Hello again - Giant Update Post of Doom

I fell out of using this blog for a while, but I'm back. Lots to share. The last year has been pretty crazy, but I'm still here, despite everything.

Got a new job last year in late January, and was officially hired on that June, so I've been gainfully employed now for more than a year and a half. Met a lot of great people, learned a lot about Unions and Pensions (which is what I work on), and starting to consider where I will try to move inside the company.

It's meant a lot more reading on the ride to and from work, as well as on breaks, which makes me very happy. I've missed the enjoyment of new books, but between one of my co-workers' suggestions for reading, and Goodreads, I've been finding all sorts of great books, both on Kindle and in paper form.

And because of my reading, I've started a new blog here on blogger. The blog is called A Slash Reader's Diary, and it deals specifically with reviews of stories that have a male/male pairing as the central focus, as that is one of my favorite genres. I've found it's hard to find books that are in the genres I like that also have that focus, so I wanted to provide a place where others could find the great books I've found.

I lost one of my kitties about a year and a few months ago. I still miss Sebastian a lot, but after a few months (right around this time last year), I got another black kitty whom I have named Nicky. He's not sure what to make of everything, but he's having great fun tormenting my poor Morgan, who doesn't know what to do with this kid who keeps getting in her face and doesn't kowtow to her every demand the way Sebastian did. He's more cuddly than Sebastian or even Morgan, as he loves to jump right up into my arms and snuggle for a few minutes. It's been a learning process for both of us, but we're definitely doing well.

Shortly after arriving last year, at the old apartment

Yesterday, settled in his favorite viewing spot at the new apartment

Morgan's having more issues than a new brother, though. Shortly after his arrival last year, I noticed her weight was dropping too much, so I took her to the vet. She has hypothyroid problems. For a time there, I was pretty sure I was going to lose her, but we got her on meds which seem to be helping a lot. So she gets her ears rubbed twice a day, and the kitties get wet food daily, something that was only a once or twice weekly treat before.

And, as you can see from the pictures with Nicky, I have moved. I moved in late July and early August, and it's been stressful and wonderful in turns. Some great things, some bad things, but I'm slowly getting settled. Nicky wasn't too sure about all the strangers coming to visit, but hopefully he'll start to relax around strangers, as I don't plan to stop having people over to my own place, now that I've started the habit. I think it's mostly leftover stress when they were trying to find him a home at the rescue agency. Takes him a little to warm up, but once he does, he loves you.

Had a few successes with connecting to distant family over the past year.

One of the Welsh branches of my tree contacted me, and showed me that they've set up an online version of the family tree. I need to add our family information to it, but it was great to see one of my guesses confirmed (That Gabriel Howel's wife was Gwen Evan), and to discover that they'd found one more generation before them.

The other discovery was an email from a distant relation I'd never heard of before. A few years ago, in a fit of desperation, I posted on GenForum about my great-great grandparent from a small town in Czudek in what is now southern Poland. The family were Jewish, and in the late 1800s through the 1940s, it was a very bad place to be a Jew. Unsurprisingly, I know very little about this family. Originally, only what I got from my grandfather, then from his papers, which gave me a bit more. So I wrote a note on the Forum hoping that someone who knew them or of one of their other descendants (at the time, I knew only two daughters, though I was fairly sure there were more children).

Then a few weeks ago, I got an email from someone who said she was their granddaughter. I know enough to be wary of that sort of claim, but the information she gave worked with what I had in a way that made it pretty clear to me that she was, indeed who she claimed to be. So now my great-grandmother's family is finally intact on my family tree. She had three brothers and two sisters, one of whom disappeared at the end of World War I, and one of whom was taken by the Nazis. All the others escaped to the US or Israel, and lived full lives in their new homes. Given that I'd always assumed that I had several on this branch who likely died because of the Nazis, I was glad to learn our losses were so few. And now I have a few new names to try and track down. Who knows what I might find now.

I think I'll stop there and do the other two things (NaNoWriMo and a new recipe) in a different post, but that's pretty much my life for the past two years.

Restaraunt Guide: Taki's Mad Greek

Went out to lunch with my mother today to a restaurant that I'd passed by a million times before, but never gone to: Taki's Mad Greek, on 15th just off 85th in Crown Hill, right across from the new Value Village store.

