A great FREE! Photo Editing Program

Do you want a program like PhotoShop, but you can’t afford it? I have a solution for you, its called GIMP. Don’t expect all the bells & whistles of PhotoShop, but if you are looking for a great basic image manipulation program, check out GIMP. GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted. Best of all it?s free to use! However, if you like it, I suggest making a donation to keep the project going. It?s available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems. Here is the link http://www.gimp.org/

Cinthia Ann Callaway/Wheeldon headstone

Cinthia Ann Callaway/Wheeldon was my third great-grandmother. I took the photo about 15 years ago. It was an extremely difficult cemetary and grave to find. It was located 1/4 mile back in a farmer’s field on a wooded hill, off a rural road, but it was worth the day it took to find it. This is most information I have seen on a single tombstone. It lists all of her children, with either their birthdate if they where living, and if they had died before her, it gave their death date. Definitely a genealogists dream to find so much information.

Cinthia Ann Wheeldon grave stone

Rhodes Ancestry of James Clinton Rhodes

Thanks to Wayne Rhodes of the Jones Memorial Library in Lynchburg, Virginia for bringing us the following data. Check out their website at www.jmlibrary.org.
This genealogy starts with James Clinton Rhodes of Stillwater, Minnesota, born at Bridgewater, New York, b. June 24, 1824. It ends with Zachariah Rhodes of Providence, Rhode Island, born 1603, died 1665, who held various important offices in the colony; married about March 7, 1646, Joanna Arnold.

Here is its address: http://rhodesfamily.org/james_clinton_rhodes.php

Obama related to Pitt, Clinton to Jolie?

From the Yahoo News website: “Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates ? Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother’s side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.”

Read on: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080325/ap_on_el_pr/candidates_genealogy

1804 Rhodes Newspaper Marriage Notice from Alexandria Virginia

Published Monday, April 23, 1804, in the Alexandria daily advertiser, (Alexandria Virginia).
Title: Married- Last evening by Rev. William Waters, Rev. Joseph Rowan to Miss Nancy Rhodes, daughter of Mr. William Rhodes, merchant of Alexandria. (p. 3, c. 3).
From the marriage and obituary citations compiled by Bernard J. Henley from Virginia newspapers on microfilm at the Library of Virginia.