Missed Me?

I am alive and well!  My Gosh--where do I begin?

I have been living in front of this computer!  

I was working on my How-To book and then after my sister and I took our trip to the Holly Cemetery to find our great grandparents, on the way home, my sister mentioned something about how our Great Great Grandfather's wife's family disowned her because he was Jewish.  

Then she told me another "tale" that the man's family our 3rd great grandfather may have been Indians'

I said her, "I wonder if that all is true."

She said, "Well, I have heard the stories that Grandpa used to say , "that Davis bunch are indians!"

So I said, "I don't believe it and I'm going to find out."

So, early Thursday, I jumped on Ancestry.com and spent most of that day researching.

Not a substance of truth in the whole family legend!!!

Our 3rd Great Grandfather's wife's family  DID come from an influencial Massachusettes family AND they did come over on the Mayflower.  I researched her side of the family way back to the 1500's, when they owned an estate in England. In fact, we are direct descendants of Thorton Wilder and Almonzo Wilder--who went on to marry Laura Ingalls!

Then I researched our Great Great Grandfather's family and only got back a couple of generations.  His family were all farmer's and on the census, they are classed as "white" and that wouldn't be if they were Native Americans.

So I am filling in the holes and printing everything out for sister and I AND cousin's on my Mother's side of the family.  
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Then my friend Chris needed me to do some research of how she can put crochet and knitted patterns up for sale on a website--one's that she had designed.  So I worked on that for a few hours.

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Then my cousin, who I was sharing the family history with, wanted to know if I could research her Dad's, Mother's side of the family as they have no information.

So I got into that hot and heavy yesterday.  I love this searching.  One thing leads to another--and you find parents of the people you are searching for, so I go back another generation.  All the way back as far as possible, until you run out of info.  That's because everyone eventually came from Europe and those records are very difficult and expensive to get.

One of the places mentioned in her research is where her -unknown to her--great, great grandfather, mother and children are buried.  It is a cemetery, just up the road from here.

Today was bright and sunny, so I decided to take a drive up there--to find them and take photos of their headstones.

I decided to go the back-way--using the Country map--which turned out to be worthless.  It took me 45 minutes to find the place and 17 miles.  

When I found the cemetery, I knew they were buried back in the mid-1800's, so they had to be in the older part of the cemetery.  I parked the car, walked about 50 feet and there they were!  Amazing!  I have the best luck in cemeteries...and I love looking up past descendants of mine or others.

I came back home, not the "short-cut" and it was only 12 miles and 20 minutes.

I got back home and downloaded the photos I had taken and worked on the family page--going back and forth from Word to Ancestry.com--filling in all the correct information.  Census reports, death certificates, military service.

I LOVE IT!!!  and if you are reading this Cousin Carolyn, I have some surprises for you!!!
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Saturday morning---8:00 am

Saturday afternoon--some still lingering

             This is what my office looks like when I am researching--thrown away papers all over!!!

This kind of work makes me feel so good.  It takes away the boredom and puts me in another world where I lose all track of time.

Tomorrow morning I gotta get up to the inkjet cartridge refill place--I ran out of colored ink.  LOL