"Welcome to the Weekend Chat!" All Members Invited!! October 30th - November 1st, 2020 [closed]

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CHANGE TO BEST ANSWER PROCESS:  After much discussion we have come to the conclusion that all answers in the Weekend Chat are of equal importance and weight.  So we are going to discontinue the Best Answer portion as it adds points and then takes them away from posters and is causing some hurt feelings.  So in the interest of everyone is equal and valued we will delete any best answers given which will deduct those points because it has been pointed out that to give everyone best answer is also not a viable option. 

Weekend Chat is for everyone. It's a place to catch up on what people are up to and to share what you've been doing.  New members can say hello, introduce themselves, ask questions, and meet each other.  Our seasoned members can share progress or successes from their projects, give tips and advice, or chime in on hot topics.

Post as many answers and comments as you wish. It doesn't hurt anyone to post a lot and enjoy the multitude of topics.

Enjoy yourselves and spread the love!

Comments

All this talk about Rosses makes me want to see if I have a connection to painter Bob Ross.

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I thought you only needed the upgraded licenses for international travel? Maybe I missed the memo. We've been putting that off as well, and my license expires in 2021 so I'll have to go get it taken care of soon. Plus you have to lug in all that additional ID proof as well, so it just sounded like a hassle.

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In CA all drivers licenses were automatically extended for 1 year. Mine expired in May and since they changed over to a real ID format I have to physically go to the DMV to have it renewed.

Except I can't cause the DMV is closed except for those who have prior appointments from before the shutdown. They also aren't excepting new appointments which is why they had to extend the renewal.

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Scott, Leilani, whatever they told me about it when I had my CA ID done (don't drive a vehicle any more so only needed the CA Senior ID) ... the only part that stuck in my mind was "Federal Limits Apply" 

Okay, well not getting on a international plane while still alive, guaranteed, nor a domestic one. (I don't say it will NEVER happen, because we all know you hex yourself when you say you will "NEVER...") ... ALSO I am not in favor of floating or flying and so avoid any such situations 

oh, and I guess that means I cannot enter a Federal Building ... ? Hmm. I can see where that could get dicey if I had to go into a USPS building or a federal courthouse or the IRS building or ... any other FEDERAL Building ...  had no difficulty getting into DMV 2010/12 anyway ... but DMV is State bldg ... hmm 

 Basically you just avoid all airports and ports and federal buildings if at all possible 

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International travel will still require a passport, domestic travel will require a real ID. They postponed the real ID requirement for now due to covid but only for a year. I have a valid passport and a global entry ID but I don't want to have to get a new license again in 2 years so I am upgrading now.

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M, not yet. I ordered them through a third party to get the lower price. Still waiting.

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 Leilani, Okay, I don't travel, anyway, whether domestic or international, not by plane, train, bus, or other vehicle including boat, ship, etc or even on foot. 

 I have mobility issues so travel is not on my list of Can-Do.  

I don't have a driver's license, I don't travel (because), and my CA Senior ID is good until sometime in 2026.  

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Pip, Our DMV is open for everything at this time. The bad news for us is the drivers exam part of our county DMV closed before the COVID shutdown and they have no plans to ever reopen. The good news is I can still renew my license locally if I wish but if anyone needs to take the driving test they have to go to a neighboring county for that. I have it on good authority that the driving test is much easier than before but I hope I never have to find out firsthand.

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I feel lost on this ID/Drivers license talk. I'm going to have to read stuff about it.

Pip, I try.the focus on one branch of the tree technique. Then somehow, I end up in a different tree, five acres away in the forest. Then I blame you. Because I get distracted. It isn't your fault. I just want to use you as my wikitree scapegoat.

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That’s ok, Paul. I can do that for you. 

Answer 1

Today is.....

           

   NATIONAL BREADSTICK DAY – Last Friday in October

National Breadstick Day recognizes the delicious goodness of dunkable pieces of warm and tender enjoyment. Observe this celebration annually on the last Friday in October. 

Breadsticks come in many forms. They can be soft or crunchy. Breadsticks can be flavored with garlic, onion, salt or cheese. They can also be sweetened with cinnamon and sugar.

They often accompany Italian meals. Pair them with pasta covered in alfredo or marinara sauces. Add them to a soup course. If you prefer, enjoy them with your salad. The aroma of fresh-baked breadsticks warm a home and improve every meal. 

Some recipes call for cheese. A variety of cheese options can be used. Other recipes add a little bacon to the dough for an even richer flavor. When it comes to dipping sauces, breadsticks satisfy just about everyone at the table. Restaurants and home cooks offer up cheesy, herbed and spicy sauces for dipping. If you can’t decide, order extra and try them all!

HOW TO OBSERVE National Breadstick Day:

It’s a great time to make homemade breadsticks. We even have a recipe or two for you to try. Experiment with herbs and spices while you celebrate. Invite family and friends over for a hearty meal and show off your breadstick-making prowess. 

If you’re not ready to break out the yeast just yet, order up some breadsticks from your favorite restaurant. Who do you think makes the best breadsticks? Make sure you give them a shoutout and celebrate with all the best dipping sauces, too. Use #NationalBreadstickDay to post on social media.

Homemade Breadsticks
Parmesan Breadsticks

Comments

Love parmesan and garlic/herb/cheese comes a close second. Good one, Dorothy!

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 DID find out that young male children age 10, 11 and even 12, think these breadsticks make GREAT ammo indoors and outdoors ... tsk 

They also taste good IMO 

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Mom (and the wife) would have killed me, Susan.

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Any **** friendly recipes Dorothy? Hubby is cutting back on carbohydrates. I LOVE BREAD!!!

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We just came back from grocery shopping and we bought breadsticks along with a LOT of other things.

