Oh Canada

The SACKLEY BROTHERS BORN IN Napean, Carlton, Ontario.

I know that Wednesday is supposed to be assigned to something, but I didn't realize that July 1st was Canada's Independence Day. Show's you what I remember from HS World History class.
I learned from, of all places, the Old Farmer's Almanac site that July 1st is set apart as Canada's birth. It happened on July 1, 1867 when the British North America Act established out of the colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, dividing it into four provinces, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. I wonder if our ancestors earned their medals in the rebellions?

I have been unable to place these medals. I think the pictuce was taken in the late 1880's

I also said...no wonder I have such a hard time finding them, the provinces weren't even provinces when they were there. A whole new mind set for me.

Canada’s birth in 1867 was the result of years of hard work by the Fathers of Confederation.

On July 1, 1867, the British North America Act established “one Dominion under the name of Canada” out of the colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, dividing it into four provinces named Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.

I love our Canadian Families, and I am glad they had the same joy of earning their independence that my Colonial Families did in the United States.

The Creative Force of Optimism

As I was organizing my genealogy, I came across a speech that was written by my husband when he was a junior in High School. He was always a stalwart defender of this Nation and it was wonderful to find that my mother-in-law had kept this speech all these years to be given to us when he died. I decided to post it here as it is close to the Fourth of July and the celebration of our counties birth.

The Creative Force of Optimism

(Written by Ned Ellsworth; presented at the South End Optimist Club of Houston (it was a speech); won area competition in Texas. He was a Junior in High School.)

"And God Said,"Let us make men to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth."

Yes, when God created man he gave man the blessing of his own image and likeness and with that image and likeness he gave man a great force, the creataive force of optimism.

For man is the only being capable of creating a society as perfect as the one we now have. It was optimism which created the best form of conceivable government, the government of the United States. When our forefathers wrote the constitution, no doubt existed within their minds that this government would exist invincible under God. Why? Because they were optimistic, and through their optimism, they had created the most interwoven, perfect, check and balance system ever imagined by man. Soo this nation progressed optimistically and succesfully. But optimisims ability to create does not lie souly within material wealth.

Perhaps the most optimistic man ever to exist was Andrew Carnegy. by taking the better result of every event in his life Andrew Carnegy developed the greatest and most useful wealth ever witnessed by this nation.

Through optimism the greatest method of analises, and study was developed--the scientific method. As a result of its application man has placed himself far above any other creature. Man may build dams, electric lights, television, rockets, and destroy germs, viruses, and bacteria.

Optimism is the Creator of Success.

And Successful we must be. For today the United States is locked in a life or death struggle with the Communists and Communist block nations.

The Communists attack is on the minds of youth. As a result the people of the United States must build a stron optimistic youth. A youth who will look at the future, smile, and crush the Communists and their deciet. This alone will defeat Communism.

So the Communists willl be deafeated. For a new optimistic youth has appeared to establish this nation above all others, my generation.

So this nation will exist and will progress invincibly under God. (His emphasis)

Life Lessons Of How to Live With Your Environment

I have recently been in discussions
about how to handle the heat.
This in part to the rising cost of cooling,
"green" thinking, and in part to loss
of air conditioning due to need for repairs.
My Dad had been an AC engineer
at the local college in the town I grew up in.
We did not have AC at home.
My mom would always say
'we are like the plumber's family
that has to call a plumber.'
I just made sure I had a fan in my
bedroom at night. Of course in earlier years,
houses were made to exist without air conditioning.
Windows were situated for cross ventilation.
There were attic fans to pull the heat up and out of the house.
There were vents to pull heat from the house.

Looking at the pictures of my dad and his family here,
you can tell, they knew heat. They farmed,
would help harvest crops for friends, and lived in old farm houses.
When I would talk with my dad
in later years about air conditioning he would tell me.
"Always keep the thermostat 2 degrees above where
you want the temperature and it will always cut off there."
Then he would admonish me saying keep it as high as you can if you are working outside,
because you will need to sweat for natural cooling.
If you are in too much air conditioning or too cool of air conditioning, it impairs your ability to sweat.
This became evident to my daughter when we were working in the garden. She says, "Hey, mom, it is cool out here today." I said, "You just haven't been inside yet."
(She had driven over early in the morning.) We continued working
and finally went inside at lunch. After lunch, she opened the door
and said, "oh my, it is hot outside."
Houses today are not built with screens so you can open the windows. Neither do they have attic fans to cool the attic and pull out top heat...heat rises. We have ceiling fans, but, as most southerners who have gone through electricity loss in storms, without the ability to open windows and doors, the heat inside is just stirred around. Plan your home and life so
that a sudden change will not be overwhelming. I love living with open doors and windows. The air conditioning is best for sleeping.
Any one agree?

