Okay, full disclosure here, I have lumped a WHOLE BUNCH of things in to this one idea for myself for the year and I am now completely overwhelmed.
1. Yes, I am committed to the Compact and reducing my purchasing of new items. Yes, I am staying within the guidelines as much as possible.
But I also said I would do a Freezer/Pantry challenge in which I am using up all the food in my freezer and pantry rather than buying something else to prepare for dinner. So there's that.
Then I agreed to a Savings Challenge of seeing how much I could put away in my savings account for the year. My goal is $5000. I think this is very conservative and do-able. But I haven't been accountable in that I didn't write down my starting balance and make note of each deposit. I think I need to get some of this written down so that I can track where my savings are coming from.
And on top of this! I signed up on the cleaning-decluttering daily challenge. Daily is just too much. I have not been able to commit to this. I would bet that I haven't even opened this week's daily emails due to the fact that I have been babysitting all week and this is the first time I have been on the computer since last week. So, I can't very well do the challenge when I haven't even SEEN the challenge. It's too much.
This is for my own accountability. But I will try to keep regular updates to stay on track.
Friday, January 26, 2018
52 Ancestors in 52 weeks - week 4
This week's prompt is "invite to dinner". Who have I found in my family tree that I would like to invite to dinner? She didn't say if it was limited to one person so I might have a loophole!
I have a few people I am so curious about and have very little information on, so I am going to go with them.
First up! We have my 3rd great grand father who was a carpenter and was found stabbed to death at the age of 42. He left his 30 year old wife behind and 4 small children, including an infant. I have called the county library where he died to find records and they have only what I already know. So I searched out the local newspapers and lo and behold, there was a fire and the records from that time period are lost. I have tried searching through his siblings to see if there are any letters, any mentions of him and his children in wills, and all to no avail. Yes, I would love to have dinner with him and see what really happened.
And remember the axe-murdering ancestors I mentioned earlier? Maybe their mother would be a good one to have to dinner.
I have a great grandmother and a great grandfather from the same era, both of whom had their mothers die when they were infants and were raised by an aunt and a grandmother, respectively. Those 2 mamas who died after birthing their babes were really only babies themselves being 15 and 16 years of age when they married, gave birth and died. Talk about someone who has no records to follow! I would love to talk with them and hear their hopes, and dreams. What a tragedy to die so very young and not really to have lived at all. The only consolation I see in this is that they both fell in love and were able to leave a legacy with their babies.
It is my firm belief that every single person has a great story. Someone just needs to ask them to tell it. And dinner with these 4 seems like some fabulous conversation.
I have a few people I am so curious about and have very little information on, so I am going to go with them.
First up! We have my 3rd great grand father who was a carpenter and was found stabbed to death at the age of 42. He left his 30 year old wife behind and 4 small children, including an infant. I have called the county library where he died to find records and they have only what I already know. So I searched out the local newspapers and lo and behold, there was a fire and the records from that time period are lost. I have tried searching through his siblings to see if there are any letters, any mentions of him and his children in wills, and all to no avail. Yes, I would love to have dinner with him and see what really happened.
And remember the axe-murdering ancestors I mentioned earlier? Maybe their mother would be a good one to have to dinner.
I have a great grandmother and a great grandfather from the same era, both of whom had their mothers die when they were infants and were raised by an aunt and a grandmother, respectively. Those 2 mamas who died after birthing their babes were really only babies themselves being 15 and 16 years of age when they married, gave birth and died. Talk about someone who has no records to follow! I would love to talk with them and hear their hopes, and dreams. What a tragedy to die so very young and not really to have lived at all. The only consolation I see in this is that they both fell in love and were able to leave a legacy with their babies.
It is my firm belief that every single person has a great story. Someone just needs to ask them to tell it. And dinner with these 4 seems like some fabulous conversation.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
52 Ancestor in 52 Weeks - week 3
This week's prompt is longevity. Like the longest-lived person on your tree or how long you have been doing genealogy, that sort of thing.
