www.itowler.com

So in an effort to make the site my user interactive, I have enabled the comments option for my blog posts.  This means that you will be able to comment on a post, instead of using the sitewide comment option.  This should make it easier to get in touch with me about a specific topic.

Its near the end of June now and I figured that I would check in on my 2009 Goals and see how things are going so far. 

• Lose weight

This is a carry-over from last year.  I need to get down to 165-170.  I should get there, but again...who knows.  This one is starting to get important though, the longer I keep the weight on, the harder it is going to be to get rid of it.

Familytreedna.com is offering a great sale for the remainder of the month.  FamilytreeDNA.com is a DNA testing company that focuses on Genealogy.  To date they have 157,583 Y-DNA records, 91,097 mtDNA records, and 5,424 SURNAME PROJECTS.  One of those surname projects is the Toler 2 (Virginia) project,

Part of the great part about the internet is the ability to share information.  This is really helpful for genealogy.  Being able to share info and ideas about your ancestry is great, and the internet makes it even easier.  But in order to share people need to be able to find you.  Finding itowler.com just got a little eaiser.  itowler.com is now listed in the Genealogy Blog Finder. 

I am not sure that I have ever mentioned it, but I descend from several individuals that fought in the American Revolution.  I actually share a surname with one: Joseph Towler (click on the name to view my genealogy data).  Using some online Genealogy resources, I discovered that Joseph Towler Fought with the 7th Virginia Regiment.  I have even found a few images of Muster Rolls from the unit (see the image on the right, click to enlarge).  I find these records really fascinating, as they provide more insight into the lives of the people that are included. 

Last week I talked about a "New Toler" line be discovered, and the Last person in the line that we could trace was Russell Toler.  This discovery was a little bit of a surprise for me, and a few of the other Toler / Towler researchers that I know.  Part of the reason for the surprise is that they are come from Virginia, and moved into Indiana, like my ancestors, but these are all names that I have not run across before.  The other "twist" to the surprise is that they end up in Kansas, and we had a ancestor, Caleb Anthony that was in Kansas (albeit not the same town).  Well I have done a little more digging, but have not been able to find all that much.  The only real solid clue that we have so far is from the 1870 US Census record.

As of today, there have been 3 people who have taken the 67 marker DNA test for the Toler / Towler DNA Project.  I started off with the 67 marker test, and then 2 other have upgraded from the 12 to the 67.  One of the upgrades can trace his line back to David Toler of WV.  The other upgrade is a mystery.  I was talking and we discovered that we may have found a "New Toler" branch.  Obviously it is not a "new line" but it is new to me and the other Toler / Towler researchers, and as such it is a bit of a mystery....

10 years ago, many websites were just using static html pages, with a single file for each page.  These days, many people are moving to a CMS (Content Management System) platform.  I have talked about CMS platforms before, and this site used to run on one called Xoops.  Now it runs on Drupal.  The first site that I actually built using Drupal was a high school reunion site (www.lnhsalumni.com).  It worked pretty well, and better yet, I was able to put it together pretty fast.  Since then I have moved itowler.com to drupal, and created / helped create several more websites with drupal.  By my count, I have now used drupal in at least 5 different sites:

Alright, alright... I'll get it done as soon as I can.....

Yesterday I recieved not 1, but 2 different contacts via my "Contact Me" page.  This is pretty unusual, I normally recieve about 1 a month, so to have 2 in one day was a little odd.  On top of that, it was both of the "grandmothers" (My mother and my Mother-in-law) contacting me about the same thing.... getting pictures of Keira up on the site.  Here is what they had to say:

The other day I found another feature of Google Maps.  You can Use Google Maps to find Latitude and Longitude (Lat / Long) of a point, and its pretty easy.  This is a great feature that can be used to add Lat / Long information to your gedcom file.  The software that I use (PGV) has a Google Maps module built into it, so this feature is not as important to me, but other may find it interesting.