"Weekend Chat" - All Members are Invited! (17-18 July 2015)

+29 votes
3.5k views
Welcome!  This is an ongoing "Chat" post that can be added to throughout the weekend.  All members of WikiTree are encouraged to join in, especially first-timers!
 
 
Say Hello and introduce yourself... where are you from and what are your interests?
 
Do you have any genealogy or research tips to share?
 
How can we improve WikiTree?
 
What do you enjoy most about WikiTree?
 
How do you spend your time when not online?
 
What's the weather like in your neck-of-the-woods today?
 
What did you do for fun when you were 18... music, cars, daring feats?
 
Do you have a unique pet?
 
Any great recipies to share?
 
... anything that you want to talk about!
 
 
Post answers here, comment on answers, up-vote things you like or agree with and have fun!  To receive notice when future Chats are posted, add Weekend_Chat to the list of Tags you follow.  You can edit your list by clicking on "My Feed" on G2G, then click to "add or edit".  Seperate words with and underscore.
in The Tree House by Keith Hathaway G2G6 Pilot (634k points)
Of course Anne would have played kick the stone.  That was a typical game in Bedrock! :D
Yes, and my younger sister had a snazzy red car that ran by foot power.
Maybe listening to rock music?  (I'm not actually sure if music was yet discovered in that era!)

It is Michelle , for kids AND their (grand) parents wink  Jabadadooo Anne sounds cool  cool

And Vincent this shuffleboard looks like the modern version of the old fashion Dutch game Sjoelborden !

And Lynette tried it 37 steps !

Bea, at least I tried! And kept t it till I remembered something!!
And this is the type of shuffleboards we had in the bars I worked in. http://www.olhausenbilliards.com/categories/2
Hey this weekend has been very profitable for me. I got some templates to use so I can have all my profiles uniform, now its just a matter of getting that done. I found two uncles in census that I had been looking for and hadn't found.

Lynette , Tried the Kevin Bacon connection I meant, 37 steps laugh Great shuffleboards you have, the sjoelborden weren't that smooth/shiny we always trew some babypowder on the board to get a better score. Happy for you this has been such a profitable weekend  ! 

Bea the shuffleboard tables aren't mine, just representing what we had in the bars. I worked alot of navy base clubs and you don't get between those old salts and their pool, darts, and shuffleboard games. We had a special wax for the boards that looked like sawdust. Made the boards really fast.

Should have said ''you have over there '' I guess, Dutch, so sometimes talk in riddles I guess cheeky Yes that's why we use the babypowder as well , to make the board faster , quite a competition here as well, sounds like a great job !

11 Answers

+18 votes
Good morning Keith and everyone!! Another hot day in store on the upper Mojave (near Death Valley and Mt Whitney in case your interested). Last week I adopted some Kees orphans and got some Smiths in the round up. the Kees/Keys were mine, and the smiths were too. Now, I have made it a rule, which has stood for the 36 years I've been doing genealogy, not to work on Smith and Jones or any of the top 100 common names unless there was just NO alternative. And now there appears to be no alternative and finding records for the 1700s is harder for me on the internet. I'm learning tho. At least my Green's have uncommon first names, except that every Green son of John Green and Elizabeth Wroten has a Barzilla, Erbin, Aqulla, and Henry. Some of the Smiths I collected in that round up appear to have been from bad merges, either in the personal db, or the import from ancestry or even here at wikitree. duplication/triplication of children's names, children under wrong parents (I just love it when the child is born before the parents and lives to be 120.) I may not know all the kids names, but I'm reasonably certain that if the child is born in the early 1750s and the parents are born in the late 1760s, something is afoul. So I have been adopting more Smiths then I really care about, merging what matches, unlinking from one set of parents and linking to another, based on OPR. And trying other sources to find correct parents that make better sense and notifying those PMs. And that brings me to a 3rd rant.. but I think I'll let it go for now.
by Lynette Jester G2G6 Mach 8 (83.2k points)
3rd rant...ch..ch..ch..3rd rant...ch..ch..ch..!
Vincent, have long have you been waiting to use that one? Nice beat tho.. maybe get a congo lone going?
I feel your pain -- But just think how great the site will be when it all gets "cleaned up.

