Search This Blog

Saturday, September 28, 2013

All the Leaves are Brown . . . NOT yet . . .

We almost turned the furnace on at least once this week -- I can hardly believe it.  We resisted but for sure we used the a/c more than once. It will be nice -- in a way -- when the weather is one way or the other, once again. We still have over a month before daylight savings time ends this year.


Our yard waste container is filled with a lot more leaves than previous weeks but there are a lot to go. Growing up this was the time of year that that great smell of burning leaves filled the air in most suburban neighborhoods -- that is something of the past nowadays. Maybe that might be a good "candle" scent or maybe someone has already done that . . . I just "Googled" that and there are candles with that scent . . .

The photo on the top left is from Stanley, Idaho -- Redfish Lake area and they have already received their first dusting of snow this season -- unbelievable (we have tree folks living there -- Hi to Gary & Laurii). Next on the right is a photo from Michigan near Traverse City showing off their fall colors -- beautiful -- we have some cousins up that way (Hi to Lila & Dale!)

The bottom photo is somewhere where the leaves are almost all down and brown . . . and then a peek at our Healdsburg weather as I write this -- we do have the a/c on . . . maybe some sprinkles tomorrow.

Dates and Anniversaries (from our tree)

It has been a strange week for me partly because I am having "webinar withdrawal" as the Legacy folks are on their annual Genealogy Cruise . . . but we do have a lot of folks celebrating birthdays this week and a couple of marriage anniversaries:


If you click on the above you can see the many folks celebrating last week -- including yours truly and Dino.
Dino and I are 69 years and one day apart -- yet we seem to get along pretty well. It is amazing that an animal just two years old could be so smart, mellow and mature beyond his years -- most of the time.

This week's "Anniversary" spotlight goes to Gail's Great Grandparents -- Thomas & Isabella Bouldron :


Both Thomas and Isabella (Tate) were born in England and came to Iowa around 1870. They were married in 1882 and a few years later moved from Iowa to Kent, Washington. Thomas was a carpenter and built many homes in the Kent area. They had three sons: Blaine, Walter & Frank. Walter is Gail's grandfather.

The In-House Celebration this Week

Dino and I celebrated our birthdays on the same day -- Tuesday (it cut down on the cake expenses . . .)

Actually we had a Chinese dinner feast from Royal China Restaurant in Santa Rosa -- very good! We both received many gifts and we enjoyed the "party" that included Marv & Nancy Hiles. 


Dino's gifts are actually easier to explain than a couple of mine . . . Dino got a nylabone turkey leg and an orange chewy thing -- he loves them both as can be seen -- after dinner he watches for me to finish and then immediately brings the turkey leg over for me to hold for him while he gnaws away -- and I go into a paralytic trance. 

The garden frog -- that's another story, it sits and stares at me and Dino and Gail and we are almost reluctant to move it to the outside . . . we're old.  The other gifts are genealogy related including a new tee shirt that Gail is reluctant to be seen with me wearing it . . . (she gave it to me though) -- it reads: "I Seek Dead People"   ( I am a Genealogist ).  I have worn it out albeit under another shirt and only exposing the writing when we feel "okay to do so" . . . 

Thank you all for the cards, emails and gifts -- it made my birthday a great day!

Still Working on Photos . . .

I am continuing to go through the old scrapbook photos. I have actually cut the pages down to picture size where I can and then scan each photo -- handily I have a portable scanner that I can use while even watching football (thank goodness that the Niners won on Thursday night).


After scanning each photo I edit them as best as I can. Often I wind up cropping them and then adjusting the "colors" though most of these old photos are black and white. But compared to the original usually they are really enhanced. 

The problem continues of identification -- and in the left photo -- I believe sitting on the steps are my Grandparents -- Dayton & Hildred, but the two other women -- I do not know who they are.

In the middle photo are pictured six very dressed up girls and one nicely dressed boy -- my Mother "may" be the 3rd girl from the left -- but I am not sure AND I do not know any of the others.

In the far right photo I am fairly certain it is my Mother (the older girl) and maybe her younger sister Jean. But then again I am not sure -- is there 7 years between the two?

Genealogy on TV

This week brought the premiere episode of the Genealogy Roadshow on PBS. They are only going to have four shows this season.  This show was located in Nashville and folks "lined up" like on the Antiques Roadshow and posed questions regarding their family history.

I liked the variety of the scenarios and the responses from the experts. The show was fast paced and entertaining. In the last scenario a young woman who had not known her father nor even seen a photo of him was presented with a good insight (and photos) of her Dad.

