Weekend Chat Aug 28 -30, 2015

Question

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?

SHOW OFF THOSE OLD PHOTOS OF YOUR ANCESTORS IN THEIR MOTOR VEHICLES (cars, trucks, motorcyces, planes, boats)

Do you have any 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?

Do you have a unique pet?

Any great recipes 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".  Separate words with and underscore.

Comments

Keith and Gaile, I am seeing a trend this week with family members having medical emergency's. We have to remember that they always come first before WikiTree. I just hope everyone's family gets better soon and we all get back here ASAP.  As for my family, I was not needed to help out for the first time since Tuesday yesterday and took the time to rest up myself.  I will be slow for a couple more days but I have most of the greeter messages set to just cut and paste for the most part and already earned the Club 1000 badge so I can afford to slow down for most of the next week.

Answer 1

Keith must have had a late night yesterday so I thought I'd get this party started. OK gang....what's new?????

Comments

What a question!!!  I hardly know where to begin ...

The need to cope with a totally unexpected crisis was suddenly thrust upon me Monday afternoon.  Since then, I've been running myself ragged.  My husband has been in a hospital 40 miles from home and I needed to be there with him as much as possible, while doing his chores at home in addition to my own.  It didn't help that we acquired a new family member (the 4 legged kind) only 3 weeks ago who came from a very bad situation and is not yet fully housebroken and has a great deal of separation anxiety.  My concern about my husband added to the stress.

I finally brought him home yesterday afternoon and everything is now fine.  The story of his homecoming is not without excitement of its own, though.

Of our two older dogs, Renny is a jumper, but if he gets loose, all he does is run around the house trying to get back in.  Sam is another story - he hasn't figured out that he could jump a fence easier than Renny because he's bigger, which is a very good thing because if he gets loose, he will take off and is impossible to catch.  Yesterday, we had two men from the fence company putting an extra foot of wires on top of the fence because my husband is determined to keep Renny in (my opinion is that Renny will have no problem jumping that extra foot, but who am I to argue with the boss?).  Anyhow, I was getting ready to leave to fetch my husband at the hospital when Sam got out.  I chased him in the car - that's the only hope to get him back because he loves car rides and will jump in at any opportunity.  When I caught up with him, he came running over but I couldn't reach the pasenger door to open it for him, so I got out and walked around.  During that instant, he spotted a neighbor's chicken and all bets were off.  He chased the chicken, finally caught it, and headed for home, carrying it in his mouth, with me in hot pursuit.  The men saw him coming and opened the gate hoping he'd go in.  It looked like that's where he was headed, but somehow the chicken slipped out of his grasp and the chicken ran in.  Sam followed in hot pursuit and the men closed the gate as I was getting there.  I ran in the house and called Sam from the back door (which opens to the fenced area) and ... it was a miracle ... he came running into the house ... without the chicken.  The men searched for the chicken, found it cowering under a bush, picked it up, examined it, and said it was fine.  The chicken had been totally silent until one of the men picked it up - then it set up a howl that I think all of WikiTree could have heard.  They put the chicken over the fence back into its own yard and I was finally able to go to get my sweetie pie.  There's an epilogue to this - after the past several days of nonstop activity, the chicken caper was the last straw and I was VERY frazzled.  I figured I'd be the best sight in the world to my husband when I arrived to bring him home, but the first thing he said was that I look like I've been rode hard and put up wet .... Is that the kind of thing any man should say to his wife?????  He did redeem himself by immediately adding that he loves me very much, though, and I'm so happy to have him back in full health that I'm even willing to forgive his mortal sin.

---

I can't compete with that.....you have had a veerrrry interesting week!

---

Gaille, I hope you get some well deserved rest this weekend. I'm glad your husband is better. Maybe Sam was trying to say, "Dad needs some chicken soup."

---

Wow.  Mags

---

Thank you Doug,

I very much appreciate that you picked up the chat today.  You are the best!

My aunt who lives next door fell, broke her hip, and somehow got trapped underneath her bed.  She was pinned there for over 18 hours before we found her after breaking in her back door.  She was in rough shape but is in good care now.  Once her pneumonia subsides they can operate on her hip.

Our family (including me) got caught up in tending to her and her belongings... the most precious to her being her cat.

I'm very appreciative to have WikiTree family like you who cover my back when I'm off covering for my aunt.

3 cheers for Doug!

---

Glad to finally make a chat.. I'm Mari-Lyn - searching for the HUDSON clan - mostly they are in ONT, Canada, also migrated from England. I've got many other things to do... nice to meet you all!

---

Nice to meet you too Mari-Lyn, I hope you join in more often!

---

I deserve no cheers...just wanted to keep the party going till you got back.

---

Now that's a story :) , take a good rest and enjoy having your hubby home !

