The last three years...a lot has happened: I divorced my husband, after learning that he was not who I thought he was; I lost my youngest son to a crime; I have been living alone, for the first time in my life, and I am trying to start over. These events have been devastating. There have been times that I have wanted to end my life, but somehow I keep going. I have my children and grandchildren that I love more than anything and I am looking forward to seeing my first granddaughter in May of 2017. I love her! I can't wait to meet her! A new life, is giving me the will to continue with mine.

As I am writing this, I am watching the Cotton Bowl. Missouri is playing Oklahoma State.

It reminded me that six years ago, around January 2008, some interesting things happened.

• My husband and I traveled to Dallas, Texas for the 2008 Cotton Bowl. The Arkansas Razorbacks were playing against Missouri... Missouri won.
• While in Dallas, we did some site seeing.
• We saw where President Kennedy was shot.
• We saw (from a distance) the house that the television show "Dallas" used in the opening credits.
• We enjoyed some excellent barbecue.
• Dropped in on some old friends.
• Borrowed a book...I still have it...sorry
• Lastly, the day before leaving for Dallas, I filed a lawsuit against American Airlines.

Time flies...

I had nearly forgotten about this blog. I can't believe that people have actually viewed it. Kinda embarrassing.

Anyway, viewing it two and a half years later, I realize that life goes on and things do change.

I am writing a book, a memoir.
I am planning on taking the next "ham" radio test.
I am getting back into genealogy.

It is a new year. Thank goodness for new beginnings.

Ham Radio License

Paul, my hubby, and I passed the technician level "ham" radio exam and this means that we will be able to communicate over the airwaves. Isn't that cool!

We received our license from the FCC last week: my call sign is KF5LQG and Paul's is KF5LQE.

My goal is to communicate with individuals around the world and help out locally in the event of any type of emergency (storm spotting and natural disasters).

a wonderful surprise

A few days ago, a relative contacted us. Some of us did not know that this relative existed. It was such a sweet surprise for everyone and we are all so, so very happy!!

Moving On

I am finished with genealogy for the time being.

I now need to wrap up my picture scanning, organizing and putting-it-all-back-together (I had to disassemble several photo albums) project.

My Christmas 2010 gift for my parents included eight pictures that chronicled the progression from my parents as boyfriend/girlfriend, married, both of them pictured with one child, two kids, three kids, four kids and finally all five kids (without my parents).

(When we realized that there are no pictures of my parents with all five kids, we took several photos out at the old house on Zion Road.)

I had over 3000 pictures to choose from and, after listening to that little voice in my head that said "it should be about your parents", came up with the theme of trying to find my parents pictured with us kids as the family grew over the years. It wasn't as easy as it sounds- it seems that there was almost always one person missing.

The interesting thing about this is that my dad put together a set of poems, some that he wrote along with some written by others, that followed the same theme as the pictures I chose! Wow!

It was a very moving moment when my dad had his poems read to my mom. He had planned on doing it privately until he opened my Christmas gift and felt compelled to share with the whole family how he felt about my mother. They have been together for 60 years and counting...

Be Nice to People?

Well, I was deathly ill for about 6 weeks and am finally ready to get back to work on genealogy, writing and scanning pictures.

While I was ill, I was reminded of how tenuous life on Earth is and how dependent we are on our physical bodies to keep us here...and I am grateful to still be here and be able to watch my grandson grow and see how my children are changing and growing in their individual lives.

I told God that if I lived that I would be nicer to people, but I think that when he heard that prayer, He chose to let me live anyway...because I am sure that He knew that I would continue to struggle with the "be nicer to people" promise.

I will keep trying though!

The Ritchey Family

I had gotten into a rut and didn't feel inspired to work on genealogy when my sister sent me an email that listed some names that she had copied from an obituary---that she had found amongst the pictures and slides that I had taken an interest in to digitize by scanning and tagging.

I dutifully printed the email and tucked it in with the other records on the Ritchey family.....

Then I get an email from a stranger who is working on the Ritchey family on Ancestry.com....

The two sources together helped us connect individuals that the other did not know about!!

The Lord works in mysterious and wonderful ways.

920 Slides!

Genealogy is more than looking up names on ancestry.com or any other website. It is connecting with your past and learning something about yourself and your family.

Last week, I finished scanning 920 slides (working 4-5 hours per day for 2 weeks) that my parents had taken during their travels (with kids in tow)that spanned 20 years (1953-1973). These slides included images from Germany, Maryland, Mississippi, South Korea, Vietnam, Okinawa, Philippines, Thailand, Hawaii, Arkansas, Texas,and Utah.

My father and I sat for several hours sorting through and tagging these images and only finished--- maybe 100---obviously there will be several more sittings with my parents to complete the project! It is really a process, but so worth it!

The story these images tell is a fascinating one and truly reminds me that we need to preserve our memories and stories for our descendants.

Back to Work

Well, I have been searching through mountains of work that my sister had done, but she never really organized it, so it has been time consuming.

