Remember our blog post about a year ago about the upcoming super-size Miner-Minard-Miner-Minor 2008 family reunion? 

Organizer Mark Miner sent us a post-party update. Maybe you can steal some inspiration for your own annual gatherings: He's someone who knows how to put on a reunion. Below, a few takeaways.

• Enlarge your invite list. From his genealogy research and family Web site, Miner estimates 50,000 people were eligible to attend. They didn't all get engraved invitations, though—he used the media to get the word out, and more than 115 cousins traveled to the three-day reunion last June.
  
  
• Consider sponsorship. It wouldn't work for everyone, but this celebration's reach and the family’s roots near Pittsburgh earned it official status as part of that city's 250th birthday.

• Visit a historical site. “Our primary event was in the Sen. John Heinz History Center," Miner writes. "Guests were treated to remarks by history center CEO Andy Masich and Pittsburgh 250 executive director Bill Flanagan, as well the unveiling of a photo-memorial to cousin Erick Foster, killed serving in Iraq in 2007.”

• Incorporate family history. Miner showed a PowerPoint presentation about the family’s connections with history (one involves Gen. George Armstrong Custer).

Photo and memorabilia displays included a photograph of Oklahoma pioneers James R. and Lydia (Miner) Brown and letters from a cousin, Corwin D. Tilbury, who served on Pittsburgh’s city council during the city’s 150th birthday in 1908. (Mark put period postcards and photos on a Pittsburgh 150 Web page.)

In the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine (on newsstands May 5) look for tips on using family reunions to (gently) squeeze genealogy information from relatives.

And click Comments below to share your own reunion advice.

Waaaaaay back in April, to play up the promising possibilities of genealogical research collaboration, we asked for your entries in our Terrific Family Tree Teamwork Contest.

We heard a lot of great stories, but managed to winnow them down to the winners, who're portrayed in the November 2008 Family Tree Magazine. There’s something to learn from each example:

• Our grand prize-winners, Bev Ophoven Ewing and Kathleen Lenerz, have never actually met. In 1998 they discovered a cousin connection online. Now, they tackle family mysteries by bouncing ideas around, building off each other’s thinking and divvying up research tasks.

• Gwendolyn Cameron and her cousins wanted to learn about their great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran. They traced him to the state hospital where he'd died. The group organized a memorial service, and since our November issue went to press, the hospital has restored its historic graveyard. A rededication is scheduled for tomorrow.

• In 2006, Melissa Hogan found a team in the Chilton County (Ala.) Yahoo! genealogy group. They turned out to be relatives, and set their sights on discovering the fate of an ancestor rumored to have served prison time.

• Susie Bullion recruited her team by creating a memory quilt with squares relatives filled with stories. To share the history, she and her siblings typed up the stories, researched background information and turned them into a family memory book.

• Valerie Craft’s family history research began as a college project that never ended. Her mom served both as fan and teammate, especially helpful in putting Valerie in touch with distant relatives.

All the teams won our State Research Guides CD; the grand prize also includes Family Reunion Organizer software from RootsMagic, a Web site from MyGreatBigFamily.com and free batch photo scanning from ScanMyPhotos.

See these and other teamwork tales in our Exclusives for Registered Users Forum (note you must be registered with the Forum and logged in to view this section).

Well, my stocking is hung by the chimney with care, and there better not be a mouse stirring anywhere.

The stocking tradition probably started in Europe, where kids hung their everyday socks from nails for St. Nick to fill. Here are some other holiday traditions our ancestors from around the world have celebrated:

In France, kids put shoes by the door or fireplace, waiting for the Christ child to fill them with presents during the night.

Dutch children put hay and sugar in a shoe outside the house on the night before St. Nick’s Day. After his horse has a snack, St. Nick (Sinterklaas)  leaves goodies in each shoe.

Dec. 13 in Sweden is St. Lucia's Day, celebrating the patron saint of light. Traditionally, a family’s first daughter would wear a long white dress and crown of leaves, then serve coffee and treats to the family. (Somehow I can’t see my sister ever doing this.)

