In which I admit to not having knit much lately

I've been busy. Just with busy-ness.

It's been so long since I've worked on my blog - I didn't remember that I'd changed the layout last time I was on! When the page open, I was startled!

I've knit a few rows on the socks mentioned here. And I started a BSJ -- possibly for the soon-to-be Baby B. More on that on a later date.

One of the things that's kept me busy is working on genealogy. I dabble here and there and don't make much progress. But, once in a while that dabbling yields results. A reply to a letter I sent to a county court house in Pennsylvania ended up giving me more information than I could have dreamed of. DD1 was here when I opened the envelope - I was so excited when I browsed through the contents, I jumped up and down. Believe me, it's been a long time since I'd jumped up & down!!! And of course, after that my spare time was spent on scanning the documents, organizing them in folders, and doing more searching.

But, tonight, I'm going to knit on those two projects. And watch hockey [Go Penguins!] And American Idol [switching back and forth as necessary.]

My DD3's BF is starting a soy candle business. He's test marketing various scents - so I'm a designated tester. Last night I burned the Lilac - very nice scent - lilac-y, but not too over powering. Tonight the scent is Mandarin Orange. I'm not a citrus fan, but this is OK. He has another orange candle - "Fresh Squeezed Oranges" -- that one I think I'll like! I think it would be a good scent for a Saturday morning - perky & peppy. You see, I'm NOT perky or peppy on Saturday mornings. I need some motivation - like smelling fresh squeezed oranges! :-)

Give Me a "T"

[Genealogy content]

...for "Tara."

I've had my mitochondrial DNA tested and the results are that my maternal line is from "Tara" see also the National Geographic's Genographic Project pages for "T."

While "T" mtDNA is found across Europe, it is a smallish population and IS found in Scotland where the MacNeals are from. [I've always enjoyed bagpipes!]

OTN Update with some genealogy news tossed in

Here's what I have on the needles:

1. Baby blanket using Bernat Baby Coordinates in "Sweet Pink" I'll donate this to a community outreach project downstream - the place was destroyed in the June flood, and I read on Ravelry that they happily accept knitting items. The pattern is very easy. However, the yarn I'm having a problem with. It was on sale and a lovely bright pink - just what I wanted. But it has a crinkily white strand that wraps the pink loosely. So loosely that I keep getting it caught when I do a stitch. So the fabic looks a bit 'snagged' I try to fix as I go [or when I go back on the reverse side] - but some snags are not fixable.

Would I use this pattern again -- most definitely. Would I use this yarn again. Well, I'm debating whether I'll make the blue blanket. Bought the yarn at the same time. Did I say it was on sale? I think I know why! If I decide I don't want to fuss with the blue ... I'll donate that yarn some where. And No I would not buy it again.

2. Another pair of socks for me. The yarn is Filatura Di Crosa - Maxime. Can't remember where I bought it at. Not locally that I know. Color is #16 - a dark forest green. I wanted to use Brigit - luv the cables. But the yardage on the two skeins of Maxime is not close to the suggested yardage for the Brigit pattern. Drat it.

Then I worried that whatever top down pattern I used, I might run out of yarn. Drat it again. I dug out Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts' Simple Socks and have two toe uppers started. I can remember my first attempt with PAGR's wraps about drove me nuts. [But, then I was still on post op drugs....] This time, tho. I had only a few minor issues. and now I'm beginning the foots. I'm doing st st. When I get to the legs, I'll do some cable pattern. Haven't decided what - just that it will be an 8 st pattern repeat from Charlene Schurch. I'll wait to look at the stitch patterns when I get that far.

So. I'm off now to knit and to watch Disk 2 of the HBO miniseries John Adams. No bad for a miniseries...and an introduction to John and Abigail. Two very intelligent, very forward thinking individuals. I would be proud to claim them as ancestors. But, alas no connection so far.

OH! Genealogy content: No J. & A. Adams, but, it looks as if Mayflower people are beginning to sprout from my family tree! My grandmother would not be too impressed - she would tell snooty acquaintances who were into the DAR and Mayflower Societies that HER ancestors MET the Mayflower. Maybe. I need one bit of proof tying my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother to a known descendent of four Mayflower passengers. In early 1800s western PA, they didn't leave a lot of records, so I might never find the proof. But. I'm 95% positive I've got it right.

Weekend Update - Genealogy

During the past week I transferred data on a few more individuals from my old database to the new one. Slow going. But...I'm glad I'm doing it this way -- cleaner database in the end.

