गुरूवार, 30 सितंबर

September is a funny month. Not funny-ha ha, but funny-peculiar. I'm beginning to think that it is a lot like February - different from all the rest. Kind of restless and dark instead of invigorating or comforting. I am sure there are all sorts of explanations, [insert your favorite here]. I really don't think it is just because I have been very careless and lost both my parents this year- one in February and one in September. I feel this way every year.

It is a good time of year for vacationing though... nothing like escaping the dreaded months of F and S! This year it was Maine... if you like this sort of vacation, go to Monhegan. But beware. You won't be acknowledged by the natives until the third day, but the day before you leave, even the crustiest will give you a curt nod. I guess they have reason to be as they are, just as I have reasons to be as I am. The interesting bit is I think I would be very happy living there, and I probably would fit in quite well.

Looking down towards the village

Community bulletin board

Did a lot of this!

Watched a lot of this!

I was thinking about things this morning and started wondering if my interest in genealogy is my way of compensating for all the time I spent in my youth not asking about my family. Let this be a warning! Wait - what's that saying? - if you can't be a good example, you can always be a horrible warning.

Yep, that's me, a horrible warning.

(Can you believe that you can Google that phrase? Actually, Google is my go-to for just about anything I want to know these days. Thank you Google. Wiki is rapidly catching up though. Yay!)

Back to horrible warnings. Please, please, please talk with your family members about who you are, who they are and who your relatives and ancestors are. You might want to know later on; after the memories have faded away; after the people who had those memories have gone. You cannot reconstruct the information they have even with the best computers. Yes, you can get names and dates, sometimes a newspaper clipping, a photo, a diary entry, or a letter, maybe. But you won't get to know the real person.

All I know about my father's father is: he was born on 19 Oct 1887 or 1888 in Mill Villge, Nova Scotia, sailed into Boston in 1896 with his mother, brother and two sisters at age 6ish, became a naturalized US citizen January 29, 1917 and registered for the WWI Draft in 1917. He married my grandmother in 1911, had 4 children, three daughters and one son. He was a paint store manager and a Mason. He died in 1940 in Melrose, MA and is buried in Reading, MA. He was also tall and had brown eyes. I have one picture of him - I think it was a wedding photograph.

I wonder what he was like as a person.

Oh, before you give me grief about the math - 1896 minus 1888 is 8, I know that. But Harold's age on the passenger list was 6. So was the purser guessing, or did Harold's mother really not know how old he was at the time? This is a perfect example of how you are not going to get exact information when you start going back in the family. There is a lot of conflicting information when you start poking around for information about a person - names, dates, places. Just so you know...

Since starting the online course in genealogical research at Boston Univeristy, I have not really done anything else. I'm spending most of my waking hours reading, responding to discussions, doing my homework and not much else. Oh, I did start a beading project which I am really happy with, but haven't taken the time to photograph. And I made some beads for a bead exchange, but had to mail them off before I could take a picture of them. Sorry. I will take a picture when the piece is done. I learned this how to make it from Nancy Dale. If you enjoy beadwork, you may remember she was a finalist in BeadDreams competition this year - her entry was Dryad - and it is spectacular in person. Um, I probably should add that the piece I am making is a lot less complicated.

Well, it's almost over... goodbye September!