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NOT if you ran fast enough and far enough, Pip, just pick up them feet and head out

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K E T O is a bad word? It seems to have been starred out above. I don't buy breadsticks. I can buy a dozen and they don't survive the ride home from the grocery store.

Answer 2

Counting 'down' to the 25 Million mark. What an achievement of all!

I have started to add my brickwalls to WikiTree. Hoping to make use of all the intelligent input from others to move the walls further back in time.

And started to play with the available open data. 2Gb files to process, just for one region and one type of deed. I remember the time when we thought 256 Mb RAM (memory) was massive

Comments

Kay,

They look like a sturdy pair of people. Hubby always wanted a Metropolitan. They are super cute.

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Need to be sturdy in that climate! Aunt Marian was about 6' tall. She wore size 11 shoes and a size 22 house dress. She taught me how to iron on her dresses, which were like ironing a sheet! Her parents and siblings were also tall.

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So true. and when you are working on a family and find siblings, how far do you with each sibling?That is why we call it a tree, the trunk is the main tree, but each branch has more and more branches. Lately, I have been working with my anniversary list, on each day, I pick a person to whom that day was significant and work on his or her family. At the end of the day, I move on, no matter how far I have gotten. It keeps it interesting. For instance, today was my husband's sister's birthday and the anniversary of her husbands father's death, so I focused on her husband's side of the tree. I added his siblings, made notes of their spouses, added some spouses when there was enough info about them. Then I moved up to his father and his siblings. I found that is father died young and he was raised by his mother's second husband. But i did not get into his half siblings or make a profile for the second husband. I just noted it.

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 Good system I think ... if I understood that .. LOL  

my own focus is a relative by blood and then their spouse and where known the parents of that spouse -- since the siblings of that spouse are not my relatives by blood they are merely noted on the profile of each of the parents of that spouse -- Any of the blood relatives OF THE SPOUSE are later orphaned 

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So has anyone figured out "who is the trunk"?

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aH, Michel, took me a bit there to figure out what you meant 

Like, no one mentioned (that I know of) the steamer trunk, although travel was mentioned; and no one (that I know of) mentioned a car trunk although cars were mentioned; then too I didn't recall any mention of trains and trunk lines; uh huh. 

FINALLY, finally, it clicked, tree trunk ... 

And, no, so far as I know, no one has pinned down the big daddy and big mama that would have had to exist prior to 0 A.D. -- I think 0 A.D. is as far back into time that WikiTree is willing to go ... 

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Susan,

You are way smarter than me. I didn't figure out the trunk thing. I'm guessing the trunk is an amoeba in the sea somewhere without a name or birth date so we can't add it anyway.

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The trunk could be the central person in the tree, for example; me; my ancestors are the branches and leaves, my descendants are the roots???

Or the other way around???? There are connections both before me and after me, to other groups of people. Of course right now I only have 6 direct descendants.

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Well, Betty if evolution is a fact, then yes, except amoeba do not have gender (xx, xy) nor do they have sex (what you do when you have gender) ... and amoeba are likely the most frequently and intensely observed life form ever ...

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MRoss, right, trunk of a tree has roots and the future is rooted in the past (Philosophy 101) ... 

Besides 6 can become 16 and 16 can become 39, and 39 can become ... so you yourself might have only 6 desc but who is to say they will not become 39? (in time, later) 

Answer 3

After our big snowstorm, the weather has been wonderful. I do a lot of duck hunting this time of year and the night time sky has been beautifully clear.  also nice because the wildfire smoke is basically Gone!

Genealogically, I have been correcting sourcing mistakes mostly with an emphasis on getting the Find A Grave sources  more precise and removing any Ancestry sources with FamilySource.org sources so I can see them again.

Comments

Finally! Your air is clearing. I am glad to hear that. How much snow did you get, Gurney? The earliest we'll get any is December.

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We got 6 inches but the areas where the wildfires were got over a foot.  they are not out but they are manageable right now.  With that being said, temps are headed into the 70's again and they could start growing again.  Also big wind predicted tomorrow

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Gurney, that upgrading of your profiles is a never-ending process I found out ... 

I am also pleased to note the reduced amount and even absence on some days of the smoke from the NorCal fires which the wind blows down the geological terrain of Central CA, funnels it through there ... NOT as bad as being on the spot or as bad as it was in a number of cities in CA, OR, and even WA, but bad enough ... thought we'd never seem blue skies again 

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Still waiting for winter in the Ozarks where we've just had a few frosts that one has to get up early to see.

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Same here, Pat. Two frosts so far and gone within a couple of hours.

Answer 4

Well it is cold and wet here in Northeast Ohio. They are mentioning the S word for Monday but not much and just in the morning. The son who had COVID got the all clear from the county health board Wednesday but his employer is making him stay off work until next Thursday. He will be paid for that time but he is already complaining about completing his entire to do list and feeling bored. As of yesterday there is a big block of counties here in Ohio on the level 3 alert for COVID. 4 is the worst, and we are in one of the counties at the level 3 point. Cuyahoga county, where Cleveland is, is flirting with going to level 4 and that could trigger some shutdowns again if that happens.

Not much to report as far as genealogy goes. Yes I have worked on some profiles and reduced my watchlist a bit more but nothing earthshaking. Later I am going to stream the first episode of season 2 of "The Mandalorian". but other than that I am just staying at home and relaxing as much as possible.

Stay safe everyone.

Comments

The "S" word. That's how my wife feels about it. Our warm front passed through yesterday and it was about 42 here this morning. 

We're not anticipating a more stringent shutdown locally, but out county follows the governor. It's wait and see. Really glad to hear your son is all clear. If he gets really bored, have him give us a call. We have a very long list.