So I look forward to next Monday night on PBS when the location featured will be Detroit with several folks learning some things about their family's history. 


And even though WDYTYA is over for this season, there is news about the upcoming 2014 season. The first inkling into who might be featured was released this week -- Queen Latifa. Apparently she was hopefully going to be on the first season but her schedule was such that she could not.

Now she is interested and maybe more okay with whatever turns up about her family history. Click on the above to read the article about her decision.

So True . . .

Often it is one spouse that is involved in Genealogy and the other one "puts up with it all" through the years. That is somewhat the case here as I work on family history is some fashion pretty much every day, Gail not so much. As was mentioned in one of my favorite blogs, "Clue Wagon", this week, one of the things that can happen is that you finally convince your spouse to participate in a DNA study and it comes back that you are cousins . . .

In Clue Wagon, Kerry wrote a Genea -- Horoscope issue and under Sagittarius she listed the above scenario -- which actually happened to Gail and me . . . check out Clue Wagon it is a refreshing blog.


And Herman is so right on too! Can't you just see that scenario happening across the genealogical landscape which according to the latest numbers I saw this week that there are some 80 million people working on their family history as a hobby . . . does that mean there are 80 million dis-interested spouses . . .


That was a bit of our week -- hope your week was good. It is Saturday night -- burgers tonight -- and as pointed out to me by my sister (on her birthday call to me) that has been a family tradition for many years.

Growing up we each had baths on Saturday night ( I can't be sure but it may have been the same water) and then we had our pajamas on and we had burgers and chips (Jay's Potato) and the only night we got "Pop" usually Pepsi or I remember Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer also. And we listened to the "Barn Dance" from the Grand Ol' Opry and later it was Perry Mason on TV . . .

See you all in a few!










Saturday, September 21, 2013

Last Harvest in the Greens . . . Rockin' for Rain

I am not sure how some folks are so lucky. Two days ago the house up the street was having a new roof put on and just as the last hammering echoed throughout the neighborhood last evening -- the rain started . . .

But on Friday morning it was still Springlike during the day. Dino and I went through our normal morning exercises in the back yard -- playing catch or I throw a dog toy and he gets it and plays keep away . . .


The flowers are still out but are coming to their sad ending for the season. While we were running through our routine we were interrupted by the rumbling sound of the yard waste container being brought close to the garden . . . Gail decided that this morning was the perfect morning to start the "last" harvest for this year.

There couldn't be much left so I decided on "pitching" in as best as I could -- actually I sat down on the garden wall and she handed me vines of tomatoes to remove and starting flipping me lemon cucumbers.


At first glance we only saw a few tomatoes and one or two cucumbers -- the above shows what we actually got after just a short while -- we ran out of bucket space and had to make more than one trip. It always amazes me with the amount of produce that we get from a fairly small space.

The cucumbers will end up at the Food Bank for disposition to some lucky recipients (after keeping a few for our consumption) but the tomatoes were processed and made into sauce -- which slowly cooked the rest of the day and then pureed along with some Italian herbs and spices.

Another Resumption

This week while working around the family history trees I decided (maybe out of guilt) to resume giving back in the way of "indexing" records for FamilySearch.org. I had worked on indexing the 1940 Federal Census last year and felt "good" about that.

But there are numerous other opportunities to pitch in and get records indexed so that they are available to genealogists all over the world -- a worthwhile effort -- and besides I could pick and choose "my hours" and times and when I found myself slowing down on whatever I was working on I would jump into doing indexing for an hour or so:


So if you have some free time and are looking for something to do -- this is not only beneficial but actually can be a learning process as well.  There are a variety of projects in progress and working with some of the old documents can test our skills and abilities.

It is easy to do and any information that is indexed is made available for free to everyone. The site itself is a great genealogical boon to anyone doing family history:   check it out    Family Search  on the main page there are several tabs -- one of them is for "indexing".

Born This Week

It is a good thing that I changed the format of this report for there was No one "Born on This Day" from our tree anyway or that I know of . . .


Click on the above to enlarge the chart -- looking at the days the 19th had a lot of folks from our tree born on that day. The 17th though had a lot of HILES' born that day. The 20th was the birthday of our cousin, the former California governor, James Norris Gillett.

We wish all the above a "happy day".

Other Activities this Week

I recently received several pages (the black kind) with pictures glued in a nice presentation method that was so popular then and even nowadays. The pages belonged to my Mother and have been in the hands of my brother. As happens with photos they can sometimes sit for years in a closet somewhere.