---

Oh wow Gaile, what a week. Had  a good laugh at the chicken caper and your hubbie's comment. Glad he's back home and hope you have a more restful week.

Keith I hope your Aunt gets well as quickly as possible. It must have been so frightening for her.

---

Keith, I'm so glad to hear that your aunt's care is under control now.  She still has a very long and arduous road to recovery ahead of her and I hope all continues to go well from this point on.  Please keep us posted and be sure to tell her that all of WikiTree is pulling for her.

---

Hope everything will go well for your aunt from now Keith and yes tell her the Wikitree family sends her best wishes :)

---

Mari-Lyn,

I have Hudson's by marriage in my family. Gerladlee Maurice Hudson twin of Geraldine Marie Hudson who died young. We'll have to chat. They were located around Cumberland, Maryland. Geraldlee's mom had 14 children so they dispersed all over the place. Hope to get in touch with you.

Betty

---

I hope to get back here more often too! Just been so busy with work and such..Love to hear your stories..

Answer 2

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hanlan-11

World's Rower becomes Toronto Mayor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Hanlan

Professional Rower. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, he was a 19th Century world class sculler, hotelier and alderman. In 1874, he won his first professional race at Burlington Bay followed by a championship win at Toronto Bay in 1875. From 1874 to 1893, he went on to compete in over 300 races winning World Championships to include Championship of USA 1878, US Titles (1879-80, 1886-88) and World Titles (1880-84, 1887-88). He died of pneumonia at 52 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and is a member of the Canada Sports Hall of Fame. In 1980, a postage stamp was issued in his honor commemorating the centenary of his first world championship and actor Nicolas Cage portrayed the role of Hanlan in the film "The Boy in Blue" (1986). (bio by: John "J-Cat" Griffith)

Images: 1
View by popularity, date, or upload date. Add new image. Ned Hanlan Image 1

•  
•  

Nicolas Cage played him in a movie:

Based on the life of Ned Hanlan, the late-19th century Canadian sculler and world champion. Hanlan was one of the first scullers to successfully utilize the "sliding seat." Plot Summary http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090769/

Comments

Interesting guy!

---

Another great one Chris!

Answer 3

Hi all!

It is starting out to be a beautiful weekend in New Mexico. I am getting ready for some fall gardening and was wondering if anyone has tried Hugelkultur gardening aka German hill planting. If so, do you have any tips? I will be starting to set up some hills this weekend. Any words of wisdom will be greatly appreciated.

Comments

There are some great gardening video's on www.youtube.com one called

Back to Eden

---

Very cool...In a previous life I was a landscape designer. What kinds of things do you want to plant?

---

Hopefully, if I get my hills completed, I want to plant cabbage, lettuce, spinach, collard greens, and maybe some fall tomatoes. I would like to try brussel sprouts and broccoli.

Our growing season is short and I am hoping the Hugelkultur beds will extend the season, once they are established.

According to everything I have read if the hill is built 6 - 7 feet tall you never have to water it after the first 2 years.

The soil here is terrible (sandy and rocky) and all my previous garden attempts have been unsuccessful.

Any advice for me? I can use all that I can get.

---

Plastic plants (LOL)

---

It would look pretty and a lot less work. : )

---

I had never heard of that type of garden before but it is very interesting to me.  I'll probably watch some videos and check it out.

We have a "cheat" for our garden that produces good growth.  There is a kind of weed called milfoil that is harvested from the lake and then dumped in fields that have been volunteered including one behind my house.  Each year before we plant we throw bunches of milfoil into the garden then rototill it thoroughly.  Seems to work :)

---

Looks like quite an event :P this Hugukultur , very interesting as well , here's another one : Hugukultur how to, wish you a good harvest ! :)

---

That's it. I am doing the raised beds. Maybe some smaller dug out beds later for fruit trees.

Answer 4

My week has been almost as bad as Gaile's. On Sunday my step son was in a an accident at the prison he works at and has both hands bandaged up from the chain coming of the bike he was riding for the outer wall patrol causing him to go headfirst over the handlebars. He is left handed and has 7 stitches in his left thumb  along with a banged up right knee.  He is unable to work until the doctor clears him and has been depending on us to help out quite a bit so we have been driving to his place, about 45 minutes each way, every day.  Just to add insult to injury, or in this case injury to injury I sprained my wrist yesterday and now I am having problems even typing so I will be mostly absent for the next couple of days, typing with one hand is just too slow and painful.

Comments

What a week! I am glad your son is OK now. I hope next week is better for you.

---

Get well soon Dale, we need you healthy.

Sorry about your son's misfortune.  A chain broke on my bike before at a very poor time causing me to break a bone in my foot and nearly get run over by a vehicle.

