Random Thought Thread

[MoodyBlues]

Mostly from clinching a pipe in my my teeth for sixty years.

You're not that old! Surely you didn't start smoking a pipe at 7...did you?

My mom--who quit smoking [1-2 cigarettes/day] after I badgered her relentlessly as a child--decided at 88 that she wanted a 'Sherlock Holmes pipe.' After confirming that she didn't intend to actually smoke it, I bought one for her birthday. I figured if a pipe would make my 89-year-old mother happy, why not?

While she was still mobile [in her wheelchair], she puttered around the house with her Sherlock Holmes pipe dangling from her mouth, occasionally taking it out as one would if really smoking. It gave everyone a good chuckle, starting with Mom.

That turned out to be my last birthday gift to her. The pipe is now prominently displayed next to other family mementos.

 

[olbriar]

You're not that old! Surely you didn't start smoking a pipe at 7...did you?

My mom--who quit smoking [1-2 cigarettes/day] after I badgered her relentlessly as a child--decided at 88 that she wanted a 'Sherlock Holmes pipe.' After confirming that she didn't intend to actually smoke it, I bought one for her birthday. I figured if a pipe would make my 89-year-old mother happy, why not?

While she was still mobile [in her wheelchair], she puttered around the house with her Sherlock Holmes pipe dangling from her mouth, occasionally taking it out as one would if really smoking. It gave everyone a good chuckle, starting with Mom.

That turned out to be my last birthday gift to her. The pipe is now prominently displayed next to other family mementos.

That was a bit of an exaggeration on my part. I started smoking a pipe when I was ten.
The kid that lived close to me, a few years older, smoked a pipe. I saved my money and bought one and we were Tom and Huck.

My father had an aunt that smoked a pipe. They called her aunt John. Her real name I do not know. I remember for she made quite an impression on me as a child.... sitting on her porch, long cotton dress and cowboy boots, swearing like a sailor, and smoking her pipe.

That's a neat story you tell of your mother. Thanks for sharing.

 

[MoodyBlues]

I started smoking a pipe when I was ten.

Damn! But I can imagine Huck and Tom having some great adventures.

Your father's aunt John sounds like quite the character. If you're interested, it's easier than ever to trace ancestors, so it might be a fun project to identify her and see what/who else pops up on your family tree. Many years ago, I located the ship's manifest for the ship my maternal grandparents took from Armenia to the US. Very cool.

That's a neat story you tell of your mother. Thanks for sharing.

My pleasure.

 

[Milo Willamson]

When I was younger, I used to fish with my father, down here, just a few miles away from my house, I remember the charriot being brown and white, with orange and white horses for kids to play in, we used to walk around it all the time, I have not been back to the club in a while, last time was on Easter some time ago...It was when I left the chat I was working in..

 

[olbriar]

Damn! But I can imagine Huck and Tom having some great adventures.

Your father's aunt John sounds like quite the character. If you're interested, it's easier than ever to trace ancestors, so it might be a fun project to identify her and see what/who else pops up on your family tree. Many years ago, I located the ship's manifest for the ship my maternal grandparents took from Armenia to the US. Very cool.

My pleasure.

I started my genealogical quest long before there was an internet. It is a fascinating hobby.
The net has made research a lot easier. Just be careful of the information you find. Documents are great but the trees that you will find that your family fits into is often someones best guess along with supported research. Take it all with a grain of salt.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

That's how you start a series.

 

[MoodyBlues]

I started my genealogical quest long before there was an internet. It is a fascinating hobby.
The net has made research a lot easier. Just be careful of the information you find. Documents are great but the trees that you will find that your family fits into is often someones best guess along with supported research. Take it all with a grain of salt.

You know...I think we may have talked about this before. But with our collectively ancient brains, who cares?!

Do you have a physical, like poster-board or heavy paper, of your family tree? My dad [meaning my father-in-law] worked for years, pre-Internet, compiling his and my mother-in-law's family tree. He meticulously laid it out, tree-like, on a huge chart, then had copies made, giving one to each of their three sons. It was big and awesome, and we really appreciated the time and effort he'd put into it. We carefully folded and put it away one day...and haven't seen it since...

I feel physically ill thinking about it. I know you've heard about my supposedly mysteriously disappearing Commodore 64 [which my husband and I both know he threw out when we were moving], but losing that doesn't even come close to upsetting me as much as Dad's genealogy work.

There are still many unpacked boxes in the garage from the move in 2006, but we've gone through each one, multiple times...I guess we're hoping a little genealogy fairy will make it reappear.