Tips and Tricks Sources & cleanup

Only one is "required" however, I believe the "more the better".

Keep in mind that if your only source is an Ancestry Link (or paid site) -- this is not really a source but a "repository".  As many do not have subscription accounts at Ancestry (or the like paid sites), this information is not "viewable" even with the link used. and therefore you cannot even see "what family" is involved.

I made a little "template" like this: You can pretty much write a mini bio just from this.  Sometimes it is one source and in that case you can copy a <ref name="BMD"> in place of the beginning <ref>

Name -<ref>Source</ref>
parents -<ref>Source</ref>
Birth -<ref>Source</ref>
Marriage Spouse Name-<ref>Source</ref>
Death -<ref>Source</ref>
Sandy, Can I vote that the best answer? lots of activity today and I see I was posting while you were. But YES, I wil get some type of documentation on the Profiles I adopted. And I made a copy of your source codes.
Glad I could give you something useful.

Best regards,
You wouldn't happen to have a spare brain and and extra $1 million laying around would you? I need a clone.
I have done something similar.

My problem is finding the time to do the cleaning up of the profiles I manage.

Most of the time I spend on WikiTree is when I am greeting new members.

I am starting to get the hang of cleaning up the GEDCOM I imported but it was so large that I think it will take years to get everyone right.

I am trying to do it as I clean up my database on the computer.
Nope, wish I did.  If you find any out there, let me know -- I could use 2-4.  Sometimes I feel like a mouse eating an elephant.

Lynette (and anyone else),

You might want to take a look at the Holocaust Project's Profile Template.  It shows a sample profile in 2 different views - what you see on the editing page and what you see on the view page.  You can copy the editing page piece and paste it into whatever you're working on, then make whatever changes are needed to the dummy content to make it yours.

Thank you Gaile!! I copied it to Notepad.
I love Death Valley, although it is a "little" hot there. And what fun it is to stand in the lowest spot in the continental United States (Badlands Basin 282 ft below sea level, then drive about an hour and look at the highest place in the contiguous United States (14505 feet).
Anne, I'm about 80 miles to either place. I can see Mt Whitney from here. When I was a kid we built a house and Mom insisted a window be put in the kitchen where the sink was so she could see the peak. Or maybe she insisted the sink go under the window. Either way, she got her way. you can drive almost to the top of Whitney now. you should know Ridgecrest or aka China Lake then
Here the song that always brings that part of the world to mind for me:

http://wn.com/rolling_stones,far_away_eyes
+15 votes
Sources are important.  It's difficult to help explain or even understand the difference between a repository, a family tree, or bona fide legal documents for some people.  I say that because I still see references to family trees and websites with such information and there isn't so much push-back on this type of information being used as sources.  But the Wikitree is young and I guess this is just something that will need to be dealt with in the future.  I have no idea where I'm going with mentioning this but it is something to think about.

On a lighter note, I hope if anybody has any great recipes to offer this week you will also think about the ingredients in your recipes.  If an ingredient in your recipe is a "repository" of other ingredients then please offer another recipe.  For instance, if I say,  "I have a great recipe for beef stroganoff.  Brown 500 grams of ground beef in a skillet and add 1 box of Hamburger Helper mix, then add the envelope of handy dandy Hamburger Helper gravy.  Voila, "beef stroganoff".  This would be disallowed and no help to fellow cooks in other parts of the world.  Of course, some ingredients are either a complicated amalgamation themselves such as mustard and mayonaise and some leeway would be needed to allow such things.  One might also explain why you would use something pre-prepared and not bother to make that ingredient from scratch.