Answer 5

Weather!!  Last weekend we didn't get above freezing and we got 10+ inches of snow.  Today will be in the 60's and next week we're in the 70's ... crazy times.

Good news is all of that snow slowed down the wild fires.  The bad news is that it didn't put them out totally and, also, with all that snow the fire fighters had a hard time getting around and some of their large water containers froze up.  They're thinking that we will have several days without much fire and smoke.

Comments

Bob, here's hoping that the snow will at least slow things down, fire-wise, so that the firefighters can get a a jump on containing those fires. At least your air quality should be higher for a while.

Answer 6

Am I early enough for ya this week? GOOD!

What is up, Wikipeeps? It's actually snowing here this morning. I can't think of the last time it actually snowed the day before Halloween. Weird.

Anyway, on the genealogy front this week we have a new #52Ancestors blog about how one incident could have changed the course of family history and send Doc Brown into a frenzy. Great Scott! https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2020/10/52-ancestors-week-44-scary-stuff.html

That's heavy.

Be sure to tune into the WikiTree Youtube Channel tomorrow at 10 am est because we'll be comin' at ya live and in costume! I have my costume all set. =D It's gonna be a great stream! I've even prepared an intro for it. MWAHAHAHAHA! I hope everyone enjoys it!

Dani Laird has also helped me to uncover more children for Leon Hamel, my 3x great-grandfather. I haven't gotten around to adding them all, yet. But, I will! 

On the non genealogy front, I took care of the garden before the snow came. All veggies removed. The garden will see life again next May. 

OH! I forgot to mention that I've been invited to be on the Family History Fanatics stream. I should be on there in a week or maybe the week after with my buddy Greg Clarke! We'll be discussing Wikitree and probably accomplishing nothing. Just like tomorrow will be when Pip and I share the screen together. =)

That's not foreboding at all....

Comments

Great story and a great find with the newspaper article, Chris. I really enjoy reading your blogs. Your genealogy is so much more personal.

You've had snow already? I heard you might get some this week.

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Had it? It's still snowing! Feels like we skipped November. It's about on par for 2020.

Glad you liked the blog. I always try to add a personal touch to these stories.

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Snow in October. Yes. I remember snow on Halloween and following deer tracks in the snow on Nov 1. Both of those in upstate New York.

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Snow is just really rare on Halloween here. It finally stopped and I cleared what I could. The rest will melt.

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Chris: I really enjoyed your blog. Thank you.

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Glad you liked it! =D

Answer 7

On this day:

1864: The Second Schleswig War ends

1905: Tsar Nicholas II. signs the October Manifesto which is more or less a draft for the 1906 Russian constitution

1973: The first bridge over the Bosporus is opened, connecting the European part of Istanbul with the Asian one.

Comments

All three of these are great, Professor Jelena. I'll have to not just pick one. Makes for good late night reading.

Answer 8

目前是3°C，在伊利堡陰。天氣預報說一夜會下雪，我們一定會很快下雪的，但是今天不是那天！

我一生的光和我的眼睛的喜悅帶進了她冬季的所有農作物（紅薯除外，因為紅薯沒有足夠的時間生長，更不用說治癒了，而天氣還很溫暖。堆肥箱很可能會給嬰兒地瓜一個零食（它們是可愛的小東西）。

BBC新聞提供了本週對家譜的痴迷，後者報導了領導中國航天計劃的錢學森的故事。在將有關該故事的鏈接添加到他的個人資料之後，我看了看他的Wikipedia條目，其中有幾處提到他的親戚。 （對他的父母而言，不是可悲的。）他表弟錢學榘的Wikipedia條目有更多的家庭參考（實際上是他的整個家庭），包括聲稱他是錢鏐的後代。 ，他的年齡在852至932之間，所以，想像一下，如果追查了該血統，可以在WikiTree中添加多少個人資料！ （我希望我花時間學習中文！）

Comments

好吧，格雷格，我希望您能下雪和降雪。 我以前只是看天气预报看天气预报，但是现在是跟上我所有的WikiTreers。 （WikiTreers没有中文字符。）

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Ah, but Pip, we have lots of internet translators :)

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Bob, I guess we'll have to come up with our own character for "WikiTreers."

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由于“ wiki”来自于“ quick”一词，因此我认为“ WikiTree”将类似于“ 快树”，而“ WikiTreer”将成为“ 快树人”。

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那可行。 快树！

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Greg, I put your text into Google Translate and I got a little lost. When you were writing about Qian Xueje, Google Translate wrote,

"His age is between 852 and 932 so imagine how many profiles can be added to WikiTree if that ancestry is traced!"

Did Google Translate get it right? Was he over 852 year old?

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Oh, wow! I've been told that my (actually Google Translate's) Dutch is really good. But apparently, it doesn't work so well with Chinese. The back-translation is rubbish. Here is a closer approximation of what I entered into Google Translate, together with the links I added in manually:

Currently it's 3° C and overcast in Fort Erie. The forecast said that it would snow overnight, and we will definitely have snow sometime soon, but today is not that day!

The light of my life and the delight of my eyes has brought in all her crops for the winter (except for the sweet potatoes, because they did not have enough time to finish growing, let alone cure, when the weather was hot enough. The compost bin is likely to get a snack of baby sweet potatoes (they are cute little things).

This week’s genealogical obsession is provided by BBC News, which posted a story about Qian Xuesen, who led China’s space program. After adding a link to that story to his profile, I looked at his Wikipedia entry, which mentioned some of his relatives. (Unfortunately, not including his parents.) His cousin Hsue-Chu Tsien's Wikipedia entry has more family references (actually a whole section on his family), including a claim that he is a descendent of Qian Lu, who lived from 852 and 932, so imagine how many profiles coul be added to WikiTree if that lineage was traced out! (I do wish I had spent time learning Chinese!)