What you said about other people's work/inaccuracies I certainly appreciate, but they really don't apply to me. That's because my US roots are so short (I'm second-generation), searching, like on Ancestry.com, inevitably comes up blank--no one is working on a similar line. Information from Armenia and Turkey, from my ancestors' eras, is sparse and very difficult to locate. You really have to do it in person, going to little villages' churches that may have their birth/baptismal records. It was rare back then to have hospital births, and record-keeping was haphazard regardless.

My cousin and I have talked about going to 'the old country' one day, but, you know, it's looking pretty unlikely.

 

[Milo Willamson]

You know...I think we may have talked about this before. But with our collectively ancient brains, who cares?!

Do you have a physical, like poster-board or heavy paper, of your family tree? My dad [meaning my father-in-law] worked for years, pre-Internet, compiling his and my mother-in-law's family tree. He meticulously laid it out, tree-like, on a huge chart, then had copies made, giving one to each of their three sons. It was big and awesome, and we really appreciated the time and effort he'd put into it. We carefully folded and put it away one day...and haven't seen it since...

I feel physically ill thinking about it. I know you've heard about my supposedly mysteriously disappearing Commodore 64 [which my husband and I both know he threw out when we were moving], but losing that doesn't even come close to upsetting me as much as Dad's genealogy work.

There are still many unpacked boxes in the garage from the move in 2006, but we've gone through each one, multiple times...I guess we're hoping a little genealogy fairy will make it reappear.

What you said about other people's work/inaccuracies I certainly appreciate, but they really don't apply to me. That's because my US roots are so short (I'm second-generation), searching, like on Ancestry.com, inevitably comes up blank--no one is working on a similar line. Information from Armenia and Turkey, from my ancestors' eras, is sparse and very difficult to locate. You really have to do it in person, going to little villages' churches that may have their birth/baptismal records. It was rare back then to have hospital births, and record-keeping was haphazard regardless.

My cousin and I have talked about going to 'the old country' one day, but, you know, it's looking pretty unlikely.

Well our family tree is connected throughout different several cousins, only in town, we have nine generations of different families we all sat down and chat around in July this year, I have a few photos posted on my fb page, but I think I can drum a few up on here too for evidence, but we all come to the conclusion it has stopped with me, my sister, brother in law, also cousin's sons' and their sister's daughter and son's too, but when time slipped on by we all just sit down for one huge gathering and really drum it up for one nitro blast of communication. There where a few whom are a part of my distant cousin on my grandpa's side, who had another brother, whom I never met since I was born much later on.

Ergo in different generations we all fight to preserve that knowing what kind of abundence it started, and yet how it is slated for the hieghten of awareness of whom we come from.

 

[olbriar]

You know...I think we may have talked about this before. But with our collectively ancient brains, who cares?!

Do you have a physical, like poster-board or heavy paper, of your family tree? My dad [meaning my father-in-law] worked for years, pre-Internet, compiling his and my mother-in-law's family tree. He meticulously laid it out, tree-like, on a huge chart, then had copies made, giving one to each of their three sons. It was big and awesome, and we really appreciated the time and effort he'd put into it. We carefully folded and put it away one day...and haven't seen it since...

I feel physically ill thinking about it. I know you've heard about my supposedly mysteriously disappearing Commodore 64 [which my husband and I both know he threw out when we were moving], but losing that doesn't even come close to upsetting me as much as Dad's genealogy work.

There are still many unpacked boxes in the garage from the move in 2006, but we've gone through each one, multiple times...I guess we're hoping a little genealogy fairy will make it reappear.

What you said about other people's work/inaccuracies I certainly appreciate, but they really don't apply to me. That's because my US roots are so short (I'm second-generation), searching, like on Ancestry.com, inevitably comes up blank--no one is working on a similar line. Information from Armenia and Turkey, from my ancestors' eras, is sparse and very difficult to locate. You really have to do it in person, going to little villages' churches that may have their birth/baptismal records. It was rare back then to have hospital births, and record-keeping was haphazard regardless.

My cousin and I have talked about going to 'the old country' one day, but, you know, it's looking pretty unlikely.