Also, it would be nice to hear of some type of food product available in your area that isn't so readily available elsewhere.  For instance, when I go to the normal grocery store in my neighborhood in Amsterdam there is such a fabulous offering of special types of cheese.  I remember a shop called Hickory Farms in the US and that food stuffs is just what is available at a normal grocer here.  For instance Gouda cheese and Heineken beer are for people that have very little money because these are examples of the "cheap stuff"! A Dutch person might say "that beer is like water and Gouda cheese has no taste!"  :D
by Vincent Piazza G2G6 Pilot (249k points)
The latest "can't do without" gadget I couldn't see living without is induction stove top.  Doesn't heat-up the kitchen, lightening fast, clean, doesn't mess-up the cooking pans and to top it off it's "cheap as chips" to operate.  Of course you'll need 330v in the kitchen or 220v back over there in the last millenium where you live.  Also they are relatively inexpensive here where there you'll have to shop for a proper deal.  If you can't find one pop into a Chinese Restaurant and ask them where they got theirs (they usually are up-to-date on innovations).  Don't pay more than $500!
Well, I refuse to turn on the oven unless its very late at night. And if and when we update the kitchen ... its something to consider. but gas in CA is a heck of a lot cheaper then electricity, for the present time. I don't relish the idea of going back to all electric houses. We don't have a 220 breaker. Everything is 110, standard household 2 prong or 3rd ground plugs.
Your house will be at least 220, at the circuit box its reduced to 110v for your normal outlets.  220v will be that big one in the laundry room that looks different.  They used to be in kitchens in older houses for the cookers. More modern houses in general have built-in ovens and you don't realize the oven is actaully connected via 220v.  Electricity works like engines in a way, the bigger the voltage the less stress on your power consumption.  Like the way a bulldozer can push over a tree but can't go 150mph vs. a Corvette which can't push over a tree but can do 150 mph. Induction vs. gas is like comparing an email sent from New York to LA against sending the same message by pony back express. :D  Or maybe the telephone vs. the carrier pigeon. :D  Or using a fire extinguisher to put out a blaze vs. praying that the fire will go out by itself. :D
OK, went out to the breaker box, there are 2 double switches. The Main says 100 on each flippy thingys. At least thats what it looks like in my early morning unfocused eyes. The Laundry room is also double and says 30 on the flippy thingys. All the others are singles and say 15 or 20. But every thing runs on 110 or 120 standard house hold outlets. Everything is gas with electric pilots, except the water heater, still gas, but has a lightable pilot.
Lynette,

The thingy dingies that you call "switches" are circut breakers and what you're calling "flippy things" are actually switches!

Your service (the word for the voltage that is delivered to your house) is 220 volts, 100 amps (short for amperes, the units of current), but all the connection spaces for circuits on the box are 110 volts.  That is why the main is a double breaker.  Any 220 volt circuits you need in the house also require a double breaker.

From your description, there is a 220 volt outlet in your laundry room because electric dryers all require 220 volts.  Since you have a gas dryer, you are probably not using that outlet, but if you look in the laundry room, you should see it - it is a much bigger outlet than the ordinary 110 volt ones.

The numbers that are on each breaker indicate the amount of current that is permitted to be carried on the circuit.  The wires that connect the outlets all around the house to the main power coming in are organized in separate circuits, with several (usually in the same room) chained together on the same circuit.  The thickness of the wire and its insulation are what determine the maximum amout of current that is safe to be transported over it.  If the wire gets too hot, it can start a fire.  This is the reason for having breakers - they automatically disconnect the circuit if equipment connected to the circuit is trying to draw more than the maximum current that the breaker is rated for.  Most things that require electricity in your house (lamps, clocks, computers, whatever) are fine with 15 amps.  A few things (like refrigerators, washers, for example) will use more than 15 amps - that is why you have some 20 amp breakers.  The 220 volt circuits typically have 30 or 50 amp breakers.

