The BEE's in the Trees . . .

It's interesting that it is not springtime, but there are some BEE's in my tree. They have been assigned names too, surnames actually -- BUMGARDNER is one of the BEE's. That happens to be my mother's line and so there are many Bumgardners in the tree. A very fascinating family with a lot of stories and history associated with them. While searching in old newspapers recently -- well not actually that old but from the 70's and 80's which seems like "just yesterday", I found a Chicago newspaper -- "The Daily Herald", which I think used to be "The Chicago Herald American" and while looking at the comic page I discovered a surprising comic strip:

Now, having grown up in the Chicago area AND having several Bumgardner relatives living in Chicago I was amazed that I never had heard of this comic strip done by Jim Smith.  The date of this particular strip was in approximately 1974. Admittedly I had moved away by then so I wouldn't have been reading Chicago papers on a regular basis. I did some searching but I have not been able to find any real information about the strip -- but I would love to know if any of my relatives were either represented or were somehow connected to this -- if anyone can shed some light on this -- please share.

Now, another Bee in my tree comes actually from my wife's family -- Bouldron. The sad thing is that there are only a few Bouldrons left in the United States that I am aware of . . . most of the Bouldron families had female offspring and they most likely have changed their names.  While there are Bouldron descendants here they just are not named Bouldron. There are no known new male Bouldrons here in the U.S.  We have found Bouldrons on the web -- but they are in France mostly. It may be possible that some Bouldrons changed their names and as with most surnames that can lead to endless branches. So our search continues for the elusive Bouldron. A great picture of Gail's father (Millard, Jimmy) from WWII days shows him with hand resting on the bow of the launch in the Philippines, 1945:

Another Bee in the tree is Charles Dwight Baker whom I found while working on the numerous documents that I gleaned from the Family Search website. I have just this week sorted and "filed" most of those documents -- of course the problem is that when I connect the new found cousins I then find more . . .
But I hope to learn more about the Baker family in the coming weeks. Here is a snapshot of his place in the tree -- he is a second cousin, twice removed (two generations apart from me):

While all this is going on TV continues to bring more and more attention to genealogy. Who Do You Think You Are (WDYTYA) is absolutely captivating in it's presentations so far this season. And as a matter of fact has already been renewed for a third season. It would be nice if they could expand the number of subjects in a season also.

So again as the weather plays tricks on us the week ends. We look forward to "slider Saturday night"!
Have a good week!