Anyway, once the work of inputting all that she has done is finished, then I will be able to use the resources at Ancestry.com to confirm, print documents and then sit back to see where to go next.

That is where I am now, hope to have something more concrete for the next post.

Grant, Emery and Fields Family- Follow Up

The Mary Grant line is correct, so my ancestors include names such as Margaret Princess of Denmark, James Stuart King of Scot. Cool.

The Fields line is still in debate until the Great- Grandparents of John Fields (b. 1831). I know that the Great-Grandparents of John Fields of 1831 is correct (I am unsure of which grandkid is his father),nevertheless, Sussannah Emery and her line is correct. YAY!

Emery- Grant-Fields Family

My sister supplied me with some research that she had done and while trying to tie it in with what I had done has been frustrating. So here it is:

Belle Fields is my Great Grandma. Her father is John Fields. His father is either Samuel or George Fields. If his father is Samuel Fields then the work my sister did is correct and the Fields-Emery-Grant lines will lead to some really interesting people.

For example, Mary Grant who was married to William Emery has Cherokee roots that include names like Old Corn Tassell and Keyhum Techea Kahyn.

Mary Grant's father has roots that include James Stuart Earl of Moray and James Stuart King of Scot.

So, I am trying to verify the parents of John Fields because he is the link to all that follows--this is so fun!

Problems with PAF and New Info on the O' Roark Family

I am sure that the problems I had last night were my fault, but it certainly was frustrating.

I decided that I wanted to import new information that I had found on Ancestry.com into my existing Personal Ancestral File (PAF).

Somehow, after I did so, I wound up with 3 of everything that was already in the file along with 1 copy of the new names and dates. It took hours to match/merge the duplicate info! Ugh!

Anyway, I found new names on the Roark or O'Roark family: Timothy O'Roark was born in 1700 in Ireland and died in 1796 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cool.

Obviously, at some point in his life he traveled to America. I wonder what his circumstances were when he or his parents made such a huge decision?
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Still nothing new about the Levi's:(

Mistakes

I spent the weekend checking dates and names and found some mistakes.

For example, there were some entries that had children listed that would have meant that their mother would have been in her fifties when the children were born. It may be possible, but unlikely.

Another entry had the mother's age at around 100 years old at the time of the birth!! Now, I know that this cannot be.

So, much work needs to be done to check these entries and correct them.

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Still nothing about Solomon Levi's parents:(

However, there is a possible lead that may find the Levi's in Hungary. If it pans out, that will be exciting.

Burned Out

After hours and hours of searching over the last few days, I could not bring myself to work on genealogy today.

However, yesterday I found some interesting information about the Combs family history.

For example, and I will need to look though the documents again (to sort out which Combs was involved), there are documents that show that the Comb's were involved in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, and WWII.

One of the Comb's was mustered out at Appomattox-on the day of the surrender!

Cool.

PAF and Pedigree Charts

Today I managed to create a GED file from the information that I had found off of Ancestry.com, exported it to my desktop, imported that info into my PAF program that I downloaded free from FamiliySearch.Org and now I have a working copy for myself!!

YAY!!

It's great; I can now print pedigree charts and see where there are problems or where I need to find more information.

I LOVE it.

The Combs Family

Wow, last night I traced the Combs family back to 1086.

The backward progression is as follows: Living in Arkansas around 1875; Kentucky from 1806-1852; Virginia 1641-1770; England 1086-1602.

I wonder what brought them to America and why?
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As for Solomon Levi: so far I have not been able to find his parents; however, I did find some interesting documents related to him.

His last will and testament excluded my Great-great-great Grandma (Jenni Levi Ritchey) saying that "they have had more than an equal share of my estate."

I assume that he means her and her husband and their children.

Also, a land grant in Kentucky says that he owned 200 acres in the "CHAPTER IV GRANTS SOUTH OF GREEN RIVER (1797-1866) THE COUNTIES OF KENTUCKY."

This hobby is addictive, but fun.

Step One: What do you know?

To find ones ancestors, one must first make note of everything that is already obvious.

So, I searched my closet for the information that my mother, myself and others have already produced and found that on some family lines we had quite a lot of information, while others, very little.

The lines with the least information are the ones that fascinate me the most.

For example, we have a line with the surname of Levi. Sounds like a Jewish name and this fascinates me. There are other Jewish surnames too.

My hope is that over the next year, I will be able to learn more about my Jewish ancestors.

If it takes longer that's great, but I have taken out a one year subscribtion to Ancestry.com and hope that great strides will be made before my subscribtion ends.

in the beginning

I have caught the genealogy bug--again.

I want to find my ancestors, or at least track down their names and where they were born. Maybe I will learn something about them along the way. Should be an interesting journey.

I have caught this bug a few times in my life, and have enjoyed the search for all the little clues that have led to interesting discoveries.

Certain lines are easier than others. For example, my mother's side has been much easier to track because the majority have roots that land in England. On the other hand, my father's side is a mixture of native american, jewish, and english.

Anyhow, can't wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow I might find some small piece of information that will lead to one of my long lost kin.

We are all connected in this kindred web, hope to find you there.