Does this help???
Kinda sorta... my younger brother is a retired journeyman IBEW and he's tried to explain it to me before. Its way over my head. I've seen 220 and even 440 outlets. We had 440s on interior poles in the buildings at Vought Aircraft (Grand Prairie, Texas) when I work there. Definitely not your standard household plug. But me and electricity... little bro says you just have to respect it. I do. I stay away from attempting to do anything besides plug something in. But like I said, everything in the house runs on standard outlets. I do remember as a kid, we had a 220 outlet, we had an electric stove and it was needed. I really do enjoy having both gas and electric. Should the electric go out, due to anything besides an earthquake, we can still cook by manually lighting.
Gaile, Gaile, Gaile,  That was so exact and spot-on!  Maybe you know induction cooking then.  Like the system works by using a magno-electrical circuit so when you set a pan of water for instance on the eye of the cooker, a magnetic connection is established and the heat is passed through the magnetic connection.  This means only the pan is heated and of course anything in it (in this example water).  This eliminates the waste of energy that a normal cooker creates as you will notice on a normal gas or normal electric cooker (also ceramic tops) that it gets hot in the kitchen when you cook.  With induction, you can put your hand on the eye of the cooker afterwards and it will only be warm and this from absorbing the heat of the pan.  If you lift the pan the magnetic field is interupted and electric consumption ceases.  Here's a video that shows it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SfbPHXOAtw

And there are nice ones (like the one I have, we'll actually I have 1 in Spain and 1 here) and not this little portable job like in the video.  Although it might be an idea to start with a portable one.  You'll never go back!  Unless gas is at least 4 times cheaper than electricity induction is far cheaper.
Vincent,

I'm an engineer ... even though I'm retired about a dozen years, I still have some minimal memories from the electrical and electronic portion of my background!

And yes, I also understand the theory and process of induction cooking, but you did a splendid job of explaining it - I don't think we want to get down and dirty into a technical discussion of it.

The only thing I would emphasize is that, to use induction cooking, you MUST have a completely flat bottomed pot that cannot be ceramic, glass, or stainless steel - it must be a conductive metal or alloy!
My brother and I have been talking about induction stoves or "hotplates". but my issue is.. while he's only experienced rolling blackouts. I was in the ice storm that hit Dallas, TX in Jan 1979. Over a week without electricty. We could cook because we had a gas stove. We had heat in the kitchen because of a gas stove, the furnace wasn't working enough. I think the gas company cut back on the gas to make sure there would be enough to accommodate the metroplex. An earthquake in CA might rupture our gas lines, we might still have electricity. It would have to be a really hard quake to break the gas and electric, like a 7, my area is notorious for 3s that we don't even feel. So induction might not be a viable alternative. And my last gas bill was $6 and my electric was $30.
Quality stainless steel works because it usually has enough iron in it to be magnetic.  When I went induction most of my pans worked and the ones that didn't work I remembered they weren't quite so good as the ones that did work.  And if you must keep a favourite pan like for instance a ceramic Corningware you can buy an iron disc to lay on the eye of the cooker to convert it to conventional heat.  I used to paint my kitchen (white kitchen) every year when I had a gas cooker and now my paint job is maybe four years old and the kitchen isn't particularly needing paint. (And especially because I only fry with olive oil and that goes quickly airborne and everywhere on a normal cooker, not with induction because of the absence of collateral heat).
+16 votes
It is still raining off and on in Northeast Ohio and I keep getting Flash Flood Warnings for my area so I am going to stay close to home (camper) and try to stay dry. I had some fish last night that did not agree with me so I am going to forgo any food posts today.  I am still spending most of my time on WikiTree finding and adding sources as I believe that that is the most important thing we need because how could you have an accurate biography without sources?  The other thing that I am going to be doing is planning for some antennas for my other expensive hobby of Ham Radio.
by Dale Byers G2G Astronaut (1.7m points)
At that rate, it went into someone's pocket. Ours is 36 a month and we are in a drought. so thats $400 a year. We only get about 3/10th of an inch average rainfall a year and thats a wet year.
The money is going to JP Morgan and a few developers got rich from the whole fiasco.