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(Qian Xuesen's profile definitely needs help from somebody who actually knows Chinese. In retrospect, I can't tell whether I told Google Translate to use Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese. But since he was a party member, I definitely should have used Simplified. [It's kind of sad when the character set you use makes a political statement.])

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Well, I created a profile for Hsue-Chu Tsien to go with the profile for Qian Xuesen, but none of the sources I've found actually give the names (let alone dates) of either of their fathers, let alone their shared paternal grandfather, so I can't connect them to each other. 

Actually, it looks like the only reason that anybody knows that the family is related to Qian Lu is because Hsue-Chu Tsien's son Richard Tsien won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2008, so Sina.com ran a story on his Chinese heritage. (Even that story doesn't list any names in the lineage!) I haven't been able to find a source in English with names or dates.

(I should also point out that I'm not so up on Chinese scientists that I recognised Qian Xuesen's name right off and knew just where to look for his WikiTree profile. Rather, I had previously gone looking for rocket scientists from different countries for the Quest for Great-Grandparents: Rocket Scientist Edition. I am a serious space nut. Could you tell?) 

Answer 9

 FINALLY you're here !! Been sitting on the edge of my chair all night (when not asleep) WAITING for you to open the doors ...  

WIKITREE Glitch(es) .... the one that concerned ME (but not urgently) was the one that occurred when I clicked on "Merritt" on my Watch List to find out the roster of "Merritt" profiles I have .. and ended up with the Merritt Project and no roster. NOT what I wanted.  Tried 4x and finally concluded that it was "THEM" that was the problem, those WikiTree bugaboos, NOT me.  [A bugaboo is an object of fear, alarm, like a bugbear] and I posted at G2G (despite my vows) about the glitch ... huh.  Found out it had already been reported several times and would be fixed when it was fixed and not before then ... 

Today, at 6 AM my local it IS fixed, hallelujah ... and I have three on the roster for MERRITT ... now all I need do is discover if William Merritt-5128 is related to Naomi (Merritt-5049) Pridgen in any way whatsoever ... both are Georgia natives ..... 

Later: AND after a teejus search high and low, voila,I discover they are indeed relatives ... fruits on the branches of the same tree.  woohoo. 

Even Later: And I look at the number of profiles to be created to make that obvious ... more woohoo ??

Later than that: Working away at it and find out that even though I DID CHECK and did not discover William S(lone) Merritt in the index, I still managed to create a duplicate so I have applied for a merge ... we shall see how that goes ... 

MY consolation to encourage me to continue is that they are connected to my father's granny Delana Caroline (Wooten) Bennett Smith ... 

WEATHER -- freaking cold after a LONG HOT SUMMER ... IT was all of 44 deg here at 5 AM something like a 10 deg drop from the previous day ... let us freeze together? 

EMAIL from cousin who casually tossed off that her bro in OR was burned (out) and the one in FL was drowned ... I replied with sympathy for their loss of all their worldly goods and the hopes everyone was still alive and uninjured?, and she admitted to hyperbole, actually, neither one suffered losses of any kind ... which to be sure is better news otherwise she might find herself sending care packages & money and opening her back bedroom to one at least complete with his family 

Admitted, if hyperbole were outlawed, I'd choke on frustration since I have been known to wallow in it myself 

Think that covers all the 'news' ... 

HOMEFRONT -- Oh, the Notary Public came to the house yesterday and there we three sat, all masked up ... 200 sheets of paper at least in the package, and we had to sign and / or initial at least 100 of them, each of us, maybe as many as 180 ... finger cramps, elbow pain, back pain, bun pain (chair not the most comfy ever designed) ... bonus is that we get our own to-be-cherished package of 200 sheets of paper 

Had to fend off the curious cat, SHE wanted to get up there on that bit of table and find out what what what .. not a good idea, Cat, OUT you go, and the Sig O put her out the back door 

Adios, adieu and stay masked ... 

Comments

You, Susan? Hyperbole? Nah. 

You didn't let the cat sign and initial, too? Sounds discriminatory to me. I once asked the wife if our dogs could put their paw prints on a refinance (talk about paperwork and signatures!),She was not amused.

Answer 10

We had our first snow of the season on Monday.  It was very pretty.  The next day we woke to a layer of ice on everything which made it slick to drive to work.  Many trees still had their green leaves so I hope they make it through okay.  Today we expect to get to the upper 60s and sunny, which is normal for us here.  Hope all have a great weekend!

Comments

This is our Autumn Blaze maple in our front yard.  It turns a beautiful orange and maroon each fall.

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Michelle, I love snow (but the wife sure doesn't). The tree is beautiful. I'll  have to get a photo of our pistache tree. It was the most beautiful or all our trees this year. Our red maple disappointed us.

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Nice picture! We have mostly oaks.

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Beautiful! On one hand I miss the snow, but on the other hand....

Answer 11

Buenos dias a todos from Tucson, Arizona! It's 9am and 65F (18.3C) and sunny this morning. The expected  high will be 86F (30C) today. We had freezing temperatures the other night. It's been a weather roller coaster here. 

I spent the day yesterday in a physically distanced manner with mask meeting with my neighbor. We are both working at the local poll precinct on Tuesday. She is a supervisor. I will be an ipad clerk (telling people where to go if they are in the wrong precinct). We have to be at the precinct on Monday at 5pm to help set up. The be at the polls at 5am. The polls are supposed to close at 7pm; however, we stay open until the last voter votes. Wearing masks, face shields (made smiley lips for mine), gloves and plenty of hand sanitizer for all. I also got Hershey's kisses for the kids (small ones, but there will likely be big kids who want a kiss, too).