It's a pretty little place, and looks to be family run. The walls are painted with Greek murals, and there's a small bandstand in the back for the evening entertainment, despite the fact that the place is tiny.

The gentleman who was there when we arrived was very friendly, and we came a bit early, so it was pretty quiet. We both got the chicken souvlaki with Greek potatoes and a Caesar salad... And it was all delicious. The plate was enough for two meals, and the seasonings on all of it were just mouth-wateringly good. I'm definitely going to have to go back again as soon as I can.

Friday Genealogy update

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was very nice. Got to see my Uncle's remodeled place. Very roomy, and a lovely warm gas fireplace.

Have a lot of Genealogy stuff to catch up on, and I need to make a to-do list, really, because this month has left me quite behind. Got a bunch of information from my aunt, and I need to add that to the information I already have. At least now I have the family trees in some form for all sides of the family. I also plan on taking a trip to Office Max and getting fresh supplies so that I can keep track of things better. The current system I have really isn't working.

Forgot to post last week, so I'll do two weeks of calendar here today, though it's only adding one more event to an already short list:
November 18, 1757, Ana Maria Andersdatter Brunn was born in Bergen, Norway.
November 19, 1863, Jorgen Larsen and Ivare Christensen were married in Vejle, Denmark.
November 23, 1754, Anna Margretha Sorensen was born in Gelting, Germany.

Friday Genealogy update

So, I know I didn't do one of these last week, but I was a little Genealogied-out from spending the weekend with my sister and working on a lot of Genealogy stuff while I was there. It was great, though.

We discovered that we have not one, but two pictures of my great-grandmother Dora with her sister Minna. Seems I'd seen the shot a number of times, but it was only scanning in the shot of the two of them as young women that made me realize I'd seen her face before. So that was fun. A lot of other minor discoveries as well, including a shot of Dora's eldest, Ben, who died in the mid eighties. I remembered him, but it had been so long since I'd seen his face that I'd forgotten what he'd looked like until I saw the shot. He and Grumpy were so much alike, they should have been the twins. ;)

Made a post about my great-grandfather Holger today over at Oh, Spusch. His is the best-researched line in my tree, mostly because my grandmother and her sister were so desperate to find information about their mother. I'm glad they were. I love having so much detail, though I'm coming to find that there are gaps in that, as well.

My main focus since Monday, however, has been NaNoWriMo. I've done it every year but one since 2006. For those who don't know (and/or don't want to follow the link), NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a 50k word novel in the month of November. It's great fun, with lots of support from the site and the forums at the site, though it's not for those who aren't used to writing every day, or who can't write enough per day (about 1700 words per day). I've enjoyed it every time I've done it. And won each time, too. This year I'm doing something that most would consider breaking the rules--I'm playing in someone else's universe. Now I just have to hope I have enough story to make it through 50k. I've managed 10k already, so I'm doing pretty good.

Nothing for Follow Friday today, since I've been so out of it the past two weeks.

Really need to update this calendar, as I know I have some new dates to add, but here's the stuff from the past two weeks:
10/25/1846 - Leonharde Marine Linkhausen died in the Lofoten Islands in Norway from complications of childbirth.
10/27/1765 - Maren Mathiasdatter died in Vejle, Denmark at the age of 84.
11/02/1822 - Jens Pedersen and Mette Matisdatter were married in Vejle, Denmark.
11/07/1826 - Abalone Mortensdatter died in Vejle, Denmark at the age of 82.

ETA: Just went through my program, and it turns out there are a whole ton more dates than I had before, and there's one that I just have to share, because I'm so very glad I have it now -
10/30/1919 - Alex Hillinger and Dora Kresch were married in Frankfurt, Germany.


And I've an idea for this December for Oh, Spusch that I hope people will enjoy--I'm going to do an advent calendar of three generations of my family--my grandparents through great-great grandparents. Wish me luck!

Busy and genealogy-filled week this week.

Went up to my Aunt's cabin on the coast on the West side of the Olympics with my aunt, my mom, my sister, and my niece. I was a bit nervous to be without the Net for two days, but I was surprised how little I missed it. I missed people I talk to, but that was about it.