My water bill is similar to yours but there is a contribution to the maintenance of the dykes that is built into my water bill.
Had to close up the camper for a couple of weeks due to a major water leak in the hot water tank, and no at this time I can not just bypass the tank and do without hot water.  This is going to be a big costly job and until after the first of the month the money will just not be in our account to use for the parts.  the good news is I have a better internet connection at home so.
One of the disadvantages of campers is that it always seems like you have to use their parts instead of generic hardware like is possible in a house.  On a related issue, if you have a spare hot water tank (that doesn''t leak of course) you can hook it into your system between the source and your tank that is powered with energy.  This acts as just a holding tank for water before going into the water heater.  This gives you a reservoir of water that can warm-up without energy just by being in the tank instead of in a pipe in the ground.  Usually water coming from the ground is about 57F and water that sits in the tank should warm-up to room temperature 72 - 78 F.  It's cheaper to heat water from that temperature instead of the ground water temperature.  This works well if you have a warm basement and room for the extra tank.
Sounds like it's not a bad idea for houses that have the space, but I suspect that Dale's camper doesn't have a basement or any other suitable space for something like that.  Even if he did, it would still have to pass through his tank to be heated, so it wouldn't be able to bypass the leak he has.
You are both kind of right and also  both wrong Vincent and Gaile.  I do have some space under the trailer and most of the plumbing uses standard size pipes and fittings.  The big problem Is I only get paid once a month, on the 4th Wednesday and My girl friend only gets paid on the 1st and the 3rd so by this time of the month we are about out of money so even buying the fittings needed to bypas the water heater is out of the question until Thursday.  Thanks for the suggestions.  Tomorrow my son is going to look at the leak with me so we can figure out just what is needed to fix it.
I didn't mean for the camper.  I mean if you ever need to replace a hot water heater in a house (not in a camper) you can use this reservoir system to pre-warm the water.  It's not a big money-saver but shoud netto a house $50 - $200 depending on the specifics.  As for Gaile, she could get one put in her attic and it would probably get hot enough without even adding any energy.
Vincent, are you suggesting that the hot air emanating from my mouth would rise to the attic and be sufficient to heat the water?
No children, no fighting. Vincent in my case I have no attic at home and more space under my camper than I do at home.
"End of the World" sirens just went off again.  First Monday in August, 12:00, August 3, 2015  :D
+16 votes

Happy Weekend to All

 

I'm happy to announce that the One Name Studies Project continues to grow. There are now 225 members.

Vincent's earlier comment about sourcing is spot on. As for his Hamburger Helper analogy....hey some of us can't cook. I can tell you have been living in Europe for a long time Vincent...500 grams of beef???LOL

On to music....I just unearthed a treasured memory, ticket to my first concert:

image

 

Everyone have a great weekend!

by Doug Lockwood G2G Astronaut (2.6m points)
Yeah, I was going to ask how much was 500 grams... I would understand a half a kilo. My first concert was the Doors in 1968 in Santa Barbara, CA Price $5. and there were 4 other bands there too.
Excellent first concert!
Nice you were able to hang-on to that ticket stub, 44 years!
The Doors!  Wow, you should put that on your profile!
Just about a mile away, in another campground near us, there is going to be a music fest this weekend called the Grateful Fest with a lot of Grateful Dead cover bands this weekend.  I just might be able to hear some music from here.
Too bad I didn't find out about this sooner. I would have told my brother who is near deaf that he attributes to being too close to the speakers while a Deadhead.
The "Wall of Sound"!
The "Wall of Sound" was created by Bob Heil after the dead's sound man got busted for parole violation.  That was also the start of Heil Sound Company and all of their great equipment for both professional musicians and Amateur Radio Operators.  And yes I own a Heil mic.
+15 votes

Just had a bit of time again to connect here and do some updates.

I must admit - when I started many years ago collecting family info, I asked real live people (I know they can make mistakes) and these people were not always the ones that had documents.  Also in those days photography was expensive - you still had to have your films developed!  And some events, like deaths and births I simply experienced myself.

So now very little of my data has official sources behind it.  But to some extent I do understand the drive for documented sources.


I have also just connected with a once removed cousin of mine whe just started helping on Wikitree - Caroline Mae Brinckmann-26

[HOW do you quote somebody's name here in the chat???]

by Johan Potgieter G2G2 (2.9k points)
Gaile, It could just be someone new who does not understand how the "flag" works or when it should be used. They may think it is a good thing to flag something.
Well, in that case, I feel honored to be in such erudite company, Dale!!!