I am happy to see the photos and I know that there are many many relatives pictured there most of whom I probably do not have pictures of until now -- the really sad thing is that most of the photos are not identified.
So I can not put faces to many of the names in my immediate branch.


The above is an example of what I mean -- my Mother, I think, is on the top left standing with nine other people. My guess is that the location probably is in Iowa around the mid 1920s on somebody's farm. The other nine folks are probably relatives -- but which ones . . .

If anyone can identify anyone above please let me know . . . thanks. The photos are glued onto the black pages -- some photos come loose and some I try to coax off the pages and a few of them have names written on the back. Sadly often I can see writing beneath the edges of the black paper and where there is writing it seems that is where the most glue is . . .

Webinar Wednesday 

This week I enjoyed the opportunity to learn from the last week of webinars for almost a month. Legacy Family Tree folks are going on their annual "cruise" next week and so for that period of time and a reasonable time after there will be no webinars -- I'll miss that a lot.


This week we enjoyed Marian Pierre-Louis present the second half of her webinar on "audio" and the numerous ways to share audios. I learned a lot and hope that I can actually put some of it into practice and into this blog.

This week's webinar they had a very nice feature and that was that for part of the presenting we (in the audience) could see Geoff and Marian as they presented -- a very nice feature.

Wrapping up the Week

After an exhausting walk the three of us decided to utilize the calming effects of our front porch. The last nail-gun bursts could be heard on the nearby roof and the skies were clouding over. We decided to sit and "rock" until the UPS guy came -- which he did and shortly later we went inside to the reality of the daily news.



Sitting on the front porch is nice and reminds me of sitting on the front porch at my Grandparent's house in Chicago -- in those days a lot of people exchanged pleasantries while sitting there as many of their neighbors wandered by -- today we almost saw no one walking by . . .

Shortly going inside it started to rain -- Dino went out briefly and wanted back in right away . . .

Something to Look Forward To (genealogically speaking)

Coming up on Monday evening on your local PBS channel is a new show -- The Genealogy Roadshow --
and it will air for four segments in the coming weeks.

Now since WDYTYA is over for this year this new show will be nice to view:



Apparently it is modeled after the "Antiques Roadshow" that we have enjoyed for years. Britain has had this show already and it is quite popular.  I look forward to it as the subjects of the research will be "average folks" like some us . . .

Something Else to Look Forward to as Well

As if there was not already a lot of pressure in our lives from so many angles, the end of Summer -- tomorrow -- brings about new pressure points:


So -- how many shopping days left until Christmas 2013 -- and has anyone seen a Christmas display up yet in the stores OR heard carols being played . . .

I've already got some of my shopping done -- I can't believe it -- I hope that I can locate where it is that I have "stashed" the gifts and if I can remember what is what for whom . . . what pressure.

That is part of our week -- hope your week was good as well. See you in a few! Burgers tonight . . .







Saturday, September 14, 2013

IT'S UP THE COAST . . .

And actually down here as well -- weather in the mid 80s. The weather here in Healdsburg has mostly been hot again this week though the days are starting out often with a marine layer. We are thinking that we would welcome some just plain in-the-70s or even the high 60s for a change. We have a little outdoor painting that we want to do but NOT in the scorching sun . . .

Up to Alaska Portland

This week some of our folks here in Healdsburg took off for a few days in the Pacific Northwest for a much needed vacation . . . and it is known that next week even more folks from here will be heading to the NW, Seattle in particular:


Marv & Nancy are up in Portland visiting kids and grand kids AND it looks like the weather is really nice. Portland is a beautiful city and we'll get all the news when they return . . . we are providing shuttle service.

At the beginning of next week Olivia leaves for college at Seattle University for her freshman year. She will be accompanied by her entire immediate family to "see her off and wish her well". We do too.

Meet The Nelsons

My Great Grandfather (on my Mother's side) is Samuel Nelson. I of course did not meet him but in the last several years I have learned a lot about him and his family. Samuel (Swante) was born in Sweden in the mid 1800s as was his first wife Ella.

Samuel immigrated to the United States around 1885 and shortly later Ella Knutson came as well. Samuel & Ella were married in Marinette, Wisconsin in 1890. Sadly after two children Ella died. A few years later Samuel married Annie (also from Sweden) and they had two more children.


The Nelsons all lived in the house pictured above at 72 Russell Street in Marinette, Wisconsin. The four children (all pictured as adults above) had eventually moved to the Chicago area.