As to genealogy, I have a really great story that I am also thinking of posting on G2G for all to enjoy. A couple of months ago, I started working on the Hadley/Clapp family of Boston and Brookline. It was a convoluted and conflated mess. So, I turned to the less convoluted and conflated Baldwins and Greens. In mid-October, I returned to the Hadleys, et al. Turns out Moses (the progenitor) had TWO wives and daughters with the first and about 6 or so kids with the second. Most were new, but some (well all) profiles were incomplete without bios, maybe a sentence, a whiff of GEDCOM...you get the picture. So, I did biographies, in-line sourcing, etc. for Moses, his wives and children and their husbands/wives. I also added photos where are could find them that were open access because I like my profiles to look pretty...sorry Pip, no kilts. WELL, two nights ago, I checked my university email and found a message from the Curator of the Walpole Historical Society! I have cut and pasted what she wrote because really, it's not just for me! She made me realize how important our Wiki-work can be for others! Here goes:

Hello, Carol,

I discovered your posting in Wikitree regarding Susan Hadley. I have been researching Moses Hadley and the Hadley family for a number of years and found your posting an interesting one. My interest in the amazing Hadley family is because I have spent many years investigating the mystery of who took the only photograph of the Amherst MA poet, Emily Dickinson. In the Massachusetts Historical Society resides a whole plate daguerreotype of the Hadley family, showing Moses, most of his daughters, and the husbands of the married daughters. They are seated around a table over which is draped a unique textile table cover. That table cover also appears in the one image of Emily Dickinson. The table cover is our single best clue to when, and by whom, Emily's image was produced... and the Hadleys are playing a huge part in providing some clues to the mysterious photographer who took Emily's image, and the Hadley photograph in Boston.

I responded to the Curator's email and will be obtaining copyright permission from the Massachusetts Historical Society to obtain the scanned image of the Hadley family from her to add to our Hadley family profiles for all to enjoy! Isn't that awesome? We have already begun a nice e-conversation. Truly, this is a gift for all of us knowing that there are people other than genealogists, who are benefitting from the work that we do! 

I also mentioned to the Curator that Otis Clapp is my 5th cousin (which I did not know until I wrote and in-line sourced his profile). He is now a Notable. He married Mary Hadley. Otis was a Boston bookseller, a Swedenborgian, Massachusetts state lawmaker, a co-founder of MIT and the first orphanage in the U.S. AND he became a homeopathic pharmacist and co-founded the Homeopathic Medical College at Boston University. And over a century later, what was I doing? Double blind research on the use of homeopathic remedies for young adults with coffee induced insomnia and women with fibromyalgia! My colleague, the Principal Investigator, is a brilliant woman who is from Boston, got her AB at Harvard, then went to Stanford for her MD, PhD. She is a homeopath. 

That's my exciting news for the week. I won't be doing any Wiki-work on Monday or Tuesday this next week. I do encourage all of you to VOTE (VOTA). Think of all that our Revolutionary War ancestors fought and died for. 

Have a great weekend! Stay safe and healthy. Hugs to all!

Comments

A Swedenborgian, you say? Now that's interesting. You don't run across that very often. I have a book about Swedenborg in my library. Interesting guy.

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I bet you'd love to see that photo, Carol. Actually... so would I! Great work on the Hadleys!

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Hi Eric,

I didn't know much about Sedenborg until I did the work on Otis Clapp. Weren't some of our 19th century people influenced by him? Like William James, his brother Henry, etc.?

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Hi Pip! Thanks! I'll do my best to get permission from the MA Historical Society and post it on the relevant Hadley profiles if I do. I have to take care of voting activities first, though, so probably won't know until mid-November.

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Fantastic news all around, Carol, read it with great interest

Answer 12

Hi from southern Ontario;

What's happening here, now it's winter, yes, it's snowing! We have lake effect snow forecast for today, maybe tomorrow and definitely for Sunday, maybe 10-15cm by Monday. Places north of us could get up to 30cm. 

This week we bought 2 mirrors and a microwave, the mirrors are for 2 bathrooms that will be redone, the main floor bathroom painting the trim and door and then putting paintable wallpaper for the walls and ceiling, the wallpaper for the ceiling looks like an old tin ceiling. 

The other mirror is for the ensuite which will be completely gutted I hope in the new year, removal of the huge bathtub, and creation of a walk in or roll in shower, for when we get decrepit. Hopefully a long time from now. 

Our microwave has been behaving oddly since an unnamed person forgot to use the popcorn setting and the inside walls turned brown, on Sunday when I turned it on there was an orange glow inside, so it had to go. 

WikiTree progress: I continued working on my suggestion list, now 800 less suggestions and only about 4300 left. That meant I did make over 1000 contributions for October. First time and I'm not sure it will happen again. I have scanning to do. 

In my DH tree I finally found a good source that completes the link between him and Sir Matthew Boynton 1591-1697 a 9th great grandfather, he is on WikiTree (Boynton-1109) there are only 4 children listed, (3 have PMs and one is an orphan) and several missing, his son Marmaduke was the 11th child of 12, born 1632, in Elvington Yorkshire, died 1686. 

The oldest son Francis Boynton (1618 - 1695) became the Baronet and Marmaduke married a local girl of a good family, however 2 generations later his grandson was a blacksmith, the next generations were all tailors, then they migrated to Canada and married into the Peacock family (Peacock-3531) who was the fellow who fought at the Battle of Waterloo and whose sword is hanging on my living room wall.

Now I just have to document it!  