Also [while doing work related research online] came across reference to a gen. journal published in Maryland. I only know of one family of ancestors who lived in Colonial Maryland, but thought - what the heck, I'll check the index. Lo & Behold, I found a citation to an article that looks promising, so I requested the article and I'm waiting for it to arrive. Not holding my breath, tho, that there will be any new revelation [or new ancestors]...but, I keep hoping!

Happy 4th!

Other than going to fireworks tonight with DD2 and the boys, I'm planning a stay-at-home day. The grass needs a mow, the carpets need a vacuum, a book needs to be finished [I'm only half through and it's due on Friday...I could finish it, IF I didn't do anything else.] Title? The War of 1812 in the Old Northwest by Alec R. Gilpin, published in 1958. I told you I was/am a history major, right?

Have I been knitting, you ask? Yes, some. I'm on the 7th cap for the Cheyenne River project [CIC] When I finish this one, I'll do photos of all the caps. I probably will do one or two more to use up the yarn I bought specifically for this project.

Buster stayed all last weekend while his important people went camping across The River with the daddy's extended/extensive family. Buster and I had a a good time. I was even able to knit a bit on the cap. I put it away, tho., after he grabbed it from me and pulled out the circ needle. ARGH~ Being worsted weight, the stitches were easily recovered, so no real damage done. But, I'll wait a few more months before knitting in his presence again!

What else have I been up to since last post? Besides working: a little napping [I'm still so tired after work...], and a little data entry on my genealogy project -- manually adding data to my new software from the old. [After a Big Mess when I tried an export/import, I decided to do it the Slow-but-accurate way.]

After sharing a computer with DD1 for the past term in which she had an online class with mandatory real-time online seminars in the evenings, I've 'bought' her a computer. Now don't go thinking what a wonderful mom I am. She's paying me back for it. AND it was at the IT department's garage sale at work. They were selling oldish Pentium 4 Dells for $100. Loaded with XPpro and an anti-virus product, but nothing else. Monitor, keyboard, mouse, cables came with. She's happy, and can transfer her music download subscription and files to her computer. :-) It came without speakers, but she's getting rid of an old, non-working, cd player and salvaged the speakers from it.

The Grandsons - 2 yr old Buster on the left and nearly 4 yr old Sport on the right:

My Past Week - Part A

[Genealogy content]

I have been knitting...some. But, I spent a lot of hours working on genealogy stuff. A year ago I bought a new database program and decided I wanted the data to be as "perfect" as possible. So, I started transfering each individual manually - each ancestor, ancestors' siblings, in-laws, known nieces & nephews, etc.

That works well, but takes forever. There are 2998 individuals in my old database. When I got to my paternal grandfather's line, I decided to do a data download for those individuals. That did NOT work well. I have no idea how it happened, but during the download random individuals were given burial dates ranging from 2002 and 2007. Really random. Not everyone. But, some of the people are still living. Some died in the 1700s. Some of the "notes" sections were duplicated, but not all. ARGH.

I started to clean up the records for those in my paternal grandfather's line and learned some new tricks for using this new database. And then, I decided to look at the data for every single person. I went alphabetically through the entire new database -- 1527 records -- and fixed what needed to be fixed. It was *very* time consuming, but I'm glad I did it.

Now for the remaining 1471 records -- I'm going to enter the data manually. It might take me a year, but I'll end up with a "clean" database.

yDNA Update: A few days ago I got word of a new project participant who matches our results perfectly. Our Most Recent Common Ancestor was born about 1750 in Pennsylvania. And here's another who matches very closely - but we don't have a proven connection, yet. Most likely it's several generations farther back. Now - if I could just talk a couple of my mother's male cousins into doing a yDNA test I think we might be able to prove or disprove a certain family oral tradition. The test itself is a bit pricey, but the two cousins I would ask could easily afford it.

Mother's mother's mother's...

[Genealogy content]
On Jan 15, 2007, I did a brief post about the yDNA project that my brother participated in. The yDNA is for the male line [father's father's father's....] I've been thinking about having my DNA checked - the mitrochondrial DNA is for maternal ancestry. The test does not tell who you ancestor was but give clues as to where your [my] maternal ancestry fits into the deep or very old genetic lines.

I know who my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother was: Lucinda W. Cook. I know Lucinda was born in Pennsylvania in 1805. She married Moses Cochran in Mercer Co. PA in 1826. [He was about 18 years older and a widower. Don't know if he had children with his first wife.] Lucinda and Moses had, at least, 8 children and I know what happened to a few of them. Lucinda & Moses lived in Mercer Co. PA until at least 1855 [when he submitted a War of 1812 pension application.]