I just noticed that Vincent doesn't seem to be responding - I wonder if he has ptomaine poisoning just at the thought of my mother's recipe!
Gaile, Poveretta, I didn't know it was that bad.  But I do wonder if you've passed down this and similar recipes to your children.  "Cheese Food" you say?
I hope the source police flag me too. Because with my Dad being an orphan and not being raised around his father's family, I wouldn't have been able to find his family at all without some some of that first hand family. Altho I was told some things that were wrong, it was easy to tell they didn't add up. I still used that as a basis to find the correct information. what makes us good genealogists is the ability to sort the wheat from the chaffe. I've even found history books Namely the History of Butts Co GA... full of errors on the Jester family. I have found wrongfully submitted DAR papers. So those can't even be used as a good source. I have 3 death certs I know are in error. And I hope the person who flagged the messages were just trying to upvote them. Because when I started doing genealogy, I was told start with what you know, start with yourself, and work your way back. Well, I'm not old enough to be on the census yet and my parents barely were. And Mom, Daddy, and my aunts and Uncles filled in the rest. And you should have seen my aunt's tears when I told her the names of her grandparents and great grandparents. she barely knew her parents names. she was 3 and my dad was 8 mo when their father died and 11 years later their mother died. So I found some cousins and started asking questions, because even tho Daddy knew they were related, he didn't know exactly how.
I like first hand information (as long as it is really first hand I've seen some pre 1700 profiles with first hand information as source and thinking unless you reincarnated and remembered previous life it's not really first hand) but some of my first hand information has been more acurate than documentation. and some of the ducumentation census, death certificate, information comes from family members that make mistakes my fathers death certificate had his mother's middle initial as J on census it's L from the find a grave who's profile manager said she got information from realitive it's Louvene. On my parents marriage licence my mother told me my father gave a fake address because he worked for city of Jackson needed a Jackson address when he actually lived in a different city. On one census it has my father who went by Murrell listed as a female Myrtle (know its him because we know from him he had no sibblings and year for her was his birth year) and even tombstones can be off someone misreads information or maybe they are dislexic and switch up numbers in a year 1945 becomes 1954 etc etc you never know I think its better to have several sources but if you can't find anything first hand knowledge can be just as accurate as documentation. I do put on ones that I've used first hand knowledge the relationship example my brother ,for source I've put first hand knowledge from Charissa Currie (sister of Guy Farris)
The first hand statement in the profiles is a default statement. I wish I had a nickle for every mis-sexed person I've encountered on the census.
Lynette, we recently stopped using First Hand as the default, that is why the big surge in unsourced profiles.
I didn't notice the First hand statement being removed, since I have adopted a few that still have it and some of my own have it too. But I have noticed a few that say the Unsourced tag on them. And yes, some are mine. Working on it tho.
It is not being "removed". It is just not being added as the default "source" anymore.  The new default is to add the Unsourcde template if no source has been added.
On the ones that still say "First hand information as remembered" I highlight the "First hand i" and replace that with an "I" then I highlight the "as remember" and replace that with "ent" and that leaves "Information entered by....".
+15 votes
Hi All

I am a complete novice to WikiTree joined just a week ago.  I live on the outskirts of London (UK)..  The way that Wiki is structured is a great idea and one that I am happy to contribute towards.  I have been trying to build my genealogy tree for a few years now.

The idea of insisting on source information is great, as I'm am sure that many of us have followed an incorrect trail in our efforts to get more information.  I have decided not to upload my Gedcom file because of this and I am keying in my details and double checking as I do it.

The one bit of advice I would give anyone interested in genealogy is to speak to older family members before it is too late.  I started my tree after my mother passed away and the number of things I want to ask her about her past  grows the more I find out..

The biggest mystery I have found so far is that she was married before she married my father.  She also had a son that I knew nothing about.  Unfortunately , I found from researching that he died 2 years before I started doing research.  So I never met my half brother.

