SPRING MOON MADNESS

This has been a full week -- so what does that mean -- all weeks are full to some extent. But I mean that my week has been filled with a variety of things. And a lot seems to be happening. It actually has finally reached springtime:

First of all the dogwood tree(s) in our yard are happening. One of the three is filled with blossoms that it seems overnight have popped open.

And then there is the moon. We watched the overcast skies yesterday and remarked about the strange color emanating from the skies. It all apparently had to do with the eclipse, the one that we did not see, but it happened.

Here we are in the second day of spring and the weather is cooler than earlier this year -- but of course not as cool as we see on the news from some of the back east cities.

There were a lot of "other" things happening this week as well.

To Bracket or not Bracket

I have to say that each year during "March Madness" I intend to participate from the start of the action by filling in the brackets as they are called . . . but somehow that goes by the wayside and I become an observer more -- of the brackets filled out by others including the POTUS.

When I view the blank March Madness Chart it reminds me so much of the "Bow-Tie Pedigree Chart" and then my mind wanders back to my genealogical endeavors.

This week has been filled to the brim with genealogical endeavors. I was able to fill in a bit of the chart for a cousin in my line of HILES':

On the bottom left my newly met "4th cousin once removed" is represented, with parents and my 3rd cousin and his wife are on the chart.

To view a more detailed chart, please visit this chart at HILES WEBSITE  where I have been very busy this week.

It is exciting to meet a new cousin and I look forward to "getting to know them more" in the coming months.

Some Break in the Action

Unfortunately, some of my "research" time this week was taken up by working a bit on the tax return. It would be nice to know if we owe or are getting some sort of refund . . .

I say working a bit because I promised myself that nest week I would commit most of my time to wrapping up this very pesky bit of every year life.

I also took a break by attending a webinar and watching WDYTYA. Both are related to genealogy so that was not a total break -- it did encourage me to get back to researching though.


The Focus of my Research This Week

Thinking back to the most recent weeks, it seems that a great deal of my time has been spent on the Rufus Calhoun family.

He is a very interesting person from one of the branches in Gail's tree.

Then for some reason I began thinking about some of the names in that branch -- e.g. some of the first names . . .

Gail's father's name was Millard, Millard Calhoun Bouldron. For whatever reason, he chose to be called "Jim". I can understand that -- Millard Calhoun Bouldron would be pretty heavy duty to deal with at school and other places.

Then there are a ton of "Fillmore" first names in the branch as well. And so I began to think about once and for all getting to the "bottom" of the naming convention.

For years there has been the rumor that the family was related to "Millard Fillmore" the 13th President of the U.S.  But I could not see any connection.

But I was intrigued because of the many first names of Millard and Fillmore that populated the tree. I realize that many families name their children after well-known and well-loved presidents, but Millard Fillmore, at least to me was not well-known, I don't know yet about well-loved.

So -- off I went "on the mission" to uncover any link to Millard Fillmore the president to Gail's family.

And I feel as though now I am watching a segment of WDYTYA or the Genealogy Roadshow except that I am doing the research.

And guess what -- I accomplished my goal!

Gail and her family ARE related to Millard Fillmore and by clicking on the above chart, you can see how.

When I started the research last week, I only had one Fillmore in my tree -- Sarah Ann Fillmore, the wife of Rufus Calhoun. I now have hundreds of Fillmore's after this week's work.

In the chart above, start with Sarah Ann Fillmore and go up the chart. At the top, the two men named John Fillmore are actually the same person -- that John married more than once. Sarah (and Gail) descend from one of those marriages and Millard Fillmore descends from a second marriage -- hence the half-cousin relationship.

This week's work was very satisfying. Now I have another "possible presidential rumor" to work on -- this one in my branch.

That was a bit of our week -- next week looks to be exciting, except for the "tax" part . . .

It is Saturday and that may mean "burger & fries".  See you all in a few!