A Bit of Sun, Out in the Back

Actually we had a bit of sun out in the front as well, but not too much. This was a promised week of el nino rain and it has delivered. Today there is a bit of morning sun but the weather report says a 100% chance of rain again today.

The floral display & the Dino display are soaking up the rays. We are enjoying the rain and the pool is being filled by mother nature for a change -- we love that.

We are slated to receive many more days of rain this month, we do not mind at all. The lawn too is repairing some of the many "brown holes" and that is fun to see.

What kept me busy this week? Well, besides the random searching through branches I did attend three webinars.

Off to the right are the "ads" for each. The first one that I participated in was in regard to the preservation of the 1812 Pension files which are in need of digitization due to their crumbling condition.

We have many ancestors who participated in that war and their records may be some of the ones needing preservation.

I did make a donation to that cause in memory of two of our ancestors who were active military in that war:  John Hiles Jr and his brother Christopher Hiles.

There was an attractive "matching" offer which doubled the donation twice making it really meaningful.

The second webinar had to do with dealing with YDNA and mtDNA data and making it more meaningful genealogically. I find the very subject of DNA very confusing and the results as they are given even more so.

This webinar really helped to understand better how to interpret the results and what "matches" stand the better chance of connecting to a living relative.

Lastly, I attended the Mini Boot Camp webinar presented by Lisa Alzo along with Thomas MacEntee. These Mini Boot Camps are quality webinars and this one gave us tons of leads on how to find the elusive female ancestors in our trees.

Now, back to my regular searching this week:

Above is a look at the geography/timeline for an elusive cousin of mine (ours). For many years I have tried to find the current location for a particularly close cousin to my brother, Marv, to no avail.

This cousin was born about one year before my brother and in the same city, and as a result they shared a lot of time together.

As the years went by, this cousin and his family moved to California and he even played football against the Healdsburg (where we currently live) team when he was in high school -- small world.

But -- due to a very common name the search to link up with him was almost impossible. Looking at the map above, Chicago was his birth city, two locations in California were where his two marriages took place, and then a city in Idaho turns out to be where he passed away and he was buried in Oregon.


Sadly, Frank Carter Johnson Jr passed away before we could find him.

As my brother pointed out -- he is the spitting image of his father. I did not know Frankie as well as Marv did so I might not have recognized him -- but I would have loved to have touch base with him about "family".

To the right is the Find-A-Grave memorial for Frank. There is a lot of interesting facts shared there.

I have updated the trees and our website with his information.

It would be nice to maybe connect with his two children and his grandchildren who are cousins of ours as well.

But the name "Johnson" is a huge wall to climb to find information.

Here is how we are related. We technically are
half cousins due to the fact that his mother and our grandmother were half-sisters.

But, cousin is the way we have always thought of Frankie.

When Frankie and his parents moved from Chicago, they moved to Ukiah, California.

I visited my 1/2 Great Aunt & Uncle during the 1980s and they were great to visit with. But of course, Frankie had already moved on with his life.


So, what is coming up this week on genealogically related TV:

Actually there are two new shows, "Relative Race" on Sunday evenings on BYU TV (which I found out we get . . .) which we saw the premiere episode last week. The show was fun in that couples race across the U.S. finding relatives that they did not know they had using DNA results . . .

We enjoyed that first episode and witnessed all four couples being surprised at the new relatives that they met.

The second new show premieres tonight on TLC and it is called "Long Lost Family". It sounds great and I guess that I just love anything "genealogical" . . .

And finally, "finding your roots" is on again Tuesday night on PBS. This week to feature Mia Farrow.

Sadly, we pay respect to Nancy Reagan who passed away today at 94 years of age. She represents a truly respectable period in U.S. history . . .

That is a bit of our week. See you all "in a few"!