Other stuff: I'm not happy, the repaving of the street has finally been finished but it turns out that the people who repaved the drive managed to damage the water shutoff, it was full of asphalt and couldn't have been turned off if needed. That repair meant digging a hole in my 3 week old drive, which now needs patching. Then a delivery truck snagged all the hanging cables for phone, internet etc. which had not been reburied yet, so no home phone and no internet for 2 days. And the cables cannot be buried until April at the earliest. 

Comments

Unnamed person, but heavily suggested? I, too, am the one who gets the blame. When it comes to microwaves, though, I swear that they die well before I can cause the damage.

Your road work and subsequent problems sound just like the work that goes on here. We have a under the road right at our drive that was supposedly fixed last year. Guess what. A new hole has opened. It's been two months or more and no one has come to check on it from the highway dept.

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MRoss,  I'm almost afraid to ask why you accumulated a Suggestions List of 5,000+ ... but I'm curious ... was it gedcom related ? 

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I adopted 192 profiles on Oct 1, they were profiles created by my DH 4th cousin, most of which had not been edited since she uploaded a Gedom Jan 2012. 

3 are regular suggestions, 4344 are because i added profile completeness, as you can see in this image the reasons for for the profile completeness suggestions are for confidence level statuses not being set, missing birth and death locations and short biographies. A lot are for profiles from the adopted profiles. Some are from profiles I created when I was a newbie and didn't know to check off the 'certain' or 'not certain'  box for facts. 

Fixing these is how I ended up with over 1000 contributions for October. I don't do them one at a time, I go to the profile for one suggestion and then fix everything needed in one edit.

M 

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 Okay MRoss, it makes sense now thank you for explaining -- 

 I'm guessing that for my own part I do NOT have the profile completeness option in operation ... 

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There is somewhere you have to add it, can't remember quite where right now.

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MRoss, I have the feeling judging by comments that I would find myself overwhelmed and daunted if I added Profile completeness ... 

Genealogically Defined is my speed ... Genealogically Defined

Answer 13

We had snow, last night, here in Bramans Corners.  I picked the last of the broccoli sprouts, and will cut a few cabbages, as soon as it warms up a bit.  It's supposed to be below 20F, tonight.

I'm still working on my Schlenker and Bowes relatives, mostly in Canada.

Comments

Welcome in the Weekend Chat, Mark!

Scroll around and get to know the people who make WikiTree a great community.

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<sigh> Marl, while my wife doesn't appreciate the snow, I'm eagerly awaiting out first. But, that'll be at least two more months from now.

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Bramens Corners, that's in NY ... had to google to find out ... google telling me it is Bramen Corners ... picky, picky, picky ... Schenectady County ... I'd love to know how to pronounce THAT ... apparently associated with Joseph Braman ... 

Mark, are you acquainted with Virtual Hike to Braman Corners, New York | Braman's Wanderings ... has some bits of history on the website 

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Hi Susan,

I live just up the hill from The Braman House.  Joseph Braman's profile is here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Braman-72

He was a fascinating fellow.

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 Speaking as a female, Mark, I was told by my mama that if I knew what was good for me, I'd avoid the fascinating ones, (and the ones in law enforcement and the military.)  Sad to say the charisma does not come across in the profile on WT, but I don't how to fix that -- excerpts from letters, perhaps, something in his own words about himself ? 

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Sken eck Ta di

Other counties are Indian names (Oneida - o nigh da: Cayuga - k you gah)

Better yet is Skaneateles... skinny atlas

Lowville is lough vil not low vil

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 Ah, so, Kay ... I did try that up-and-coming thing of reading by phonetics - 

 Well, reading by phonetics was up and coming back some 40 or 45  years ago, which is the last time I grappled with the educational system - phonetics and that strange weird "new math" ... well, LATER there was all that fuss and flap about converting the US to the European system of measures and THAT effort DID meet with a massive grass roots resistance -- also have not seen the New Math around for a few decades so maybe US educators gave up on THAT ... phonetics, now that has proven somewhat useful to me and to others ... 

Admitted the 8 bytes and 16 bytes and the binary 01010101 stuff requires an Act of Faith to deal with it ... I had NO faith in New Math, none. And I pretty much ignored the metrics or whatever that was ... another generation or three USA might be fully on board with it, though 

The thing with the phonetics is you need a dictionary that explains the marks there and you have to remember what a consonant is and tinker with where to split the word when you have 2 or 3 consonants successively ... 

There's always always always a pothole on the road of progress 

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I have cousins in Lowville.

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Welcome to the chat Mark. I grew up near Syracuse (Camillus), went to college at SUNY Albany, then lived in Rome.

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I too had to look up Braman Corners, turns out to be 50 km from Cherry Valley where my DH's ancestors settled in about 1768, we know they bought land there in 1773, and left for Upper Canada in 1778

Answer 14

Greetings from Everett, Washington!

Good morning (!) I forgot it was Weekend Chat time.

What's new?  Already this morning I've done a lot of work on my ancestral Brown profiles from Washington County, Tennessee.  I had my first heart-in-mouth moment soon after I joined Wikitree in 2018.  Someone disconnected Abraham Brown from both his wives and all of his children.  Many many thanks to Ron Rowland for restoring the connections.

Last week I rediscovered the binder of Brown family information containing the extensive photocopying I did from the book (Ancestors and Descendants of Abraham Braun/Brown the Miller and Jacob Braun/Brown the Wagonmaker) in Salt Lake in 1988.  I would have copied the entire book if they'd let me.  Today we have it digitally linked to the Wikitree library. This is one of those sources that's a pain to cite because of the long title and also because it's divided into two parts with different page numberings.  Today I have been adding the Part, Chapter and page number information to the profiles.  I (and those who come after me on Wikitree) will never run out of descendants to add from this book.  But they could all benefit from the better sourcing we have today that was not available to the compilers when it appeared in 1983.