Well in conclusion I would wish everyone a great day and let you all know that if anyone wants any information on UK stuff or especially London I am happy to help out if I can. Right now back to entering my family now
by D K G2G Crew (650 points)
Did your half-brother leave a family?
Hey Dave you know how you English think Americans are a bit daft?  Ya'll aren't so wrong.  I always thought when I heard someone got sent to The Tower it meant they were locked in one of the Tower Bridge things (which like most Americans thought was London Bridge).  Or on the street crossings where it says "look right" and you think of course as you look left and step right in front of a speeding car and almost get run down.  But one of the funniest things I've heard a few times is "Is that in dollars?" when a tourst sees a price sticker.
No family that  I can find.  He died in hospital and death Cert was signed as being notified by a nurse.
Lol Vincent . Tower Bridge was only built in 1880's
Welcome aboard, Dave! :-D
Whereabouts on the outskirts of London Dave?
And the Americans already have one version of London Bridge, now situated in Arizona. I think that the story that Robert P. McCulloch believed that he was buying Tower Bridge is apochryphal - there's no real evidence to support the claim, and he himself denied it (which of course some people took as evidence that he did!)

I remember the day that the Arizona bridge was completed I was in class at my college and the tutor, whose husband was an engineer on the project, announced it. The college in question was in Tooley Street, overlooking Tower Bridge and downstream from the replacement London Bridge.
John I am  in Northwood, between Harrow and Watford on the Met Tube line.
Welcome Dave from sunny Gloucestershire.  I too decided not to upload my GEDCOM for much the same reasons as you.  Although slow going, it is definitely improving my family history as I check all my sources again and add information which I didn't enter when I first started out. Let us know if we can help with anything, it's a great community on Wikitree.
I've had a lot of chicken Fajita meals from that Mexican Restaurant in the parking lot across from PC World at Brent's Cross.  I like that area.  You can even find rural places inside the M 25 out there.
Dave, whilst for those of us on the other side of the river, that area is 'foreign territory' it happens that I used to have an office in Ruislip.

Vincent, yes there is a whole lot of rural country within the M25. There are peripheral areas of London Boroughs that remain quite rural and the M25 is beyond the boundaries of Greater London, and so you can find rural parts of Surrey, Kent, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex that are within the motorway's circuit.

Unfortunately, from the time I moved to the old County of London in 1956 until I moved away in about 2000, I witnessed first hand the urbanisation and infill between the outlying towns and villages and the core of urban London. In the 1950s to get to either Heathrow Airport or Gatwick, it would have been necessary to travel over many miles of open countryside - alas no longer!
Ruislip and Northwood are right next to each other(about 2 miles) There is still lots of open green land out this way. I live right by Mount Vernon hospital if you know it.
Yes I know. I used to have to duck when driving along from the M25/M40 towards the office when aircraft were landing at the aerodrome!
+11 votes
Good Friday to everyone!

I have been Jet-setting a bit lately but now, like Bea, am set to disappear into the wilderness for a couple of weeks.  No phone, no screens, no connection, no people (including family), no nuthin'.

I hear my favourite kayak calling to me now...

Mags
by Mags Gaulden G2G6 Pilot (638k points)
That sounds almost like Gilligan's Island... "no phone, no lights, no motor-car, not a slingle luxury, like Robinson Curuso, primitive as can be"

Have fun Mags!
At least my camper has a furnace, central A/C  Full size Refrigerator, stove, hot water, shower, flush toilet, Sat.TV, and at least some internet connection even if it is a little limited.

We even sleep in a Queen size bed and have dual recliners.
Oh I can sleep in a queen bed, but I prefer to sleep on a sleeper sofa in the front room with wrap-around windows.  Falling alseep under the stars never gets better!  As for the aminities?  There's a hot tub and Sauna - and I take a solar shower with me.

If it's gilligan's Ilse, than I am the Professor.

Mags
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale....

Wish you a great time and a lot of fun in the wilderniss Mags , really great eeh , no stress just relax and enjoy the ''nothing'' and the fun and exiting things like indeed kayaking , ''klootschieten'' and all other fun things one can think of living in the ''wilderness'' . Live is really great out there yes

quite luxury eeh, we've got a generator placed in a cellar like thing in the ground, but we all hate the noise it's making, so we only use it for the waterpump , if we would like to fill our swimming pool, takes ages with the ancient handpump and buckets. Cooking also is no problem of course and we have a small camping fridge , but that's about it. 