I hope your weekend is pleasant anyway :)

---

Hope you and your son recover from your injuries soon.

---

He is getting better, and I will be fine. I am still going to be a klutz however, there is no cure for that.

---

Oh, thank goodness, Dale!  This sure seems like it's been a crisis week for several of us.

---

It isn't contagious I hope ? :P here's something for all  ''pechvogels'' , can't translate this, anyway for all of you who had quite a week... 

Answer 5

How many of you have pictures of your ancestors riding motorcycles, etc? This is my wife's grandfather & his mother circa 1918:

 

 

 

Comments

My father tells a story about when his dad had a snowmobile with a caboose, actually a ski-boose, that attached to the back.  My grandmother rode alone in the ski-boose, a tiny little thing all bundled up, while my grandfather drove.  He brought her out onto lake Champlain and was tooling across the open ice.  At some point they hit bump (maybe a snow drift) and she popped right out of the sled and landed flat on her bottom on the ice.  My grandfather happened to not look back for quite some time and managed to go more than a mile before looping back to get her.  It's funny which stories get told and remembered.

Your cool picture reminded me of my grandparents :)

---

Great story Keith , sounds like what happened to me, my husband (when we were dating) had a motorbike (kreidler), one day we were taking a ride and he (,guess he was trying to impress me with some cool stunts !), prance with the thing, thinking I was holding tight, I wasn't, so, just like your grandmother popped of the back of the bike and landed on the street , husband, still thinking I was holding tight and of course very busy trying to impress me with the cool stunts he pulled, didn't notice a thing or look back as well for a while, so he had to drive back a few miles to pick me up again as well  :P ) 

Great and very cool picture too Doug :)

Answer 6

Here's one of my grandfather & great uncle c 1914:

 

Comments

Great photo. Is it from World War I? They look like they may be military.

---

I'm not sure. One on the left is a Harley, the other may be a Puch? The photo was taken in Trenton, NJ in one of their backyards.

---

You have a surprising number of great pictures.  I'm inspired to ask my mother to show me through her collection and see if I can pick a few to scan.  One day my children or grandchildren will be thankful.

---

I was thinking of a few years earlier than World War I ... like were their first names Wilbur and Orville?

---

Al & Bill would like the comparison.

---

Even more cool this one

Answer 7

I made the mistake of giving my wife a sarcastic answer. One of our cats died a while back and the remaining one, Clyde, has been lonely. Clyde is old and has a bad leg. My wife suggested we get him a friend and I said "As long as it's old and crippled". She found an old cat with a spinal injury. So this weekend we'll be acclimating a new cat into the family.

Comments

Peter....your wife is an Angel! I have three cats & love them to death.

---

Bless you and your wife Peter.

We have a large cat that we adopted when he was about 5 years old who is a very good mouser.  If ever one tries to move into the house from the field "Monty" is there to make sure it doesn't happen.

We also recently found a wild kitten that my son named "Fennik".  He's been all cleared and serviced at the vet and has become a full member of the household over the last few weeks.

---

When we moved into our current house there was a friendly stray that always came around so I started calling it DC, for Darned Cat, Dee started to feed it but it will not come thru the doorway or allow us to catch it. We also adopted a cat from our local rescue shelter, Peppercorn, who is very territorial with the house and RV but will not go out of the doors unless we put her into her carrier. So with one cat outside and one cat inside the mice don't stand a chance here.

Answer 8

I found the best question of the week here in G2G, "Need Help to Remove a Child"...I want to know this as well.  I have three still rooted here at home!

Mags

Comments

Hilarious! I have one left at home, but his high school friends keep coming back too. We have always been the neighborhood house where all the kids came to. Three years after high school, we still are. When does it end.

---

One of my favorite sayings is "I childproofed the house but the kids keep getting in anyway!"

---

Amy,

We were the house all the kids went to as well. My hubby loves video games and so all the boys came over to play Warcraft and that shooting game. Bah who knows. We always had pizza. I'm not sure when it ends. Maybe never. I love, love, love, having kids over.

 

Betty

---

You guys have me grinning from ear to ear... thanks!

---

When my kids (2 sons 1 year apart) were in high school, they had different circles of friends, but both groups always seemed to travel in a pack.  I never knew until - on a good day - 1/2 hour before dinner time how many I'd be serving - the number could be anwhere from 2 (just my husband and self) to 16 or 18.  All the kids called me "mom", as they did all the mom's of the group and it was contagious - some of the other mom's started calling each other "sister"!

I had a sign on my refriegerator - "Hire a teenager while they still know everything" and often felt like I came home from work (teaching math at a nearby university) to more of the same, when I'd end up with a living room full of kids who needed help with math or physics homework.