The only interesting thing I could come up with for this topic is that I have one branch I have followed and fleshed-out (disclaimer here: all my work is to be considered a work in progress) that goes back to early 1500s England. That's Henry VIII time, people. I had to let that sink in for a while.
This makes them my 14th great grand parents. Boggles the mind it does. And here's the thing about ancestry; as much as this excites me to find these things it is no where NEAR as interesting as those that are 4 generations back that I can find absolutely nothing on. That kind of mystery is really something that draws me in. When someone appears in my tree with the marriage to someone I already have and then after 2 census records drops dead with NO HINTS as to previous life and where they came from, now that is why I do this. To find the previously un-find-able.
But the longevity thing is nothing to be sneezed at. I had a British friend here visiting last week and she said her DNA showed she shares DNA with 40% British while mine is 68% combining England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. I know I have a lot of work to do to confirm everything I have on my tree. Let's hope I live long enough to do it all! (See what I did there? I hope I have the longevity.)
The only interesting thing I could come up with for this topic is that I have one branch I have followed and fleshed-out (disclaimer here: all my work is to be considered a work in progress) that goes back to early 1500s England. That's Henry VIII time, people. I had to let that sink in for a while.
This makes them my 14th great grand parents. Boggles the mind it does. And here's the thing about ancestry; as much as this excites me to find these things it is no where NEAR as interesting as those that are 4 generations back that I can find absolutely nothing on. That kind of mystery is really something that draws me in. When someone appears in my tree with the marriage to someone I already have and then after 2 census records drops dead with NO HINTS as to previous life and where they came from, now that is why I do this. To find the previously un-find-able.
But the longevity thing is nothing to be sneezed at. I had a British friend here visiting last week and she said her DNA showed she shares DNA with 40% British while mine is 68% combining England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. I know I have a lot of work to do to confirm everything I have on my tree. Let's hope I live long enough to do it all! (See what I did there? I hope I have the longevity.)
Monday, January 8, 2018
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 2
This week's prompt is Favorite Photo. Now I have a load of photos of ancestors but what I chose was something different.
Have a look.
This is a drawing of the original plat of the city of New Haven, CT. My 10th great grandfather was William Tuttle, one of the founders of this city. That he had his name on the plat as one of the founders and got a cool corner lot is rather cool, I think. I like how the town was built around the square. I have more information of the Tuttles than I will probably ever get to in my lifetime. They were a prominent family in the area and not always known for good things. There seems to be a strain of insanity in their blood. The axe-murdering kind of insanity. Surely, after 10 dilutions to me most of that should be gone. Let's just say they were not a boring bunch, those Tuttles. Anyway, this area is now the commons of Yale University.
And here we have a drawing of a painting of the venerable William Tuttle.
Doesn't he look like the life of the party? What a dour face. He did have a herd of kids and a lot of responsibilities and was the first of his family to leave jolly old England. So there's that. Also, two of his kids would become axe murderers.
I would bet when you clicked to see this blog post you didn't think you were going to see this, did you? I wasn't sure which photo I would use right up until I chose.
I hope you are enjoying doing some genealogy and ancestry research on your own tree.
Have a look.
This is a drawing of the original plat of the city of New Haven, CT. My 10th great grandfather was William Tuttle, one of the founders of this city. That he had his name on the plat as one of the founders and got a cool corner lot is rather cool, I think. I like how the town was built around the square. I have more information of the Tuttles than I will probably ever get to in my lifetime. They were a prominent family in the area and not always known for good things. There seems to be a strain of insanity in their blood. The axe-murdering kind of insanity. Surely, after 10 dilutions to me most of that should be gone. Let's just say they were not a boring bunch, those Tuttles. Anyway, this area is now the commons of Yale University.
And here we have a drawing of a painting of the venerable William Tuttle.
I would bet when you clicked to see this blog post you didn't think you were going to see this, did you? I wasn't sure which photo I would use right up until I chose.