The Mason's Apron

Mary Thorn with Levi Gildon Family

I made a post earlier about having found controversy over the apron at the right.
The elderly lady on the left of the picture is Mary "Bride" Thorn Self. That too is controversial, because researchers can not agree as to her middle name. The only concrete information is that her initial was the letter 'B'. Whatever the outcome on her name, it is blatantly known that she was a caring woman who loved her family. She traveled from Alabama, to Texas, to Oklahoma with her family. She kept safe the Mason's apron that belonged to either her father Thomas Thorn or Great grandfather Thomas Thorn, who came from England (the other controversy). The original owner had hand drawn the figures that you see on it. It is my understanding that Mason's do hand draw the figures as they progress in their growth in the organization. This is another example of personal work being preserved. If you right click on the picture, it will open the picture in another for you to be able to see the figures.
However, long term preservation of an artifact was not well understood by my family. Mary passed the apron to the daughter on the left in the picture, Emma Self Gildon. Emma then passed it to my grandmother's family. My grandmother is the young girl in the center in the back row. Her name was Lenorah Gildon Langley. She passed it to my cousin who had it mounted on a piece of cardboard (I can hear some of you cringing) and placed under glass. When she gave it to me, the silk (it was not on lambs skin as I had heard) was beginning to yellow and deteriorate, because the cardboard was attacking the silk. We had it removed and archived by a professional in an acid free library box. It now resides in a dark dry place, which bothers me. I keep thinking it needs to be available for viewing by the rest of the family. Does anyone know, if the Masons were to have the apron, would it available to the public for viewing?

My First Attempt at Madness Monday

I have a family from England. It starts out with William Sackley who married Dianah Mason.
I find Dianah and child William in Nova Scotia on a christening record.
I find a Stephen Sackley in Carlton Ontario, Canada in 1820 military records.
A son Henry in 1890's biography said they came to the US in the early 1840's.
In 1855, I find Stephen and our ancestor John in Chicago state census.
My dilemma is I want to prove Dianah as the mother of John. She married William in England. John lists his mother as Irish. The possibility is maybe Dianah was Irish, or Dianah died and William remarried in Carlton, which was settled by a large Irish group. In all the information, the father is named in a sister's biography, but the mother's name is never mentioned. Why is the father's name more important than the mother I wonder. Maybe I just needed to know who the father was first to be able to zero in my search, Maybe. My next endeavor will be to try and find land records in Canada or New York where they came over. They were teamsters when they came to Chicago. Now I wonder, do I just leave this on my blog or do I submit Madness Monday somewhere on Geneabloggers?

A Season for Everything, Everything in it's Season

My bunch

Mom is in San Antonio visiting my brother and his wife this weekend. I promised to keep the blog up for her, but yesterday I got so busy with my sweet monkeys (pictured above) that I flat forgot. My apologies. She'll be back late tonight.

I used to be like Mom when my girls were tiny. We'd pack a lunch, kiss our husbands good-bye, and spend over 9-12 hours at the Clayton Library in Houston on a Saturday in front of the microfilm readers or our noses in books researching. Not every Sat., but now and then. Those were exciting days for me. Mysteries discovered, mysteries solved, branches of the family tree reconnected. I even recovered for my husband's family a family bible and critical bible pages dating back to the Civil War. Woo-hoo!

But then I had a rash of babies, a total surprise to us. A nice surprise, but it changed things. (Multiples are a whole other animal!) When the twins were born, I found myself stressed out because I felt like I should still be spending Saturdays blurring my eyes with hard to read handwriting.

That's when someone said to me, "Remember, a season for everything, and everything in it's season." I realized that I had a new task for the next couple of years. Instead of doing research, I started collecting family stories. I collected photographs and labeled them. I started writing memories down and things I had learned. I made an effort to create moments that would become pleasant memories for my children, and myself. And I've taught my girls who are older now how to fill out their pedigree charts, and shared some things about those ancestors on them. I became a recorder of not just the past, but the present.

The libraries and I will become reacquainted soon. In the meantime, I have done a lot of work for the now, so that my generation doesn't become one of those that needs to be researched at a later date. There will be ample information for future generations to enjoy. :)

My Most Embarrassing Genealogy Moment

1974 - Mom and Me, Future Reunion Crashers

Mom (the voice you're most listening to on this blog) is one of the greatest cheerleaders you'll ever meet when it comes to helping you find your ancestors. Even so much so, that she'll take a trip to a family reunion with her daughter that ISN'T her family.

Yep. My husband's family was having a family reunion, and I wanted to take my girls to meet family we didn't know they had. My husband was out of town, and my in-laws weren't going. I knew ONE lady that was going to be there. So I begged Mom to come with me, in case I got lost. If only I'd known!

We got to the place where the reunion was, but the instructions were a little confusing. They said "in the white building". There were two white buildings! Assuming the right one was the building surrounded by cars, I led her and my two girls into a swarm of people.

Everyone smiled and nodded. I put my brownies on the table with all the food and sat them down. We got the girls plates and I smiled some more. No one said anything to me, but this wasn't strange, since I'd never met any of them. Finally I saw a big table with the family's printed history sitting on it, abandoned. I told Mom I was going over to check it out, because we had no pictures or stories of any kind from this side of the family. I was excited.

I mosied over and started looking through it. How confusing. There wasn't a single Burris! I stopped an elderly lady and asked, "Where are the Burisses?"

"There aren't any Buriss lines in our family," she states.

"Isn't this the Buriss Reunion?" I timidly ask, showing her the paper with the instructions.

"Nooo." She tries really hard to let me down easy. "But it looks like you have the right place."

I got back to my mother (cheeks flaming) and whispered we were in the wrong place. I grabbed my brownies and we booked it out of there. We tried the other white building, and sure enough, THAT'S where my husband's family was. They had no idea there was a second white building at that park, let alone another reunion! What were the chances?

So folks, the lesson is, no matter how sick you are bringing the family history to the family reunion because no one looks at it, bring it anyway. You never know WHO might benefit! :D