Family dogs often accompanied the kids, too, and all the dogs also enjoyed each other's company.  Those were definitely good times, but I admit that it's probably easier to say with the perspective of about 35 years separation from the breakneck action that was my life in those days!!!

---

Hahaha join the club Mags , three here as well, and during the week make it four, my eldest daughter visits us every day , she has to work three shifts of a few hours , and in between she comes and ''visits'' us . 

People say we should see it (that they still are living here and visiting us this much) as a compliment, because you're such great parents they love you soo much they'll never leave you...so just hang in there   :P

Answer 9

Here's a cheat sheet for figuring out cousins removed, etc (I always get tongue tied trying to explain this to my family). I found posted on one of the Facebook genealogy groups:

Comments

Awesome!

---

Very helpfull !

Answer 10

Another busy week with a Wirehaired Fox Terrier. Mine is almost six months old and he isn't going to be full size I don't think. He's all white except for a black patch on his back. No toilet tissue is safe. Also; toes, shoes, fingers, next-door-neighbor dogs, carpets, and even sheetrock. It's like living with a gerbil. I've thought of filling my house with moving boxes and see if he can gnaw his way through all of them. I got him because the AKC chart said he was medium level energy dog. Don't you believe it. He's a pill. I hope he leaves some part of my house standing.

Betty

Comments

Something like this?

---

EXACTLY like that. :)

---

I was also told that a wire fox terrier was featured in "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." I'll have to watch that one again and see him.

---

Yes  - I do like this - thank you ....

Answer 11

I figured that this weekend would be a good time for me to poke my head back in here! The past 3 weeks have been incredibly busy with travel (conferences, etc...) but I made it back to Edmonton AB for what will be pretty much my last week living here. 

Wednesday this week was a really big day for me: It was the day that I successfully defended my PhD thesis in chemistry (Whoo-hoo!). Presenting one's research in front of the department, followed by a 2 hour grilling from a panel of 5 professors is an adrenaline rush. And it went very well, much to my relief. All that's left is cleaning up my desk, my lab bench, and doing a few more corrections... plus... getting ready to move.

Now I'm actually just packing up house, preparing to do a little travel: first to a conference, then off to visit more relatives in 5 provinces in the next month before I move abroad for 2 years. So lots of things are in motion!

Visiting family I'm looking forward to digging into a little history with one or two of my aunts & uncles: two of them have been my personal collaborators working to record a bit of family history on my paternal and maternal sides. They aren't into records as much as I am, but they still have so much to offer in memories and recollections. 

Does anyone have some good tips / advice / tools on how to make the most out of the visits in terms of gaining new knowledge about the family history that they know? Are there some creative ways to engage, brainstorm topics, or to record what's learned? I'm open to suggestions :)

Jeffrey

Comments

When they start telling family stories, tape record them if possible. It is much easier to go over the recordings & pick out fine details that may give clues later (much like re-reading old letters).

---

Make a list of things you would like to know more of or have questions about, and if you're lucky one of them is like my aunt , she loves to talk about the past and has such a great memory, she's a living family ''source'' asked her to write all she could remember down , and maybe before you leave you could send a list with these questions you have or things you would like to learn more about, so they can write something down for you as well . Have a great time !

Answer 12

Well, nothing really profound going on. In fact, I've been so busy that I haven't had much time for genealogy, but I did find my great-grand-uncle http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Slade-675 on a site which traces family trees of an Anabaptist settlement in Ontario, and thus found his wife's full name and family links. Adding that info to my tree has put me three steps closer to A.J. Jacobs, through an entirely different branch of the family than the rather tortuous link I knew about before, so that's pretty cool.

Greg

Comments

Always great when you discover an online connection like that. How far are you from AJ now?

---

I'm down to 33 degrees of separation now. Still no genetic link, and there are still 6 colour switches (links through marriages), but closer is closer.

Answer 13

Our genealogy society had the best Friday Family Finder's day since going public in May.  15 people in attendance, 5 of them brand new who read about our meetings once a month now being held at the local public library. The last guy to come in with 15 minutes to go was 50ish and told us he was adopted in Canada and did not know who his biological parents were and his adopting parents were now deceased and only now was he curious as to who his bio. parents were.

He brought no documents and had no details of use.  We found a site in Canada that helps find and reunite adopted persons with their parents and asked him to bring his docs next month and encouraged  him to talk with his adoptive parents living siblings.

He said his adoptive father was Christian and his adoptive mother was Jewish and the only thing he recalls is that his bio parents may have been the same as apparently they adoption agency may have been trying to match him to a similar situation.

Any thoughts on that?

Comments

Sounds like a really great day Michael, would be great if your society could help him, and with some documents and more info, maybe we (Wikitree-ers)  could help as well :)