I hope you are enjoying doing some genealogy and ancestry research on your own tree.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Recommitting to The Compact and to Decluttering
Here I am again!
I am going to post these thing separately for ease of searching them out later. 10 years ago in January of 2007 I heard about The Compact, a group of people in San Francisco who made a commitment to not buying anything new for the calendar year. I signed up on the yahoo group (there are still about 10,000 people participating in that group) and started and education. Boy, did I learn a LOT! There are so many ways to look around and find a used item or make do or borrow or barter or any number of ways to do something other than just buy a new whatever-it-is.
What goes hand in hand with not buying new things is taking really good care of your old things. Also, I found a TON of ways to do the environmental thing rather than the easy things. Such as:
*Use cloth napkins rather than buying and throwing away paper ones. I guarantee you have cloth napkins, or bandanas, or wash cloths or and old table cloth that has a hole/stain in it that you could cut up and hem and make napkins. I have not bought a single paper napkin in 10 years. I haven't bought any new cloth napkins either. I already had some and I have found some in estate sales and added to the pile. Just a few extra napkins added to a load of laundry will cost you no more in water, soap or electricity. Plus they are much nicer.
*Recycle everything that you don't compost. Buy foods with as little packaging as possible. When you buy food with no packaging you are automatically buying your food as close to its natural form as you can get it. That means you aren't buying crap for your body, either! Yay! I have been known to dig through the garbage and move things to the recycle bin or to the compost bucket.
Here's a short list of things that I throw in the compost bucket, things that no longer go in my trash:
Toilet paper cores, Paper towel cores, used tissues, shredded paper, dead plants, flowers, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells, tamale husks.
Now, picture your trash can and take all those items and compost them. Then start looking for things to recycle, like oatmeal boxes, glass bottles, plastic bottles. If you get those things out of the trash, look how small your trash pile is now! It's awesome.
Anyhoo, I have back-slid quite a ways from my Compacty ways and I am now publicly making a recommitment to get back in to that. I will post here regularly (not exactly sure how often) and see what I am adding to my list.
In addition to getting Compacty, I found a decluttering challenge called JanuaryCure 2018. Go here to see what is happening with that one. I signed up for it and today's challenge is to clean out a drawer. Any drawer. Freezer drawer, desk drawer, junk drawer, dresser drawer, any drawer. Dump it out, see what you can throw away, recycle, put in its rightful place, clean the drawer inside and then neatly put in the contents that need to live there. I will be doing that here in just a bit as soon as I select which of my cluttered drawers deserves the honor of being the first one decluttered!
Let me know if you are interested in either getting Compacty in your ways or in decluttering your way through 2018. I would love to hear from you.
I am going to post these thing separately for ease of searching them out later. 10 years ago in January of 2007 I heard about The Compact, a group of people in San Francisco who made a commitment to not buying anything new for the calendar year. I signed up on the yahoo group (there are still about 10,000 people participating in that group) and started and education. Boy, did I learn a LOT! There are so many ways to look around and find a used item or make do or borrow or barter or any number of ways to do something other than just buy a new whatever-it-is.
What goes hand in hand with not buying new things is taking really good care of your old things. Also, I found a TON of ways to do the environmental thing rather than the easy things. Such as:
*Use cloth napkins rather than buying and throwing away paper ones. I guarantee you have cloth napkins, or bandanas, or wash cloths or and old table cloth that has a hole/stain in it that you could cut up and hem and make napkins. I have not bought a single paper napkin in 10 years. I haven't bought any new cloth napkins either. I already had some and I have found some in estate sales and added to the pile. Just a few extra napkins added to a load of laundry will cost you no more in water, soap or electricity. Plus they are much nicer.
*Recycle everything that you don't compost. Buy foods with as little packaging as possible. When you buy food with no packaging you are automatically buying your food as close to its natural form as you can get it. That means you aren't buying crap for your body, either! Yay! I have been known to dig through the garbage and move things to the recycle bin or to the compost bucket.
