Genealogy

Good Morning!  Here in Richland it is overcast and windy so I'll be staying inside. This is a desert area and lots of dirt and sagebrush blow around often.

Today I'd like to talk about my hobby, "Genealogy". Have you considered your roots. I have and once I got started it sort of mushroomed. I started back in 1999 when I got curious and I googled my father's name. I came across a family tree that had him in it but it wasn't very complete and I didn't find myself or my older brother and our mother. It turned out to be a new one being made by my youngest half brother and we connected. He didn't have any of the other information needed to finish the family so I took on the responsibility of fixing it with a brand new tree.

I originally did this bold undertaking for the benefit of my children (I have 3), and their children (they have 5) and it has really bloomed. I joined the "Shirley Association", that's my maiden name and they helped me fill in some of the blanks that I didn't know. Finding my children's family on their father's side was very simple. It seems he descends from one of the older families in Virginia and they are real big on Genealogy in Virginia.

So after I got his family back to the 1500's and they were all from across the "big pond", I thought I'd move onto my mother's family. This one isn't quite as easy. I find that my Grandfather Kightlinger, (my mother's maiden name), was an Elder in the Quaker Church in Eastern Pennsylvania. But I'm not sure why since I've also found the Kightlinger's go back to Germany and some of us have some strong Jewish genetic traits. Maybe they became Quakers to avoid Hitler's gas chambers. Without any written records, it's all supposition on my part and we really need to deal in facts.  I did find my self and my immediate family in the 1940 census, that was released last year. They sit on the census for 70+ years so this time when it was released I was able to pop in and find my name. What a joy.  I was telling everyone who'd listen about my fabulous find. It gave me the street and the house number and my father's occupation. Gave my age which was 7/12 months. You'd have thought I'd just been given the "Hope diamond". Doesn't take much to make me happy.

That leaves me with working on "Trees" for friends and the branches you get when children procreate and then their children have babies. I now have 5 great grandchildren which gives me more branches to try to fill in. I use Ancestry.com since it is the best sight available and they have a "gazillion" records with the software to search through them and give me a little leaf now and then to give me one more substantiated fact for my tree.

This morning I made a scrapbook from a kit titled N 34 by Russian Dutch Heart Designs. I liked the colors and it worked well with the picture I picked out to use. Every year in Grand Junction, Colorado they replace some of the works of art on Main Street. I walked through the downtown and took pictures of every one of them in 2005 when I lived there.