Sis brought her computer so we could go through family photos, and I found a few extra branches to our family tree--two which I knew about, but one which I did not, and still need to find the exact connection to my tree, but, still very exciting to have more names. Sorted out a few things, still working on others, but it was a very productive and nice visit.

I spent some of today and a little of last week looking through images of the paperwork about my father's father's family in Germany. I'm pretty sure I have towns now. Next step is to look into a few addresses I have (one in Germany, possibly two in London), and look on JewishGen for more information about those specific towns.

I also spent some time today looking into the Howells/Gabriel line. I might have found a bio of the man I currently have listed as the father (Even Lewis) of the matriarch (Catherine Jones) of that family, but the link was broken. All I can do is hope that the link will be fixed at some point.

I still have a long way to go on both searches, but I do feel like I'm making baby steps, at least.

Follow Friday Links:
* George Geder at Geder Genealogy talked about some of the things missing in Genealogy programs, in particular, blended family support and ethnicity. Pt 1, Pt 2, Part 3. He also posted a fun list of 10 Essentials for Genealogy & Family History Success. I might have to make my own list like that... But I loved his choices.

* Laura at It's All Relative posted her 12 Step Program for Genealogists.

* The Jewish Gen Blog added two more articles about Natural Disasters in our Families' lives. Part 3, Part 4.

* Lorine McGinnis Schulze at Olive Tree Genealogy wrote about getting past Brick Walls.

No events in my family tree events list this week.

Hope everyone else had a good week, and is looking forward to the weekend. :)

Friday Genealogy update

September went so fast... And now it's October, and I've at least a half-dozen more things planned this coming month, when I usually tend to have one or two things planned in a month max. Oh, well, at least they're fun things.

This past week I spent a day with my sister and niece, and yesterday with a family friend down from Vancouver, and come Monday, mom, sis, niece and I will be heading up to my aunt's cabin to have a "Bordewick girls get together," never mind that none of us actually use the surname. ;) I've been trying to decide what paperwork to bring with me...hopefully I won't forget anything.

I made two posts on Oh, Spusch this week, not including the Surname post I'll be putting up tomorrow. The first was an experiment in birth order position in one line of my tree (the longest I could find). It was interesting. The second was a piece about all the names for "grandmother" my family has used, complete with photos.

So much going on that I didn't do a whole lot of actual Genealogy work on the tree itself today, but I did find an interesting article for Follow Friday about keeping track of name variations.

Three events in my Family Tree Calendar this week, all weddings:
Johan Bordewick married Henrikke Roness in Nordland, Norway 0n September 27, 1860 (his second marriage, and third woman to bear his children)
Jens Hansen married Else Larsen in Vejle, Denmark on October 1, 1885
and Mathias Frandsen married Kristen Poulsdatter in Ringkobing, Denmark on October 2, 1796.

And I had a rant on American Genealogists and Heraldry, but I'll save that for a week when I can think.

Friday Update

Busy week. My brother-in-law is getting married tomorrow. It's been one of the busiest Genealogy years in a while for me this year. Births, deaths, and marriages on several sides of my family. I'm hoping, after this weekend, it will calm down a little. I have a feeling I'll have a big end-of-year summary about the changes in my tree this year as well as the finds...

Because it's been a crazy week, I decided to take it easy today, and had a friend down to watch some Buffy and just visit.

I did my usual scroll through my Google reader, though. I found a few interesting things:
A: Family Tree Maker 2011 came out this week. A lot of geneabloggers have been talking about it this week.

I've used Family Tree Maker for most of the time I've worked on my family tree--probably about 8 years now. But when Ancestry bought out the company, and it became more and more an offline version of their site, I became less and less pleased with it. I don't mind Genealogy programs that have connections to sites online, but to make whole sections of a program dependent on having a paid subscription to a site seems very greedy to me. But then, many things about the way Ancestry does their business bothers me.