Before we could watch television with a large battery , but now indeed we would need a satelite and stuff. So we just got rid of the TV and now watch the campfire, or just like Mags , the stars, and fall asleep smiley

+11 votes

Hi Keith et al,

This is Claire from sunny Lake Elsinore, CA. The weather is pretty good, mid-high 80s right now, but the afternoon breezes will make the hot afternoon worthwhile. Tomorrow, my husband and I will go pick up trash for a couple of hours in downtown Lake Elsinore with a volunteer group. On Sunday, we hope to install a grey water system to filter our bath water for the trees in the front yard.

I am pretty new at this genealogy business. My father, who was an aerospace engineer, passed away and left me his compilation of records. :/ I'm an English Composition teacher and am pretty adamant about verifying sources; I think that I have my work cut out for me.

Here's a conundrum I've been working on: I have a many times removed uncle named Guy Chappel (Chapel) who served in the American Revolution in Connecticut in 1780. I can find his name, enlistment, and pension information in Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the I. War of the Revolution (...), but I can't find him listed in the DAR registry with any variant of Chapel that I could think of. Is it because no one has registered him or what?

 

 

by Claire Nava G2G6 Mach 3 (31.2k points)

Hi Claire and welcome to Wikitree , took over from my uncle, who, for many years was ''investigating'' collecting sources and making a wonderfull family genealogy , wish you a great time here and a great weekend of course smiley

+10 votes

Happy weekend everyone.  It's sunny but quite breezy this side of the pond.

I went into hospital on the 8th to have a total knee replacement - The plan was to have two weeks off work and get loads of genealogy done both on my family and on the Holocaust project but I was in hospital longer than expected and for the first three days I had trouble replying to texts from my children. Kept nodding off halfway through! I did eventually manage to get half my great grandfather's bio done offline, no wifi in hospital. I still have a tendency to nod off mid-sentence much to my daughter's amusment so not sure how much I'll get done before I start work again. 

It's a bit frustrating, I have to keep reminding myself that it's taken me fifteen years to amass all the family information I have, it's not going to take 5 minutes to get it all on Wikitree.  The knee is good though, solid as a rock instead of always feeling unstable and although still painful not like it was with the arthritis, hopefully once healed I'll be free of pain in that knee for the first time in 15 years. laugh

by Anna Hayward G2G6 (9.9k points)

Oh, Anna, I am sorry you had to go throught that, but sooooo happy to hear that now everything is going so well with your new knee!!!  I need one of them, too, and am not looking forward to the ordeal.

Here's something I just saw today that might bring a smile to your face:

Thanks Gaile that did make me laugh :) Only someone insane would look forward to surgery but it's worth it. My surgeon said I wouldn't be thanking him in 3 months, I think he was doing worse case scenario, but he's wrong I can already feel the difference so I shall thank him when I see him next and find out when I can have the other one done.  It's hard work, the rehab and will be fore a while yet but the end game of pain free and being able to do as much gardening and walking as I want is a whopping big carrot.

Work out all the ways your problem knee impacts on your life and keep the thought of it not being a problem anymore as the goal and you will do fine.
+10 votes

Good morning Wikitree members!

I was excited this week to confirm Chris Stutz [Stutz-85], someone who not only shares the same surname as I do and love of genealogy, but also owns a copy of one of the "holy grails" of Stutz genealogy research - the coveted "Stutz - Oetzel Family Genealogy" books. 

I've never seen one of those books before and the nearest one to me in Southern California is at the LA Central Library in their genealogy reference section.

 

 

by Judi Stutz G2G6 Pilot (320k points)
+7 votes

Good morning fellow WikiTree members!  I will be spending this week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, attending the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP).  If you've never attended a research institute course before, I encurage you to think about attending GRIP next year.  I can hardly wait for the sessions to begin!

by Star Kline G2G6 Pilot (715k points)

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