Branches,Books,Birthdays & the Bird . . .

On a cold, dark, rainy Saturday morning Dino and I are left to wander about the house . . .and to work on this post. Dino alternates from one of his beds to the other but hardly stays active for very long. He is celebrating his sixth month birthday anniversary (born on September 24, 2011). He is really getting to be an easy pup to have around. He pretty much goes along with my activity throughout the day -- and eventually that will be what his daily life will be like depending on his blind companion . . .

In the above collage you can see the rain on the decks, pelican and in the pool . . . Dino and I are dry -- except for the every few hours when we venture outside. As I write this, Dino is napping in the bed on the left -- when he gets tired of that, he goes into the family room bed (on the right) and resumes his nap. It's a great day!

Someone gave me the Bird . . . (not the first time)


I often can not figure out the reason for getting the bird and this time is no exception. Last week for no apparent reason Gail actually had the bird shipped-in . . . it sat in it's box (rather large) all day until she arrived home to open it and present it to me. It is the result of a random impulse upon spotting this bird while perusing one of the many catalogs that find their way into our home. She could not wait for just the right occasion -- as is probably the normal reason for giving the bird -- so decided at the moment of anticipation to surprise me.

So -- here is the bird, a most unique one at that. It is a heavy metal bird made of authentic tool items -- some I'm actually familiar with -- and mounted on a heavy metal pole suitable for planting somewhere in the yard in the coming weeks. It is fun to receive gifts -- even the bird -- for no apparent reason other than, just because . . . I'll be looking through the catalogs for a suitable answer to the bird.

Working in the Branches . . .


I often never know in what branch of the family that I will end up spending most of my time during the week.This week was no exception. I received an email from Ancestry about someone in the Gillett family that they had found as a possible relationship to us. It turns out that that person and our family are related, but while filling in the "leaves" of the branch I came across a cousin that I never had known of before. And since he was an interesting person AND I could find some "things" out about him and his wife, I include a brief look at them:

Apparently Mickey was a well known and respected jazz-saxophonist. In the above article (there should be no "E" on the end of Gillett unless he changed his name) it tells about his life a bit. To me it is amazing that here is a cousin that was a somewhat prominent personality and our family was not even aware of him. He was in the entertainment world and lived a fairly short life -- he died at 51 years of age. He was born in Eureka, California and married a San Francisco girl (Bernice Baldock). Besides being an accomplished musician he also had a law degree. I have not found that he had any children though.

The above shows where he fits into the family tree -- he is a second cousin, two generations removed. He actually is the nephew of James Norris Gillett, former Governor of California, who is a first cousin of mine.

Another New Look for my Website 


Check out the new appearance of my site -- Hiles & related families genealogy and you'll see . . .
The site has all the old information plus some new ways of displaying that. I work on the site every week and make additions frequently. It is always nice when I hear from some of you with "new stuff" as well.

In the above you can see the first page that comes up when accessing the site. The photos are randomly displayed from the "inventory" and are clickable to go right to the individual's page. There are some other new features as well -- check 'em out.

Birthdays from the Tree

Besides Dino's six month birthday today, just two are "born on this day" . . . Happy Birthday!

Best Wishes for a great day!

Genealogy on TV


Each week on Friday night -- WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE -- is shown on NBC (Channel 11 in our area). The episodes have been very interesting so far this year -- including the recent one on our cousin Reba McEntire -- this week's featured celebrity is Helen Hunt, I am hoping to catch it on reruns as it was preempted locally. However a new show premieres Sunday night on PBS -- "finding your roots" which I hope to check out . . .

I could only hope that the "discoveries" found on these shows would be duplicated in our tree . . .

From wandering around the web . . .

Lastly a snapshot found on "Stumble Upon" while searching the web while watching the aforementioned baseball game . . .

Click to enlarge and guess how many . . .

So that is a peek into our week -- hope you had a good week too! In a few hours we'll wrap it up with burgers for a Saturday evening . . . hopefully, see you all in a few!