Wisdom Wednesday Being the Link Past to Future

 

In the past few weeks, I have not been able to do some of my blogging I would like to have done, and I have not been able to get by to visit and comment on my favorite blogs. 

In Texas, we are in the midst of canning the fruits of our gardens.  I have to take time out to help my children with growing in canning skills and I am babysitting with toddlers so I can develop a relationship with the generation growing up.  [Carol at Reflections at the Fence got to go to a wedding.  Whoo hoo! ] I love life changing activities. 

So, the purpose of this blog is to say, I will be back by, I love reading your blogs and learning from you.  

Like the Celtic Knot, I just have to work on keeping the chain from the past to the future intact with an endless knot.  

The Celtic knot came from Dover Clip Art

The picture is of my son canning for the first time. Don't tell him he is on here. shhh

Sharing a Slice of Life: #6 Summer Storms

Texasblu posted the meme for this Sunday as 'hearing about you or your family weathering out the storms'.  If you click on her name, you can read others stories also.

The story I have chosen has got to be a Hero story since it is also Sentimental Sunday.  At Christmas one year, while the Hero and Red Beard and the son had their own business, my
Aunt Lynn expressed that she wished that she could get some linoleum.  Well, uhmm, we were broke and it would be a 16 hour drive to take her back home and come back to our home.  Finances would only allow for that.  We talked about her desires and needs all the way back home through icy weather.
The next spring we decided that while we could not purchase linoleum for the floor, the guys could put down an acrylic flooring that they did because they had left overs from another job.  We could also paint the kitchen too.

When it was May and warm enough to make the trip with the little ones, we packed up and headed for her farm in Oklahoma.  She was so excited when we told her we were coming.  We arrived and what fun.  The little ones enjoyed the farm, the older ones loved doing something for Aunt Lynn.. Quickly the work was done. 


The day we were getting ready to leave, they got to have and 'Oklahoma experience'.  Everyone was packed or almost packed. Unknown to the rest of us, the Hero decided to bathe before we left.  As he was bathing, a storm suddenly appearing in the northwest.  There wasn't any warning, the winds picked up terrifically, the sky turned a blackish green, all of us rushed the little ones into the bedroom and snuggled them as close to the bed as possible.  The older ones remembered the tornado that demolished Aunt Lynn's house in the 50's (click Aunt Lynn to see that post). 

As things quieted down, we looked around and realized the Hero was not with us.  In a minute he came out smiling and said, "I just knew it was a tornado, and so I grabbed both sides of the tub and got ready to ride it out."  It still brings a giggle to me.
Intense weather moments tend to make you weak in the knees.  We have had many such times.

Sentimental Sunday The Hero and His Resourceful Ways

Today's post came as a result of a short sightedness on my part.  We ran out of propane.
 I wasn't paying attention.  Well, the toddlers' mom was in a dilemma as to how to get two sweaty, sticky  children clean after a day at the zoo.  ( Rolling eyes...is this my duty?...Okay, I should have been watching the gauges) 
It was too late for running out and getting a small tank filled, so I searched in my mind and the answer came as well as a Hero story.

When we first moved out to our primitive farm, the plumbing to the 'cabin' fell apart. That's right, it just caved in in the trench.  The Hero was not a plumber, as my son who does plumbing now can tell you.  He tried to fix it, but there were leaks everywhere and he wasn't sure what to do.  While we tried to find plumbing help, we figured out we could run the hose to the house and fill the sink, flush the potty, and warm some water to put in the sink to wash the children.  Not good for the Hero who worked alternately in the warehouse and in the office.  He had to have his hot bath.  What do you do?  He wasn't up to filling a pot and washing in it like I washed the children.
He sat down, thought about it and the light came on.  Next thing I knew; he was back from town with a 30 gal trash bucket that had a lid.  Intrigued, I watched to see what he had in mind.  He filled the bucket, now I have to insert here, it was not a tall skinny one like you see today.  It was squared and....well you will see....

Back to filling the bucket.

He filled the bucket, put the lid on it then came in the house, washed up as best he could, and went to bed without explaining.
The next day he came in from work and worked out on the farm some, then went into the bathroom and came out in his swimsuit.  I was intrigued again.  I said "What are you doing?"  He smiled and said, "You'll see."  I followed him outside and what did he do?  He climb into the tub and sat down a took his hot bath that the solar heat had provided.  He was happy, and came out clean too.  LOL  I so remember seeing him seated in that square tub scrubbing happy as a lark...not that he wasn't happy when the plumbing got fixed.  I threatened him that I was going to take a picture of this, but didn't.  Isn't always sad to think what you should have done.  I grab cameras now.
To finish the story, I related this story to the youngest daughter who hadn't been born at that time.  I said, "I have a large storage tub you can fill with the hot hose and then wash them up in it."  Do I look crazy?  I must, because that was the look I got.   Long story short.  The toddlers got washed up in the tub in the sun and were not the worse for it.
The moral of the story is when you have a challenge, you don't let it throw you.  Look for the solution don't focus on the challenge.
Love you my grandchildren, thanks for coming by.