So I've been looking for replacement. At the moment, I'm playing with Legacy 7.4. It's very equivalent to FTM, and has some things that work far better, though I'm not as pleased with their reports system. I also installed Roots Magic on a friend's computer, and that, too, has some nice options. I think, though, if I could afford it, I'd probably get The Master Genealogist. Mostly now, I just need to decide, I think. But those three seem to be the top contenders.

The main problem with choosing is that there aren't many people out there who have tried more than a handful of programs for a more than a moment or two, as Genealogy's Star mentions in a blog post.

So I'll keep playing with Legacy, and unless I find something in it that truly annoys me, I'll probably buy myself the latest copy. Unless I find I have enough money to afford the Master Genealogist, I think.

I'm still debating whether to type it in fresh to make sure I have the facts all sourced properly when I finally do choose.

B: I found an article about the dialogue between the Mormon Church and the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors about the Jewish ancestors found in the Mormon genealogical databases. I don't think this is likely to end any time soon, really. It seems uncomfortable to me that the only ancestors of Jewish faith that they're negotiating about are the ones who died in the Holocaust.

I'm glad the Mormons have this interest in genealogy, because it benefits the rest of us, but it feels wrong to baptize people in a faith they would have refused to take part in while they were alive. I don't care what their reasons are for it, it's like renaming an ancestor. Not something you should ever do, for any reason.

The problem is, those of us who have Jewish European roots need as many options as we can get. So do we let it go because we can get the information from them, and hope they follow the rules they're setting down for themselves? Or do we hope that JewishGen becomes that big and comprehensive on its own?

C: The Disney Channel will be premiering a kid-centered Genealogy program starting in November. I hope it encourages a whole new generation of genealogists.

D: The Slovak Yankee wrote an interesting article about standardizing Genealogy in the common law way.

E: Family Tree Folk made post about the Seven Daughters of Eve, or the Mitochondrial Mothers of the human race.

F: And last but not least, two articles about genealogy and the movies:
Movie vs Reality: The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family
and
Climbing up Gene Kelly's Family Tree

Some blogs I'm following as of this week:
We Tree and Apple's Tree, which I have been following on my reader for some time, and The Jones Surname, which covers the Welsh Jones roots. It's a new blog, so I'm not sure if it will help me or not, but I'm hoping so.

No moments in my family tree this week, though I think it's about time to update that soon...

And I do have a Surname post all ready for tomorrow.

Thoughts on kids and family

I had a thought today about kids and my family as a whole.

I'm what some call child-free. That is to say, I don't want kids, nor does my husband. So we never had them. It hasn't always been the easiest of choices to stick to, but I do think it was the right one for us.

Which meant that until my niece was born two years ago, there were no grandkids/great-grandkids in the family, as it's just my sister and me in our immediate family, and we're the oldest of the grandkids on one side, and the only grandkids on the other.

Lately, because of my family tree work, I had come to realize that this wasn't a short-term problem in our family--at least, on the branch where we're the only grandkids, where few if any of the siblings of my ancestors had kids for one reason or another. I'd always thought my aunt and myself were the only ones who'd not really wanted kids, but now I think it's a longer-term issue than that.

I'm one of two grandkids on that side, and my mom was one of four siblings, but she was the only one who had kids. Her father only had one sibling who died in the war, and their father had two brothers, one of which I have no marriage record for, and the other of whom I do, but no kids. On my grandfather's mother's side, my great-grandmother had six siblings, only one of which had any children.

Not really certain what it all means, but it does help me feel a bit better about my choice. That it's not just me, but part of the overall family tree.

It is a bit hard on the grandmothers, though. I know my mother's mom always wanted a lot of grandkids, and was rather disappointed that she only got the two of us. And I also feel bad that mom had to wait so long for my niece. But it does mean that she's just that much more precious to all of us.

Today, these thoughts also lead me to the realization that our family just isn't very baby-friendly. I was the first-born grandkid, and my sister and I are 6 1/2 years apart, and the next grandkid wasn't born for five more years or so. His brother came along a few years later, but then we had to wait five more years before the final two grandkids were born. We're all so incredibly stretched out over time that only one family at a time has had young kids.

Until now. With my two-year-old niece and my cousin's newborn son, suddenly we have two babies in the family. Makes me very curious as to how Christmas will go this year. I have to say, though, I am looking forward to it.