We lived 6 miles outside of the downtown of Issaquah -- so almost any trip to shop would be about 30 miles roundtrip or so . . .
But not all trips from Issaquah were made to go shopping:
I made a trip in the fall of 1986 (27 years ago) with my new camera looking for suitable scenes to photograph. Around the Seattle area there are an abundant variety of places to take pictures and because of the frequent moisture, vegetation almost always looks great.
The above two photos I found this week (from one of the many shoeboxes) and found myself wandering back to that time period. It is difficult to remember the exact day -- I wish I had the ability to recall the details of every day like Mary Lou Henner e.g. who can do that -- but it takes a photograph and some serious reflections for me to remember generally the time period.
(Issaquah happens to be the Headquarter City of Costco Wholesale)
The Electronic Week . . .
This week has been a nightmare of sorts. I have owned a variety of computers over the years (always investing heavily into the technology world . . .) The first "regular" comptuer that we owned was the Atari 800 with 48k memory -- we actually had other computer type devices prior to that but they were really primitive for example programming was done on a calculator sized keyboard and saving any programs to a cassette tape drive and the time it took to do the most simple of tasks . . .
So, in 1979, our family drove the miles to Bellevue to a little computer store in the Factoria section of town. We spent a couple of hours in the store with several demos and both kids urging us to "get it" (just like at an auto showroom). I asked the clerk -- after we had pretty much decided to go for "the whole package" and about to spend well over $1000 -- if he would throw in one of the $20 Instruction Books. He replied that there was "no way" that he could do that . . . so for the cost of a $20 book, he lost our business -- much to the disappointment pretty much of all of us -- but we have our pride and dignity . . .
The above is what we wound up ordering on the telephone and having it shipped -- no local store was involved. We actually got a bit better deal and the time waiting for delivery was a nice reflection on "delivery times" to come in the future years. Of course we had the monitor, such as it was and the external floppy drive.
If you want to get nostalgic take a peek at the Old Computers Site it has tons of things to explore . . .
It was a lot different on my recent purchase of a new computer -- and I am still waiting for a couple of items that have been back-ordered -- but I have the "waiting for delivery" moment that is always sort of nice.
In the meantime all this week I have been transferring files -- a large quantity of pictures and related genealogical things. None of the so called "easy transfer methods" are working for me. So I am taking bits and pieces from the old computer and putting them on the new. The old computer transfers at a much slower rate than the new -- so a chunk of material may take 2-4 hours to download to the drive I am using to transfer with and then take maybe less than an hour at the new, including deleting from the thumb transfer drive.
It is a tedious job and I keep promising myself that I'll "take a look" and maybe get rid of some photos that are either duplicates or are not worthy of saving -- I think though that I did that the last time that I transferred things . . .
I've used all of the above during the process this week. While waiting for the transferring to take place I am trying to get rid of some of the physical paper and things that I have accumulated over the years. I keep saying that "if it is available on the web" why should I keep a copy in a "filing" system of sorts in the home. I am actually getting into files that I have no memory of ever creating and have not accessed for years.
Besides all the files -- the physical addition of another computer system on my desk is really difficult to work with and makes it easy for me to say as soon as I can -- it will be "out with the old" -- but that can be sooo difficult to do. We'll see.
A Peek at the Genealogy
I still have time to delve into the tree and this week I have done just that.What is so true about our tree is that there are so many first names that repeat themselves over and over again. For example I have always said that there are way too many "Johns" in our line. But this week I can say the same thing about "Andrew".
Taking a look back at the farthest in the tree that I have been able to go (in terms of HILES) there is my Gr Gr Gr Gr Grandfather John Hiles and his wife Mary.
Growing up I only knew back to my Grandfather Lloyd. I never remember ever hearing about his father nor any one else in the line -- if my Father knew of my Gr Gr Grandfather Daniel, it would have been nice to know that . . .
So, getting back to Andrew(s) -- both John Sr., and John Jr., had sons named Andrew. And since they lived in the same approximate areas and both were alive at least part of the same time, the records got crossed at times if you didn't watch the particulars . . .
This week I looked at John Jr.s Andrew, he was one of many siblings -- 10 children with Charity Reed and 3 children with Nancy Susie Crosby. Unfortunately John Jr lost three sons to the Civil War -- and I believe Andrew was one of them. The other two were John III and George:
This Andrew would be my Gr Gr GrandUncle as you can see he is the brother of Daniel, my Gr Gr Grandfather.
And this Andrew had a wife and family:
Andrew's wife is Lydia -- and I am not sure of her last name as yet -- I have seen Sturgeon and/or Spurgeon, hopefully we will be able to determine that.
I was able to find Andrew and family in the 1850 Census, living in Zanesville, Ohio. Many of our direct ancestors lived in that area. The interesting fact is that in 1850, Andrew would be about 35 years of age, so that in 1860 he would have been in his mid 40s at the start of the Civil War. Later I have found indication that Lydia applied for a Civil War Pension -- I'll have to follow up on that -- it only takes time and in this case, money . . .
Above is part of the 1850 Census page showing Andrew and his family. This is the first Census where all the family members are listed -- thank goodness. Above shows Andrew, Lydia and four children. The bottom name is Mary Jane Hiles, a sister of Andrew.
So there you have the "one" Andrew of many -- and one of the children is also named Andrew as well born about 1848. I did take a look at Sarah a bit. She was known as Sadie in some documents which helped to trace her.
This Andrew's children are First Cousins three times removed (because they are 3 generations separated from me). Sarah or Sadie was not found in another Census -- but rather she turned up in Find-a-Grave search as Sarah Ann Hiles Sobel. Sarah died in Columbus, Ohio and was buried in Greenlawn Cemetery there in Columbus. Doing a search for any other person named Sobel buried at that cemetery listed a Samuel Sobel buried there in 1899 and born in 1840. Sarah was found in several city directories in Columbus listed as the widow of Samuel Sobel.
Sarah died on 27 November 1925 and I have only found one possible child -- a Harry G Sobel -- with no other leads at the moment. We'll keep looking . . . it is amazing how far afield one gets in just a few generations of searching. Who would have thought that we had relatives with so many different surnames, Sobel being just one of them.
And Lastly Because it is a Current Issue
The gun control battle goes on -- kind of like the abortion issue that never seems to be finalized. No matter what side of these issues you find yourself the following ad is amazing to me -- that our country less than 80 years ago could run such an ad:
Did adults actually believe this sort of thing -- kind of like the ads extolling the virtues of cigarettes . . .
That's a bit of our week -- next week we are really looking forward to -- Gail will be through with another tax season -- this was a particularly rough year for a variety of reasons (me being one of those).
Have a nice week -- see you all in a few!
No comments:
Post a Comment