I hope I can find a direct line female descendant in the Brown family who, I hope, has gone the mtDNA route that could possibly give us a clue to some of the unknown female LNABs.

Today I will be helping my daughter design and carve pumpkin faces.  My son is going over to his client's house for whom he does home health care and together they will be doing the same.  My son has a big bowl of candy set up and of course he will end up eating most of it.

This past week a distant cousin from British Columbia contacted me after she found her grandfather's profile.  Her grandfather (Robert Lee Nosler) was a lighthouse keeper in BC about 1920.  The cousin and her mother run a gift shop and so we have been chatting about our lighthouse gift shop here in Mukilteo. Last night I attended the Zoom board meeting with the Mukilteo Historical Society and made plans for the sales in Nov/Dec at the gift shop.  We expect good returns considering the success of the Labor Day sale.  Also the roof is now done and it looks beautiful since the gutters were removed and we can see the roof lines better.    

Anarchists smashed off and stole the bronze plaque commemorating the 1855 Point Elliott Treaty at the Rosehill Community Center.  They sprayed anti-police tags on the damaged stone marker.  This has got to stop.  Our Mukilteo police are well-liked and I doubt it was done by anyone from the community.

I am going to write my next article about the history of the boat launch ramp at Lighthouse Park.  My husband has a beautiful color postcard from 1957. I am sorry but I find uploading images to G2G is too complicated for me.  I know it's been explained many times but the deal is getting the image online and then copying and formatting it.

We put our ballots in the drop box last week.  Over 50% of registered Washington voters have already voted.

For the moment we have our little home fire burning and prayers for faith, hope and charity (especially the latter, which never fails) are needed for everyone.

Comments

Margaret,

I dropped my ballot in the box a week ago. I'm hoping that the graffiti will stop after the election. It's been over a hundred days of rioting in Portland so far.

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The plaque damage just makes me angry! I can only imagine the strength of your feelings, it being so close to home, Margaret.

Is the historical society's gift shop online?

Answer 15

Virtual Vacation!

Who has been here and where are they? I visited these places in 2010( #1) and 2011( # 2 and 3)

#1

#2

#3

A hint they are all in the United States.

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Been there only in a virtual reality. I've been to the mountains just east of Denver, Colorado. What a thrill for a teenager to see snow on the 4th of July! Too old to climb them now. But the internet is full of virtual vacations.

All three are in someone else's backyard. My backyard, just past our lower driveway gate, reminds me of WikiTree, a forest of trees:

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So, my guesses:

1. Yellowstone Canyon, Wyoming

2.  Long House, Mesa Verde, Colorado

3.  Hoodoo, Bryce Canyon, Utah

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I agree with Bob on #2, it's Mesa Verde. But I live in Colorado, so we get used to seeing photos of that.

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Great pictures. I agree with Bob. We visited Yellowstone on an RV trip in 2010, and Mesa Verde and the Utah parks on another trip in 2013. Have been trying to get another trip our west into our schedule.

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M, you take fabulous photographs!

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Yup, Bob gets 95%

Correct #1 is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

#2 is Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde, we were there in mid October 2011 and Long House was already closed for the winter.

Correct #3 is Bryce Canyon NP

We drove from home just outside Toronto to Yellowstone in September 2010, via Badlands NP, the Black Hills, then Grand Teton plus other places on the way back.

The 2011 south west trip was 3 weeks, and it was marvelous, we would love to go back there are still so many other places to see. One place I always recommend is Biosphere 2 in Arizona just fascinating.

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 Gorgeous looking, Pat, just gorgeous ... I am filled with envy ... we get yellow, brown and down it all comes to the ground to blow along the street and pile up in front of a house 4 houses away from us ... but no reds, nothing but brown and yellow ... bummer when I see what you have there 

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" M, you take fabulous photographs!" Thanks Pip it's my other obsession. 

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It only lasts a few days if the weather is cooperating. Glad I was able to grab a picture.

Answer 16

I went to town for the first time since COVID started. Had to sign papers of our new used car. The social distancing was refreshing but I never did like crowds.

Been working on the FISHERs this week. Seems I got stuck in a loop. I added the children and most of the spouses, but can't seem to get going on the grandchildren.

Comments

Pat, I worked on a Fisher family recently, and I thought I'd never get through with them. These weren't even directly related to me!

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I'm not related to these FISHERs either. I had a couple that was unconnected that I inherited from a cousin. Took awhile to find the wives of their children. Parents are unknown so only way to connect them may be through the parentage of one of their wives. I worked on the GRAYs today. I'll get back to the FISHERs tomorrow and add as many grandchildren as I can locate. There's about 38000 profiles to top 25,000,000 profiles. Can we do that in a day or by the end of the weekend?

Answer 17

Good evening from Central Europe,

the numbers of Corona-infections are still exploding here. Based on the number of inhabitants, Belgium is the country with the most infections. There are hospitals over there that don't have any more ICU beds available. Here in Germany we are going into a partial shutdown from Monday on, which will be going for 4 weeks. Restaurants, touristical travels and cultural stuff are not allowed during that time. Professional sports can be done, but only without spectators in the stadium. Amateur sport is forbidden, many soccer leagues are wondering if they should start the winter break already now (in amateur leagues that usually starts at the beginning of December). I hope, together with our government, that the number of infections will decrease significantly from the 18k+ we currently have. In my county the average per 100,000 inhabitants rose tonight to more than 150. Urgh, I hate that.

On the family front we went in the next town to buy some Christmas presents for the Serbian kids (the author and his big sister). We want to send that early so they have their presents actually before Christmas. Other than that the week was quiet.