My brother Marv and his wife Nancy some years ago drove to Marinette and discovered that the above house no-longer exists as I tried to find on Google and proven there as well.

Mamie (Hildred) married Dayton Bumgardner and Tada (Elsa) married Ken Wintersheid and they had Ella as a Mother. Neil and Lala (Lillian) were children of Annie and Samuel. Lala eventually married Frank Johnson and they found their way to Ukiah, California and owned and ran "The Ukiah Valley Creamery".

Neil Johnson (remained a bachelor) was a chauffeur and I can only remember seeing him on a couple of occasions particularly Christmas or Thanksgiving at the Bumgardner's. I remember seeing him join the evening pool games in Dayton's basement. Those evenings were memorable to me . . .

Webinar Wednesday

This week as is often the case Legacy Family Tree Webinars had their scheduled webinar -- and what a great webinar it was -- usually I feel lucky to get two or three good ideas from a webinar that I can use right away.

This week I got lots of usable tidbits and tools. It will take me a while to incorporate all the absolutely great ideas shared and illustrated by Thomas MacEntee:


If you have the chance take a look at this webinar which is available for the next few days at www.legacyfamilytree  it would be well worth seeing or even just purchasing the DVD available. Tools, some of which I already use were shown with a different perspective on how to use them in genealogy research.

It is our gain that Thomas MacEntee left his other profession and is now seemingly involved in so much of our everyday genealogy research. He is knowledgeable and a great speaker and his webinars are always a treat.

From Our Tree Born This DAY  Week:

After all these many posts I have concluded that I miss out on 6/7ths of the birthdays when only mentioning the ones "born on this day" so from here on out the report will be for "those born this week":


I'm sure many of you will recognize someone on the above list. That is a lot of relatives with birthdays occurring in the last seven days -- for those of you that have been missed, in the coming posts hopefully we will catch up . . .

Still a Mystery (for me anyway)

I wish that I had paid more attention to family facts when I was growing up so that now I would not have so many voids . . . for example, I don't recall too much being said about my parent's marriage. And as a result I have very little information.

I thought that the other day while perusing "Facebook" that I had a clue about maybe the location of where my folks got married. Someone on Facebook was talking about a "Gretna Green" and it triggered in my mind that that was the term that I had been trying to recall.

Gretna Green is place in Scotland that now is synonymous with places that couples run away to to get married. Apparently back then (in Robin Hood's era) the border town of Gretna Green offered to provide marriage ceremonies without a lot of restrictions. It is said that Robin Hood and Maid Marion got married there as did thousands of other British young folks:



Clicking on the above you can see some of the details, but Gretna Greens are reported to be all over the United States -- and usually local folks "know where they are".

The marriage announcement (above) for my parents is just that without any more details. I never thought to inquire about the details. So, I thought that maybe they had eloped and so I did a "google" search for "Gretna Greens" in the Chicago area in the 1930s.

Crown Point, Indiana came back as a "marriage mill" in those days and because it was relatively close to Chicago, I thought I'd check Indiana State Marriage records for my folks -- Ancestry.com did not show any, so I may have to "send" somewhere in Indiana to check to see if in fact they have any record.

One of my Father's football heroes of the day -- Red Grange -- was married there along with countless others so Crown Point sure sounded like a real possibility -- and may still well be. Unless someone can tell me the real facts . . . that would be nice.

House Hunting . . . NOT

But if we were (and we are always looking at "what's for sale")  we like to think of ALL the different parts of the country for possible real estate purchases:


So, why not look at Hiles, Wisconsin . . . click on the above to see some of the current available pieces of real estate in that town. It is almost unimaginable some of the pricing. Right now the weather is pretty nice but I understand that it changes quite rapidly in the coming few weeks.

Still, in the back of my mind, it would be nice and maybe interesting to live in a town that has your same last name . . . check it out.

The NFL

We love that the season is under way and already some teams have played two games. The Patriots game the other night was interesting to say the least along with the rain and all. But a win is a win . . .

We are looking forward to this Sunday Night Game -- the Seahawks versus the Forty-Niners. Having lived in both cities and after having Seahawk season tickets I feel some loyalty to the NW -- but I have to root for the Niners . . .


The Seahawks "did a number on us" the last game that we played up there . . . so there is a lot of emotion involved in this coming game.

Last week's game -- against the Packers which the Niners won (thank goodness) had the above incident which riled every Niner fan. Clay Matthews really was "out-of-line" when he did a flying tackle on Kaepernick. It could have resulted in who-knows-what-kind-of injury, fortunately it did not.

