No-Show Snow, Two Nancy's

The promised -- or predicted snow fall for our area has not happened. It certainly is cold enough and we are not yet "out of the woods". It was in the mid 20s as I walked the dog this morning. There were patches of ice on the walkway, fortunately not the black-ice variety. I did manage to find an appropriate newspaper photo of folks playing in the snow -- but like many newspaper pictures the figures all look like silhouettes. But if you can read the description it is of some 2nd and 3rd cousins of our family -- the children of the Frank Hiles family in Zanesville, Ohio, in January 1968:

We would enjoy being able to play in the snow like the above cousins -- NOT. I think most of us are satisfied viewing the snow from a distance.

A big birthday shout out goes to two Nancy Hiles. The first is for my brother's wife Nancy who celebrated her birthday on February 23. The second Nancy actually was born on this date -- but 170 years ago . . .
She is the daughter of John & Margaret Hiles and eventually she married Abraham Lehman and 10 little 2nd cousin Lehman's followed. Here is a quick look at her part of the tree:

 Even though it is so cold outside (for here) there are things besides the furnace that give warmth in the house. Hanging over our piano in the living room is a painting that exudes warmth every time I pass by it. It was painted by a close family friend Bob Topor, thanks Bob for the added warmth!

And so ends another winter week -- again we look forward to Slider-Saturday Night . . .

Rain, Birds & the Hiles-Giles Nuptials . . .

It rained most of the week with a few breaks of subdued sunshine. I used one of those breaks to refill the bird feeder in the back yard. The feeder attracts a huge variety of birds and several squirrels. So far the squirrels have been thwarted at their many attempts to "break-in" to the supply of seeds like they did on our previous feeder.

Here is a picture of the feeder and you can actually see a bird sitting on the ring to peck at the seed supply. When a squirrel sits on the ring it's weight closes the opening. Today when I looked out the kitchen window there were probably thirty or more birds around the feeder. Usually when the Jays feed they just throw excess feed all around and the Quail -- they come as families, maybe 10 to 20 of them at a time -- feed off the ground as do the other varieties of birds. Sometimes the birds empty this feeder in 3 or 4 days.

One of the nice things about the rain is that I am forced to "work" indoors, genealogy what else. Thinking about genealogy the discoveries that Tim McGraw made on "Who Do You Think You Are" last week was amazing. Like many others who saw the show I am pretty sure that my ancestors like Tim's came over with other German Palatines during the early 1700's -- only Tim got to identify his relatives, I have to do that as yet.

And I have to say that the new Family Search web site has caused me to delay my progress in filing my "previous finds" as I had resolved to do . . . Why? Because the site was so addicting that I found a large sum of new documents to follow up on, mostly numerous death certificates from the many collateral relatives from Ohio and in my tree.

Speaking of which,  it leads me to the Hiles-- Giles story. If Leno had been around back then he probably would have reported on the Hiles/Giles nuptials as well.  But, Rebecca Hiles, daughter of John Hiles Jr, met and married John James Giles in 1836 in Perry County, Ohio. From that union came ten plus children.

 So that's the Rebecca Hiles Giles story -- but their is much more and many more surnames that came from this marriage and that help to "leaf-out" the tree.

Tomorrow marks what would have been my Mother's 99th birthday . . . here she is in her "roaring twenties" look:

Have a good week! Sliders tonight . . .

Football/Genealogy/Weather -- A Good Week!

The Super Bowl lived up to it's excitement with the game in the balance right up to the last possession. The game was so good I may even remember it throughout the summer months. About.com Genealogy even ran the genealogy of each of the two quarterbacks -- interesting. In tribute to the winners -- Green Bay -- here is an old logo representing them: great colors almost like Da Bears.

Speaking of football and genealogy, growing up in Illinois I remember that I never heard our name -- HILES -- really ever outside the immediate known family with one exception >> Hiles Stout.  I remember that name of course because it was odd to me -- how could someone have my surname as a first name . . . I continued to hear of Hiles Stout over many years and then later a long time after moving away and raising a family I came across that name again on a web site. I obtained an address and I wrote a snail-mail letter of introduction and asking him about his first name. A few weeks later a response came back -- sadly he had no idea how he got that name -- he was pretty sure it came from his mother's side of the family but he did not have any specifics. He was very cordial and it was nice that he took the time to reply. So I pose the question to anyone to answer -- can anyone shed some light on the Hiles Stout family history with respect to his first name. To bring back memories here is an old picture of Hiles Stout from his glory days of football:

So football and genealogy are a nice thread. A lot is happening in the world of genealogy with more and more available on the web and also on TV -- a week ago we saw the premiere show (2nd season) of "Who Do You Think You Are" and that first show was exciting with the story of Vanessa Williams and some of her ancestors.
Another exciting TV/genealogy related show is also about to premiere. This show is appearing on the new OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) this coming Monday night, February 14. It is about a professional investigative genealogist and her work and success. It is going to illustrate some of the details "of the search".
It, oddly enough is named >>> "searching for . . ." and it looks to be excellent.

So with an exciting week coming to a close -- not to mention the warm, sunny weather we've been enjoying here in Northern California -- there is a lot to look forward to as well (just no football . . .).

Have a good week!

Super Week-End ! !

Even though one is retired the week-end holds a special sense about it. While shopping today there was an excitement in the grocery store aisles as a lot of male shoppers were loading their carts with items directly related to the events of tomorrow . . . and there were many overheard conversations about plans to celebrate the "big game". I too am planning a "special" day -- armed with a recipe (from the Noble Pig) I selected several ingredients that would come together, hopefully, to put a holiday feel to the "eats" of the day.

I am not sure who I really want to win the game as I originally wanted to see the Bears play. I guess I lean toward the Packers but during the game I may change if one team or the other just is not playing "up to standards" and does not really deserve to win. Basically in our household we just want to see a "good" game and one that might just go down to the last few seconds.

So we are all set -- for either team and/or for any type of weather . . .
We know much of the country will be using snuggle-throws as they watch the game -- we expect to be comfortable and the outside temperature about 70.

 Meanwhile the search goes on for those elusive relatives in an ever expanding tree. I was contacted twice this week by other searchers who wanted clarification of folks they saw in my tree that were their relatives as well. What makes that special is that we could exchange information including a few pictures -- which are always fun to get and get to know one another not only as searchers but as members of the same family.

A special "Happy Birthday" to those of you in the tree who celebrated a birthday this week! One of the feature reports on my website is "Born This Day" which is fun to look at to see who was born on the particular day that you are visiting the site. It is amazing to look at the names and visualize them, their families and their celebrations, be it current or in the past.

Have a good week!