20th Edition of Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture 'I Speak From Experience'

 

The obvious search for our ancestors began with the name. 

On the Hero's and my mom's side of the family there were many Irish names to look for.

This is my entry in Smallest Leaf's 20th Edition of Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture "I Speak From Experience" 
Smallest Leaf  has so much Irish information and books listed on her blog.  It is wonderful to stop by and browse. Click here to see her blog.
To continue with the subject of the carnival. I will show what I have been doing as I study the Irish in America.  
I started with making a note of all the names I was looking for variants of the names and places the names were found.   For example:  http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fianna/surname/index.html
MacGiolla ancient of Magill,
Gill
McGill
O'Shaughnessy        
Sandys
FURLONG              Wexford
FURLONG              Wicklow
O'AHERN,               Cork
O'Echtighearn   
Ahern
O'DWYER               Tipperary
Dwyer                       Lemerick
Dyer                          Sligo
O'Breen   
O'Brien
I have toyed with learning Gaelic, but I really haven't gotten that far yet.
Besides knowing the surname, I discovered that the old Irish had a subtle naming pattern.  Most but not all used it.
I have posted on this before, if you will click here, then you can read that post and then click back to return.

Something new I have found, as I have wandered the Texas cemeteries, and looked at the death certificates of the Irish imigrants, is they kept a keen sense of pride in where they came from even though they were proud of their new country.  Usually the place of birth is stated, not only the country, but the county or state they were born in also.

 An excerpt from an Illinois Death Certificate

If there was money enough, their birth country was displayed on their gravestone.  Here is an example of this: 

My Irish quest is really just beginning as I am preparing to leap across the pond to Ireland, where wars have ravaged the records and people have lost their families who left for a far off land.  I have been visiting sites such as Smallest Leaf's  watching how they find records in Ireland, talking to people who have UK experience in searching, and taking the Free course on Irish Research on Family Search.  If you click on Irish Research in the previous sentence, it will take you to the course.
There is something so exciting in searching for families that have been apart for years and reuniting them.  I love genealogy research and have been excited to share how to research and source with the upcoming generation to get them involved in their history to know their ancestors.

Wisdom Wednesday

If I had a wish it would be, I could find all the women on my family tree.

Tombstone Tuesday The Coyne Family Found

I have not found any descendants that have trees on this family but I have put the family together.  I wish my family was a easy as this family to find. 
Michael J Coyne b 04 Nov 1862, Floughena, County Mayo, Ireland
Died  31 Mar 1934 San Antonio, Bexar, Texas
Father James Coyne, Mother Ann Freely
His Death Certificate from Family Record Search:

Jane Henry Coyne B 1875 County Sligo, Ireland
died 08 Feb 1949 San Antonio, Bexar, Texas
Father James Henry
Ah ha....the tombstone....

Janes's death certificate is not available but the summary was.
There is a Freely buried next to them will be investigating. 
This is the family in 1920 and 1930  I did not find them in 1900, although the census says they came in about 1889ish

Something I have  learned about the Irish immigrant.  They were proud of their family and shared with their family where they came from and the family left behind.  When I have found their death certificates, everything is filled out, not like my Missouri ancestors who couldn't even get their grandmother's name right.

Slice of Life Affects of Documents

As TexasBlu said in her introduction of the topic at Slice of Life  (click here to see her blog) for this week, documents can play such a roll in so many facets of our lives.  For this blog, I will stick to documents for primary proofs in genealogical research.
 Before we get started, I will remind the readers that if you click on the image it will be larger, I have them small for space.
I have to tell you that there is one site right now that I can not say enough good about and praise the volunteers that are making it possible to for easy access of documents of primary proofs such as marriage licenses, birth, and death certificates.

Drum Roll...are you ready...FamilySearch Record Search... [if you click on FamilySearch it will take you to the site. ]

Why am I so excited about an old dog?  Well this dog has added some new tricks.  I have a family I have talked about before.  The Heimbach Family.  I knew from family resources that Helena Heimbach married Edward Ellsworth, but I didn't have the document proof.  Here it is from Records search.

I had all of her brothers and sisters from a Nebraska census in 1880, but after that they all seemed to disappear except for Helena and her youngest brother Frank.
In comes Records search new data...a marriage license for a younger sister in Nebraska. You notice it has her parents and his parents names listed also I apologize I cut John F Riley's name off at the top...concrete association.

A search for her with her husband.  This census has the majority of her younger brothers and a sister all together in Oklahoma with the father as boarders at her home...The Heimbach name was so slaughtered that it had never been picked up in searches...(I corrected the indexed name in Ancestory.com)...

Another search put them in Arizona.  A death certificate for a younger brother who died childless,

but the sister and her husband and oldest brother, who I had thought mustt have been dead are on the census in Arizona at that time.  A daughter of the oldest brother is with him in the census. I find he had been in Colorado.  Still looking for him there.

Another search.  A death record for the daughter is found in Texas.

and a marriage record in Arizona.  That is why I went to the historical cemetery in San Antonio, Texas to find her grave.
It is wonderful that there is organized documentation of vital activities in our lives which aids us in matching generations past.