Super Cinco Moon de Mayo in Healdsburg

Okay so another week has "bit the dust" so to speak. The one day that rain was predicted this week -- it did rain lightly all day. The other days were basically sunny and warm. The one day rain came at a time when half of us were under the weather anyway AND the painters (of the deck) took the day off. That brings us to this weekend and it all seemed to align by Saturday night:

It is amazing that the largest appearing moon of the year AND a very large celebrated holiday would fall on the same day AND a Saturday to boot. Above you can see several views of the "Super Moon" (in case you missed it) around and from our house. The top right moon shot was from the back deck and the little white speck appears over our roof line -- it appeared larger in some of the other shots. It was impressive. I can only imagine the effects this "larger" moon is having on all kinds of behavior. I'm glad to be retired as I remember the workplace during full moon times . . .

And we celebrated Cinco de Mayo in our traditional manner and that was fun. We were glad not to be on the road though.

Projects and more Projects


We have a variety of projects going on at all times and this week was no exception. On the sunny days the deck and the new portions of the wall relating to the new slider were primed. And the garden area was worked in preparation of the planting and Dino helped by not getting in the way. Then there were the trips to purchase soil and plants. By the end of the week we have a growing garden containing mostly tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and I think green beans -- I successfully steered someone away from the zucchini which I view as the "accordion" of the garden -- meaning plant a zucchini, go to jail . . .

We are looking for a better season this year versus last year and the available sun is much better. There are no oak trees overshadowing this garden -- we'll see how it goes. Besides the vegetable garden project there was the flower pot project as well and that is coming along nicely too. We look forward to actually sitting in the shade at some point and viewing the gardening efforts -- not to mention the produce.
Above Dino can be seen contemplating the water in the pool which he has cleverly avoided so far in his seven months of life. Maybe later in the summer he will learn to love the pool . . .

This Week in Webinars


While some of the work in the garden project was taking place, I attended two very interesting and helpful webinars. The first was on the 1940 Census -- what else is new -- and was sponsored by "My Heritage" and was really very nicely done. They had some excellent examples of how to find images in the census which as you know has no index (as yet). So, the searching takes place almost like in the old days of genealogy -- viewing page after page waiting for your ancestor to "pop up". My Heritage had some good suggestions as to how to make this process easier AND their examples include showing Charlie Chaplin's listing in Beverly Hills also showing his next door neighbor Fred Astaire.

Anyone can go to the "My Heritage" site and search for their relatives or celebrities if you wish in the 1940 Federal Census.
The second webinar I attended was on "Researching Your Pennsylvania Ancestors". It was sponsored by "Legacy Family Tree" and presented by Lisa Alzo who did a great job -- lots of examples and lots of possible solutions to getting passed brick walls whether in Pennsylvania or elsewhere. The HILES branch does have some evidence of being in Pennsylvania in the early times after arriving in this country -- and probably after more research more evidence will show up.
It is really a nice thing to be able to be a "virtual" attendee at webinars like the above -- most are presented free of charge and usually you can view them again later for things you want to review.

A Pleasant Break


When out on our back deck often the sounds are "of the ballpark" experience. There are two ball fields that are used almost every day by "small players" and the other field by even "smaller" players. Apparently the way they play is that "no one" loses and the emphasis is on learning and having a positive experience. That is not the way my kids unfortunately experienced early sports.

So we took Dino the other day and walked around the block and visited the ball fields from the opposite perspective that we see from our deck. We saw two games being played by enthusiastic kids. Dino was interested as well -- especially just in hearing the kids and seeing them run around the fields.
As you can see there is lots of green, lots of kids and even a great snack bar. And from this side of the field it even gave us ideas on things we can do in our back yard to enhance the appearance . . .

Back to Work


After the break -- and we have several "after the break" periods -- I have continued this week to do volunteer indexing of the 1940 Federal Census for FamilySearch.org. I have indexed several more pages and feel very comfortable doing it -- except when I get a page with poor penmanship . . . and after I do a couple of indexing pages I allow myself to do some searching of my own for some of my own.

This week I did find some more relatives from our tree -- Carl Bumgardner, Dayton Bumgardner's brother, so my Grand Uncle. What I find interesting about families in general and mine in particular is that the only time that I know of that I saw Carl was at his funeral when I was about 10 years old. Even though Carl lived in Chicago as did Dayton I can not recall any family function where he or his family attended. I have to assume that there was "some" reason for that. I do know that Dayton B and Carl seemed to be close when they were younger and maybe they were as older men too and just did not socialize with our side of the family -- who knows -- sadly, I don't think anyone is around to answer my question about this.

The other interesting fact from censuses comes out when you look at the occupations each ten year period. For Carl he went from being a "machinist" in the 1920 Census, to a service station manager(oil & gas) in 1930 and in the 1940 Census -- a "Bank Guard" in a savings & loan . . . none of these things I ever heard anyone talk about in our family . . . maybe I was just not "listening".

So in the above you can see (on the top excerpt) Carl Bumgardner and his wife Lydia, not shown are his two children Leonard & Ada -- they are on the next page. Unfortunately I never met any of them.

The second excerpt shows relatives from Racine, Wisconsin. All living (1940) in the house that was Samuel Martin's home -- now split into three units apparently. The first family are relatives that I do recognize the name -- Lamparks. The second family consists of Samuel Martin's widow, Elise and her daughter Carrie, also listed as a widow (though I know she was divorced from her husband who apparently died in 1940).
The last family I do not recognize -- Neisen -- maybe someone can enlighten me.

The bottomline is that "good information" is coming out of the 1940 Census and if you follow the principle of "delayed gratification" as I do, it is great.

Dates (this Weekend)


Here are the folks from our tree celebrating important anniversaries in the last two days:

I added the "how is that person related to me" diagram to illustrate the relationship of Clarence Stufflebean to me -- as you can see in the above chart -- he is the 5th cousin 2 times removed of mine . . . 

Who Do You Think You Are (WDYTYA)

A week ago Friday (Apr 27th show) Rob Lowe appeared as the featured guest. His genealogy uncovered something that I believe may be in the HILES genealogy as well -- though at this point only speculation. We have yet to prove or discover how our HILES branch came to be in the United States. But the scenario that Rob Lowe was shown for his family sounded like a scenario I have heard about the HILES as well. And that is that in Rob Lowe's example his relatives came here in the mid 1700s and actually fought on the side of the British during the Revolution AND then were given the opportunity to stay in this country if they would fight on the side of the Americans . . . I have heard it proposed that that could have been how our branch came to be in this country -- there is no proof as yet.

So if you haven't yet watched WDYTYA above gives the times and channel for the show.

Lastly


And so goes our day and our week. We will end it up traditionally with our evening featured meal. In the past we have had sliders, last night we had our traditional Saturday night burgers -- tonight I am not yet sure what is on the menu:

Actually we are heading to the "world famous" establishment shown above and so we will select the specialty of the house at that time -- NOT. The above sign actually though is for sale on ebay.com and is one of several HILES type signs and pictures -- made for sale for any surname of your choosing . . .

Have a good week and we'll see you in a few!