There was a time that I kept my research in a spiral notebook. When I bought my first PC.. (a real pc and not the Atari 800 I started with) I bought a genealogy tree maker software and transposed my work into it. I freely shared my research on the net and walked many a cemetery and spent countless hours at the library going though microfilm to glean the information that I posted. As the net matured, I found most everyone copied my research. (making it so important to have facts and not best guesses) Later Ancestry took my free information and charged others to view it. It pissed me off big time and I was a late adopter of the use of the site because of it. When DNA research was added to the genealogy quest, I eventually succumbed to drawing card and joined the site. My tree is now there though you must subscribe to glean the efforts of my labor. It is a great source and vehicle to do research.

My family were early colonists. My surname is traced back to the birth in Tennessee 1812 of my gg grandfather. I have been stuck right there for over thirty years. I have a very good DNA lead that adds another two generations but I can't prove it and I'm about facts.
Facts are difficult to come by with illiterate non religious immigrants. I might have to follow the crowd and post my best guess at some point. I'm not ready for that just yet.
My mother's family is much the same story. They were in the states early but I can't prove to my satisfaction exactly where they migrated from or when. My wife's family is the complete opposite. They migrated to the states in the mid 1800's from Bohemia. They are easy to trace once they were here.

 

[MoodyBlues]

Nice post, olbriar.

Later Ancestry took my free information and charged others to view it. It pissed me off big time and I was a late adopter of the use of the site because of it.

I'd be pissed too! Did they ever -do- anything, like acknowledge your work or...something?

I was an early adopter, but as noted I kept coming up blank. They were constantly urging me to upgrade [to include other countries], but this Armenian lawyer I know told me not to bother. He has the whole works, everything they offer, because he uses it as one resource in his work, and he said I'd be disappointed with the results. Well, the lack of results. He's actually spent massive amounts of time visiting little villages in search of ancestral data for his Armenian and Turkish clients; he finds little to nothing pertaining to them on Ancestry.

Sidenote about Ancestry: I finally canceled my subscription after realizing I'd been paying for it all along, but hadn't touched it for 2+ years (illness). I thought about asking for a refund, since they could've easily verified the long gap with no activity on my account, but just said screw it. *shrug*

 

[olbriar]

Nice post, olbriar.

I'd be pissed too! Did they ever -do- anything, like acknowledge your work or...something?

I was an early adopter, but as noted I kept coming up blank. They were constantly urging me to upgrade [to include other countries], but this Armenian lawyer I know told me not to bother. He has the whole works, everything they offer, because he uses it as one resource in his work, and he said I'd be disappointed with the results. Well, the lack of results. He's actually spent massive amounts of time visiting little villages in search of ancestral data for his Armenian and Turkish clients; he finds little to nothing pertaining to them on Ancestry.

Sidenote about Ancestry: I finally canceled my subscription after realizing I'd been paying for it all along, but hadn't touched it for 2+ years (illness). I thought about asking for a refund, since they could've easily verified the long gap with no activity on my account, but just said screw it. *shrug*

In the beginning... There was a free site called RootsWeb. They hosted everyone's trees but had little to zero research avenues. I put my tree up and it proved to be a great calling card. Anyone interested in my information could easily contact me through the site and we could exchange information. There were a number of host sites and I utilized them all.
Then along came the sister site... Ancestry. Without my explicit authorization (certain it was in RootsWeb's fine print) all of the RootsWeb hosted material was available on Ancestry. They also provided materials for research but you had to pay for the access.
I would have loved to amend / edit my tree there but I wasn't willing to pay to access what I freely contributed. I finally caved in as noted previously but it took years and DNA research to persuade me.

What I dislike about Ancestry now... They have made it very simple and easy to do research and edit / amend one's tree and to attach links to supporting documents. It's all so easy it's crazy easy. However, the tree is not really yours. It's your labor and your tree on their site. The minute you drop your subscription you lose access. It is extremely left handed for you to copy the information or download the information into your local tree.
You are hooked for life it seems. It's always going to be on the Ancestry site but only for paying customers.

I likely have around 8k relatives in my tree. In my two years at Ancestry that number has grown by 100 at the most. What I have done is attach supporting documents to my tree and to double and triple check my previous research. It's rewarding to find DNA supporting evidence as well. All good stuff and I don't mind paying for it. However, none of that is in my local tree. I can't pass that on to another or make a print out to give to a relative for their viewing pleasure. I can't even share it across the net. It's good and it's bad. My hat's off to them for being so clever.

 

[MoodyBlues]

Gosh, RootsWeb...I hadn't thought about that in years.

The minute you drop your subscription you lose access.

You're telling me! When I finally was well enough to think about my Ancestry account, unused for over two years, yet still being charged, I looked at the cancellation process. I remembered from before, very distinctly, that they say "your data belongs to you." So all these years--and I mean years and years--I believed that my data belonged to me.