The $15,000 fine on Matthews is a start against this kind of play -- but in my mind -- is not nearly enough.

Knock, Knock . . .

Talk about upsetting the "family tree" . . . I bet this has happened to more families than is publicly known:

I think now it is all done by "phone" and usually to an unsuspecting grandparent . . .

Well that is part of our week -- we hope your week was good!  See you all in a few! Burgers tonight!







Saturday, September 7, 2013

Smoke, Ice 'n' NFL Return to Healdsburg

Starting the week out with Labor Day week end was huge. Growing up in the Midwest this holiday marked the end of the year when white and other lighter colors were no longer socially acceptable. I can't imagine this custom still in vogue today -- today I'm even wearing a light purplish t-shirt . . .

So how did we celebrate the actual holiday -- with the Flag and Bunting displayed in the front yard, we retired to the back yard for a day unlike many that we have enjoyed this year:


It was a hot day so we had a plan. Turn the a/c on inside and relax in the morning for a while -- then hit the outside and the pool (the water was over 80° since we put the cover on) and then just sit in the shade and enjoy the day . . .

We also started the "smoker" (while we splashed around in the pool)  and added several different chicken parts and two slabs of baby-back ribs . . .

Later when we wanted to just unwind we played several hands of Quiddler -- poolside. Dino wasn't really sure what we were doing outside so much this day, but he did his part by sunbathing as well:


He resisted getting too near the water and chose instead to stay on a very warm piece of concrete that alternately sent him over to us for ice or just attention. Maybe in the future he'll join us in the pool but for now, no . . .

NFL Returns to Healdsburg (Okay via TV)

It could happen . . . but the opening game of the NFL season came on Thursday night right from Denver. There was a delay to the start due to lightening and that did not account for the lightening strikes on the field led by Peyton Manning (I wonder what the Colts think). 

Seven touchdown passes later and sharing a record of some 44 years ago, the Broncos won handily. Maybe it was the attitude altitude in Mile-High Stadium, whatever, the season got off to a great viewing start.



And there is more -- for us here in the Bay Area the Forty-Niners play the Green Bay Packers this Sunday. Usually I root for the Pack, but not this game, it's the Niners all the way. 

Not All Fun & Games (this week)

While rooting around in our freezer in the garage looking for meat to smoke we discovered that there was a great deal of ice in the bottom of the freezer. We had no idea where it came from or how it got there -- but it was there and kept us from sliding the bottom drawers out.

Unfortunately Gail selected a day when I had already scheduled other "work" to complete so she tackled the job herself. I of course wanted to be kept up-to-date on the progress and alerted if need be.

I still remember growing up with refrigerator/freezers that periodically needed to be shut down and the ice removed -- those days I thought were long gone:



We had a coil-top similar to one of those on the far top right -- the others are examples of the more upscale versions. Below are the pictures of the shelving and area of our modern-day box. After trying a hair-dryer and then warm tap water Gail finally gave in to boiling water to free the inch or so thick ice which did the trick. We suspect that the freezer got shut down during the remodeling recently which caused the accumulation of water and then the ice . . . the meat all seemed fine AND delicious after smoking.

Another TWO-WEBINAR Week

A holiday, the opening of the NFL season AND two webinars, what more could you want. This week on Wednesday and on Friday, Legacy Family Tree Webinars held two:



The first on was about how to "wring" the most out of the records that we find during our research -- very helpful and well presented. I recognize the "wringer" and remember my Mother using one like that.

The second webinar was about doing "more" with blogging and presented by "Dear Myrtle" who always has good and interesting advice. 

Both webinars are still available for viewing (no charge)  at Legacy Family Tree for a few more days before they go into archiving and then there is a charge to view them.

A Milestone This Week . . .

An event that I attended 55 years ago last night still is fresh in my memory AND it commemorates the marriage of my sister, Marilee and he husband Bill.


So we send congratulations to Mar & Bill on this special occasion -- they are either in Florida or Illinois, I can't keep track . . .

Lastly This Week

The last two posts I have included an "occupation" quiz from the Genealogy Bank website. Here is one more. I am sure that in a hundred years some of the occupations of today e.g. "web designer"  and things relating to the computer industry will be on a definitions list somewhere.



Well. I better go -- I think I see a #6 heading my way . . .

And that is some of our week, hope yours was good too!  See you in a few! Burgers tonight . . .