Here's a short list of things that I throw in the compost bucket, things that no longer go in my trash:
Toilet paper cores, Paper towel cores, used tissues, shredded paper, dead plants, flowers, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells, tamale husks.
Now, picture your trash can and take all those items and compost them. Then start looking for things to recycle, like oatmeal boxes, glass bottles, plastic bottles. If you get those things out of the trash, look how small your trash pile is now! It's awesome.
Anyhoo, I have back-slid quite a ways from my Compacty ways and I am now publicly making a recommitment to get back in to that. I will post here regularly (not exactly sure how often) and see what I am adding to my list.
In addition to getting Compacty, I found a decluttering challenge called JanuaryCure 2018. Go here to see what is happening with that one. I signed up for it and today's challenge is to clean out a drawer. Any drawer. Freezer drawer, desk drawer, junk drawer, dresser drawer, any drawer. Dump it out, see what you can throw away, recycle, put in its rightful place, clean the drawer inside and then neatly put in the contents that need to live there. I will be doing that here in just a bit as soon as I select which of my cluttered drawers deserves the honor of being the first one decluttered!
Let me know if you are interested in either getting Compacty in your ways or in decluttering your way through 2018. I would love to hear from you.
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 1
Hey there Internet!
Long time, no see. Well, you are about to see a whole lot of me! Yes, indeed. I am participating in a few adventures this year and will use this here blog as my accountability place. The place I come to see my progress.
First up is the Amy Johnson Crow "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge. This week the prompt she gives us is Start. Something that prods you to start your genealogy adventure, or someone. I am choosing my 7th great grandfather Mr. Jeremiah Dial. Born around 1730 in or around County Cork in Ireland. He is the very first person I found on my family tree that got me to dive in and start researching. What possessed Mr. Jeremiah Dial to pack up his family and come to the Carolinas in 1768? It's all very fascinating to me. And the hardest thing for me is researching Ireland. They have for shit records. Most things destroyed by the British, so just bare bones records in churches. Also, I find out that when a lot of Irish immigrants boarded ships to come here the people who filled in the ship's manifests would often just put the ship's port of departure as the place all these people came from, whether or not that was true. Not helpful.
Anyhoo, Mr. Jeremiah Dial brought his wife and 6 kids with him, most of the kids being fairly grown people. They added to the family once they were here. This group of Irish people were my very first to start researching and investigating. They fought in the Revolutionary War and I have loads of documentation for the DAR.
If you have any helpful resources for finding Irish records I would love to hear about them. My plan is to try and post something here on Sunday or Monday about this challenge.
Long time, no see. Well, you are about to see a whole lot of me! Yes, indeed. I am participating in a few adventures this year and will use this here blog as my accountability place. The place I come to see my progress.
First up is the Amy Johnson Crow "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge. This week the prompt she gives us is Start. Something that prods you to start your genealogy adventure, or someone. I am choosing my 7th great grandfather Mr. Jeremiah Dial. Born around 1730 in or around County Cork in Ireland. He is the very first person I found on my family tree that got me to dive in and start researching. What possessed Mr. Jeremiah Dial to pack up his family and come to the Carolinas in 1768? It's all very fascinating to me. And the hardest thing for me is researching Ireland. They have for shit records. Most things destroyed by the British, so just bare bones records in churches. Also, I find out that when a lot of Irish immigrants boarded ships to come here the people who filled in the ship's manifests would often just put the ship's port of departure as the place all these people came from, whether or not that was true. Not helpful.
Anyhoo, Mr. Jeremiah Dial brought his wife and 6 kids with him, most of the kids being fairly grown people. They added to the family once they were here. This group of Irish people were my very first to start researching and investigating. They fought in the Revolutionary War and I have loads of documentation for the DAR.
If you have any helpful resources for finding Irish records I would love to hear about them. My plan is to try and post something here on Sunday or Monday about this challenge.
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