Genealogically I worked a bit further on the Tangermünde images and added some more profiles to branches that are still floating around the Tree, but aren't yet connected. And when I added a family, I was suggested a profile. He has an uncertain birthyear a year younger than what the actually was according to the indexed baptism entry I had found and a birthplace 10km away from where he was actually born. The only fact that pushed me away at first was that he died in South Australia. First I pmed the PM, but the longer I thought about it, the more I was sure he really belongs to that family. There were some people who emigrated to Australia from my extended family in Tangermünde, so that it seemed more and more likely to me. AND there is another good point to this: The guy with the already existing profile is connected to the Big Tree. So from tomorrow on, one of the floating branches won't be flying around anymore. Yay!

Stay safe and healthy, and you folks in the USA, in case you still haven't voted, please vote wisely.

Comments

Jelena, I have only bought two Christmas presents, and I really need to get on it. I'm pretty bad about buying late. My wife, in particular, is especially hard to shop for.

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I worked for Hallmark cards for 19 years at the retail level, you can sell almost anything to a human male on Feb 14 or Dec 24.

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Hi Jelena,

I have been following what's happening in Germany. We have friends who live in Rhein am Lech (? spelling) west of Munich and keep in touch with them. She grew up with my younger sister and we were supposed to visit this year! We were there in 2016 and that's when we drove to Aachen, then to Eguisheim (? spelling) on the French border to visit an exchange student and her family. This pandemic is a doozie (an expression that a philosophy professor of mine used to imply huge and beyond description). I will continue to send healing intention to all. Good work on your Wiki-work! Hugs, Carol

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 MRoss, low blow there ... "you can sell almost anything to a human male on Feb 14 or Dec 24."   

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It is a fact perhaps unfortunate but true. If you haven't been in a card shop on those dates, in the 80s and 90s and I could have added the Saturday before Mother's Day, its as if there was a mental fax sent to males that said 'Don't go home without it'

One Feb 14th in the early 90s, a small suburban store sold over 1000 $3.99 boxes of chocolates to men between 2pm and 7pm, I was there and the store won the add on sales contest for that day. It doesn't mean that there aren't men that buy cards and gifts beforehand, just that a large number of them don't.

I have often thought about writing a humorous book called 'From the other side of the cash desk' detailing what retail employees cope with from 'difficult' customers.

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Yay. Congratulations on the emigrant you found there.

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Thanks Flo.

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M - my father was a butcher and had a Red&White grocery and he wrote a very funny piece titled "Case-A-Lean and "Counter-Fit"

Answer 18

Thoughts are with everyone dealing with fires and hurricanes, and even snow.

Excitement for the week: the coaster stuck to the bottom of the coffee cup, made me jump and spill coffee (with Irish cream) on part of the desk and the keyboard. The keyboard seems to have survived just fine.

Reading about everyone's genealogy work makes me anxious to finish off my project and get back to genealogy.

Between Source-A-Thon and working on a list of possibly unsourced profiles, I have more than 3000 contributions this month.

I'm going to try and remember the weekly chat tomorrow (I usually forget) and hope to carve out time for some of the Friday Date Night.

Comments

Because coffee is a blessed liquid, you cannot destroy a keyboard with it. However, coffee abuse results in one year of lockup! 

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And as I learned when I was first working... you don't buy a cup of coffee, you only rent it for a short while.

Answer 19

Good morning from Eastern Australia. Thank you Pip and all who provided an enjoyable read for me post breakfast while I plan to get motivated for the weekend ahead 

We had good news this week - some of my daughters rang so we could all cry together when they checked if I had heard that the border opens at 1 am on Tuesday 3 November and so we can see each other again. I had not heard before they rang because I was distracted by my paying day job .

Anyway as much as it is tempting to head straight down and come back when the boarder opens (the restrictions were on us returning to QLD - 2 weeks mandatory quarantine at your own expense was required and you could only fly back) but that is not practical so we will not be road tripping until probably next Friday. So excited - will be removing my potential Greeter session on Friday afternoon in anxious anticipation. 

On the Wikitree front - I am stuck on both the Tartan Trail and the Orphan Trail. - no real progress for weeks. Am starting to think that level 3 may not be for me . Will persist for a bit longer and see how I go.

Personally my WikiTree profiles have also not received the level of love that is required this week either. I get side tracked so easily - I might have to embrace Pip's list idea. 

Weather has also brought excellent news - WE GOT RAIN!!!!!! It came with the odd wild storm and power outage but aye - cant have everything perfect can we 

Thanks again to all who drop by the weekend chat - I love reading your posts and comments and really enjoy your pictures. 

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Hi there, Rosalie! You’re finally getting birders open?!? Boy, that was a long wait. I hope you really enjoy yourself in your trip. I know it’s been a long time coming.

I did the Orphan Trail back before it was split into three parts. It was tough, but I had great trailblazers.

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My day off on Friday is already approved (is about a 5 and 1/2 to 6 hour road trip) so we can travel down then. 

We will spend the evening Friday and all day Saturday at my place in beautiful Bellingen NSW (google it Pip it is a beautiful little valley) and start back home to QLD on Sunday to feed the animals that are not making the road trip with us (Trixi the dog gets to go - the cattle and chooks don't). 

So excited - I have 7 children and their partners and 12 grandchildren (and the older 2 grandchildren's partners) down there to catch up with that I have not seen since early July.

Will be squeezing them all like tubes of toothpaste. 

Answer 20

US REAL ID FAQ etc -- REAL ID | Homeland Security  The purposes covered by the Act are: accessing Federal facilities, entering nuclear power plants, and, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft.

FAQ site -- REAL ID Documentation | Homeland Security

Well, I remembered better than I thought I did  Hot diggity !!

Comments

Thanks for this, Susan. I’ve bookmarked it.