partly out of joy for the history and records I am finding, and partly (and this is a BIG part) for the fact that I haven't been to a reunion or hung out with my cousins in almost 10 years. I miss you guys! So, lets start sharing. Write a story, post a picture, share a thought, or just say hello. If you aren't comfortable with the Blogger set up just send me an email with your photo and text and I'll take care of it. There are links on the side menu for the Picasa photo album which will hold any photos that are posted to the blog as well as any that are added to it from Picasa and everyone should have access to that album with their gmail account. At the moment there is just one big photo album so try to tag your photos or use the date in the file name (I suggest using the Picasa desktop application if you aren't already). I will try to get it set up so we can have different albums if it gets too unwieldy and confusing.

If you don't want to check the blog regularly you can sign up to get an email when someone posts something. There is also a link on the right to a Google Documents spread sheet that will eventually have everyone's contact info; again we can all edit this so just add or correct as much info as possible. Well, I guess that's enough for this first post. I hope everyone will take advantage of the blog when they can and that in some small way it will make us all closer.