Rings of Flowers

This has been a terrifying week for many around the world and specifically for locations found on the so-called "ring of fire".  My family resides in locations found on that ring and that fact is ever in our minds.

I choose to think more of flowers than of fire. Our backyard is in full bloom and that helps us focus on these colorful displays as opposed to the other displays around the globe, be they volcano eruptions or mid-spring snow storms.

If you look at the "ring of fire" to the right it is apparent that "we" have been skipped in current activity.

Quakes in Japan have been powerful at 6.2 and 7.0 with numerous aftershocks happening constantly.

Then, yesterday, Ecuador with a 7.8 quake . . .

Having experienced a few quakes while living in California I must say to feel the earth move under ones self is very disconcerting, so I can only imagine the horror being experienced in Ecuador and Japan at this time.

For now I'm blocking those images and choosing to look at Dino (sculpture) among the flowers out back.


Now for the efforts in the everyday searching of our family tree:  habits are just that but this week I have reduced one habit that has been eating up a lot of my time.  When I search the web for information and details of folks in our tree I enter that information into Ancestry.com and the HILES Family Tree located there.

Then I put that detail into my desktop program of Family Tree Maker. This process is so time-consuming. And to make it even more time-consuming I then enter it into WWW.danhiles.com.
But that third step is often delayed for quite a while just due to the time, so the bottom line is that the trees were never in sync.

This week I have solved part of that dilemma by having Ancestry.com automatically sync with my Family Tree Maker tree -- why I have waited so long to do this -- I do not know -- other than "habit".

So, when I work in either Ancestry.com or in Family Tree Maker those trees will match one another. And the bonus too is that when I work on the mobile application for Ancestry on my iPad, that tree as well syncs. What a deal, what a feature! I feel so liberated . . .


An example of this is found to the left with Christiopher Hiles, my 1st cousin 4 generations different than me.

This Christopher is the son of another Christopher Hiles ( a 4th Great Uncle) and I knew of neither of these Christophers when we named our son "Christopher" Hiles.

You can see where the current Christopher fits into our tree.

So, while working in Family Tree Maker earlier this week, I stumbled across the documents seen to the right.

It is the probate of Christopher Hiles' Estate. He died during the height of the Civil War and left a wife and
a few minor children.

The document to the right (click to enlarge) shows that his net estate left to his wife Mary, amounted to $128.13.

Granted, that amount would be so different in value as to what it would be today, but it seems like such a minuscule amount.

The fact for me, finding this information while working in Family Tree Maker meant that the information would be automatically sent to the Ancestry.com tree as well.

I think back to the early days of my researching and what a difference there is in today's environment.
Now, if I could only find a way for these two trees to automatically sync with www.danhiles.com that would be the absolute pinnacle for me anyway.

So, the week was filled with a lot of tree updating (all synced too) and we watched baseball, some good, some not-so-good.

And, we renewed a fun past time by playing Quiddler -- both inside and "on the deck".

A few years ago we used to play every afternoon (when our chores were done of course) but for some reason we stopped.

Now we have resumed, and even though Gail has won most of the games so far, I know I'll catch up at some point. It is just a matter of what cards get dealt . . .

That's a bit of our week. It is Sunday, and that means Chinese food for dinner, so good!

See you all "in a few"!