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!