Knowing that, I never stepped through the process of actually DOING it, because I intended to maintain my account and continue adding things to my Shoebox. I had, oh, maybe 50 or 60 pages of links in my Shoebox; I think there were 10 or 15 links on each page.

Okay, so now I'm going to cancel, and I search for the 'your data belongs to you' thing. I found it and started the process...but saw nothing regarding my Shoebox. I contacted support. They said there is no way to download the items you put in your Shoebox. In other words, the hundreds of images, documents, death notices, marriage records, etc., that I had so effortlessly added to my Shoebox over the years, were actually just links (many now broken). The only way to save the data was to follow each link, hope whatever had been there when I Shoeboxed it was still there, and take screenshots; some were images and could be saved to my computer, so that helped...a little.

Because this was when I still wasn't very well, I had little stamina and could only sit up at the computer for a few minutes at a time; it took WEEKS to complete the process. I was not happy. Not only because they'd led me to believe all along that my data could be downloaded whenever I wanted it, but also because so many [dozens and dozens of] items I'd placed in my Shoebox were now just dead links. Where those records went is a mystery to me--but I PAID to access them.

You [theoretically] can download your tree, and other data; see this page for info. But if you're like me, happily clicking on 'save to my Shoebox' on record after record, thinking they'll all be waiting for you to download one day, you're in for a big, unpleasant surprise...

 

[mikedt]

Ancestry®

Can't say I really miss the Mormon missionaries knocking on the front door.

 

[mikedt]

The school has made nice use of the present progressive tense.

 

[Milo Willamson]

Now I am wondering if the correct time spending with my girl's family, is even more important then having her?
Hmmm...

 

[dontpanicbobby]

I had a post removed from a The Boston Globe article about Trump. I think it was because I called him my President.

 

[Milo Willamson]

I had a post removed from a The Boston Globe article about Trump. I think it was because I called him my President.

"Boston Globe shuts down quickly."

 

[Milo Willamson]

Doctor Sleep free preview is worth an excellent read.. I might buy it for a wedding gift

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Does Stephen King still make Megabucks with each book release?

 

[mikedt]

Achievement unlocked: You bought a durian on the internet.

 

[Milo Willamson]

Achivement unlocked: You have 1K Trophies on your ps3, would you wish to continue or get wed?

 

[Bearsyzf]

In the beginning... There was a free site called RootsWeb. They hosted everyone's trees but had little to zero research avenues. I put my tree up and it proved to be a great calling card. Anyone interested in my information could easily contact me through the site and we could exchange information. There were a number of host sites and I utilized them all.
Then along came the sister site... Ancestry. Without my explicit authorization (certain it was in RootsWeb's fine print) all of the RootsWeb hosted material was available on Ancestry. They also provided materials for research but you had to pay for the access.
I would have loved to amend / edit my tree there but I wasn't willing to pay to access what I freely contributed. I finally caved in as noted previously but it took years and DNA research to persuade me.

What I dislike about Ancestry now... They have made it very simple and easy to do research and edit / amend one's tree and to attach links to supporting documents. It's all so easy it's crazy easy. However, the tree is not really yours. It's your labor and your tree on their site. The minute you drop your subscription you lose access. It is extremely left handed for you to copy the information or download the information into your local tree.
You are hooked for life it seems. It's always going to be on the Ancestry site but only for paying customers.

I likely have around 8k relatives in my tree. In my two years at Ancestry that number has grown by 100 at the most. What I have done is attach supporting documents to my tree and to double and triple check my previous research. It's rewarding to find DNA supporting evidence as well. All good stuff and I don't mind paying for it. However, none of that is in my local tree. I can't pass that on to another or make a print out to give to a relative for their viewing pleasure. I can't even share it across the net. It's good and it's bad. My hat's off to them for being so clever.

I'm not even sure if i want to know everybody in my family

 

[Milo Willamson]

I'm not even sure if i want to know everybody in my family

I am with you... I am not so sure either.

 

[MoodyBlues]

Achievement unlocked: You bought a durian on the internet.

HOLD YOUR NOSE!

 

[olbriar]

I'm not even sure if i want to know everybody in my family

You have to take what you get. It's a craps shoot.

When I started my research years ago my father was still living. He looked me right in the eyes and said "I don't care what you find out, I do not want to know" The man was serious. Though I found numerous unknown great aunts and uncles of his, I honored his request.

No matter what you find while researching, you are a product of the past. Nothing changes.