They were living in Henry Co., MO, at the time of the 1860 census. Then, according to more pension applications, Lucinda & Moses lived in Adams Co., IA. By 1877, they had moved with their oldest [known] son, Frank, to Madison Co., NE. Moses died there in 1878 at the age of 92. Lucinda died in Madison Co., NE, in 1883 at 78 years of age.

A few years ago, my DD3 & I met my sister and Mother in Madison Co. and we found Lucinda W. Cook & Moses Cochran's gravesites. That was before I'd heard about genealogical DNA, but I still felt a connection to Lucinda when I was standing at her grave - my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother.

What I don't know is: who was Lucinda W. Cook's mother [and father] [and what does the "W" stand for?]

I've started a list of things to do, send for, research, etc. for genealogy...all things that I haven't had time to do. I'm going to have time in the near future and I bet I won't want to be knitting ALL the time. That minor procedure I had last week has turned into a major procedure scheduled for next week and I'll have at least six weeks off work. I'm lining up projects:

• knit socks, I have enough sock yarn for 4 pairs
• crochet camouflage blankets for Sport & Buster
• organize all my photos from the past three years
• work on transfering data from my old genealogy database to my new one - and cleaning up the info, adding citations, etc.

Hmmm...I don't' think six weeks will be enough - especially since I probably won't be feeling up to much for a couple weeks.

yDNA

[This post is about genealogy, not knitting]

My brother agreed to submit a mouth swabbed sample to Family Tree DNA last month to keep his genealogy-addicted sisters happy. We have the first set of results back and, as expected, have a 12/12 match to a fellow with the same surname who is from our home city. You wouldn't think there should be any question there, but our families hadn't had contact in several generations. What we both knew about our ancestors several generations back led us to believe our lines merged.

We can now confirm that we are the same "family" and share a Gt-gt-gt-gt-gt grandfather and all of his ancestors. Our 4-gt grandfathers were half-brothers - with different mothers.

The other family arrived in this area around 1850. My family arrived here in 1920. When I was a kid, I always wondered WHY the heck my dad's grandfather moved up here from southern MO instead of moving to Southern California. Gt. grand dad was not a farmer, so he didn't come here for the black earth. What brought him here? Did he know that he had 3rd cousins here? Did they let him know there was a new factory here needing workers? Did he get the word from common cousins back in the hills of East Tennessee?

Well, of course, I'll never get an answer to those questions. But, maybe someday I'll find answers to other burning questions, like: who was the immigrant and where did he [and his wife] come from?

How I Came to Be a Genealogy Addict

It's my Mother's fault! [Thanks, Mom!!] Back several decades ago, Mother got into genealogy for a while. She was just working on her ancestors, so I decided to work on Dad's. [He had died several years before.] I talked with several of his father's sisters and with his mother.

One aunt still kept in contact with cousins in MO. The other was, let's just say, Not Happy that I was trying to find information about the family in MO. ["When mother died, those people could have helped us, but they didn't." -- Well, she was 11 when her mother died and probably had selective memory, and didn't know what all was going on. Maybe her dad refused their help.]

Grandma was very vague about her parents, grandparents, etc. "Nobody talked about family when I was growing up." Fast forward to the 21st century. OH...NOW I know why they didn't talk about it. On her mother's side, her grandparents appear to be uncle & niece. [I'm still trying to dig up the dirt on that one.] On her father's side, in the early 1800s, three frontier-living families intermarried - a lot. For starters: her paternal grandparents were Wm. & RG. RG's mother was Wm.'s aunt. RG's father's first cousin was Wm's mother.

Con: Lots of Smith's from Long Island on the tree. Why were they all named John or William?
Pro: Hey, all of this intermarrying means that I have fewer branches to research! And that IS a good thing.

So, I dabbled in genealogy a bit several decades ago. Then about 2001, Mother came to visit me in The West and brought along a big box of photos that had been GG's & Great Gran's. Dear Great Gran. She knew who all the people where in all those photos, but she didn't think about identifying them for us.

We sat there looking through the photos & I kept asking "Who's this?" And, "How are they related [to us] [to each other]?" Mother could answer some of my questions, but for a lot of them she said, "I can't remember, but I'm sure I've got that information back home in the genealogy box under my bed."

Finally, one of us said, "Some of this stuff might be on the Internet." Yep, some of it is. Just enough to get me hooked, but not enough to make it easy. I've tried to analyze why I enjoy it so much:

• I was [and always will be] a history major
• I enjoy the challenge of the hunt
• I find it facinating to learn about the people who helped make me who I am