A sprite-like child with angelic wings called the Christkind ("Christ Child") is delivers presents in areas including parts of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein. Legand has it Martin Luther invented the Christkind to discourage the figure of St. Nicholas.

Christmas in the Philippines starts Dec. 16 with dawn masses called Misas de Aguinaldo (Gift Masses) or Misa de Gallo (Rooster's Mass) On Christmas Eve, families go to midnight mass and then eat a traditional feast.

Between Christmas and New Years Day, Norwegians go Julebukking. People wearing masks and costumes knock on neighbors’ doors, and the inhabitants try to guess the julebukkers’ identities.

Inspired by the sound of a burning log, a London confectioner named Tom Smith invented Christmas crackers in 1847. The colorful wrapped tubes that snap and reveal a trinket when people pull on the ends are universally popular in England and other Commonwealth countries. Australians call them bon-bons.

Mexican children leave notes in their shoes on Jan. 6, when tradition holds the Three Wise Men arrived with gifts for baby Jesus.

In the UK and Canada, Boxing Day is celebrated the day after Christmas (or the next week day, if Dec. 26 falls on a weekend). There are many theories behind its origins. Nowadays, it’s known for great sales.

In the song “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” a crew of carolers demands to be served figgy pudding before they’ll leave—causing generations to wonder: What exactly is figgy pudding?

So I checked around. It’s a British-style pudding, actually resembling more of a cake, which reached its popularity peak as a Christmas dessert in the 1800s.

You can bake, steam or boil figgy pudding. It’s got figs, of course, plus apples, nuts, cinnamon, cloves, butter, sugar, bread crumbs, milk and eggs. Oh, yes—the recipe I found also calls for three strips of finely crushed bacon. Just what I love in a dessert.

The ancestor of figgy pudding (and plum pudding) is a medieval spiced porridge known as Frumenty.

Here’s a nontraditional figgy pudding with persimmons. Bon appetit!

Family Tree Magazine’s very own Photo Detective, Maureen A. Taylor, is featured in today’s Wall Street Journal, right there on the front of its Weekend Journal section.

The article tells the stories of several families whose photos Maureen has used to fill in a missing piece of the past. Several of the pictures, such as this one showing three young ladies, have been featured in Maureen’s Photo Detective column in Family Tree Magazine and her Photo Detective blog on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

You also get a sense of the research that goes into each photo analysis. Maureen draws on her burgeoning library of obscure reference books; guides to historical uniforms, clothing, accessories, fraternal insignia, artifacts and other items that show up in our ancestors’ photographs; a closetful of antique photos; other historians' insights; and a store of knowledge that comes from studying history and analyzing thousands of images over the years.

See a portion of the article on the Wall Street Journal Web site.

In Family Tree Magazine and her Family Tree Books, Maureen shares tips you can use to glean family history clues from your own clan's photos. Here are some links to get you started:

Photo Detective blog
Here, Maureen analyzes readers' photos, gives advice on preserving old images and more.

Photo Detective Online Archive
Maureen has been identifying images on FamilyTreeMagazine.com for years! Access those articles here.

Uncovering Your Ancestry Through Family Photographs, 2nd edition
In this book, Maureen offers in-depth advice and examples to help you analyze your own family's photographs.

Dating 20th-Century Photographs: Links
Maureen recommended these Web sites in a June 2006 Family Tree Magazine article on analyzing and preserving more-recent images.

Photographic Mystery—Solved!
Another photo success story, showing the value of consulting your relatives when researching family photos.

Now What? Online: Dating Foreign Photos
Some things to look for in images taken overseas.

Software for Organizing and Editing Photos
Maureen and other Family Tree Magazine authors recommend these programs for fixing up and storing digitized images.

The Photo Detective
Maureen's Web site, where you can submit photos and ask questions and find out where to see her presentations.