Thursday, April 18, 2013

Lovely spring day, and my Family Tree research!

Oh mid April, you are not here yet, are you? With the sleet, freezing rains, snow and ice on the ground, and a high of 38 degrees? Well okay, spring is here at least calendar wise.

I have been hanging out at home with my son today, he is watching Scooby Doo and before he was playing with his toys on the living room floor. And guess what I found today!

I found the names of some of my ancestors on my maternal grandmother's side, going back to the 1820's! How cool is that?

Here are the names. First of all, there's my mom, Debbie. She is still alive,  so I won't give her last name, she has no computer or Facebook page of her own, still I will protect her privacy. Everyone else listed here on my family tree is deceased:

My maternal grandmother: Lois Rita McBride. (Died in a tragic car accident in 1971, so I never knew her. Her daughters, ages 12 and 15 died along with her. They were my aunts, who I never got to know.)

Maternal great grandparents: Jeanette Lydia (Tong) McBride, Joseph Michael McBride.

 (I was very close to Grandma Jeanette as a kid. I spent many weekends staying with her in her apartment building in Ashland WI. She was a bit eccentric, but she liked to talk and she spoiled me when I was at her house. We used to go out for ice cream a lot, which made me tolerant of her eccentricities.)

Maternal gg grandparents: James Ranselar Tong and Mary Alice (Conlon) Tong,
                                           Bernard McBride and Katherine Skahan McBride.

Maternal ggg grandparents: Ben Conlon, (born in Canada) Job Tong (from Yorkshire, England) and  
                                              Mary (Vickerman) Tong.
                                              Owen McBride (from Ireland) and Rosele (Carragher) McBride,
                                              Michael Skahan (born in 1820!) and Bridget (Gill) Skahan.

And that is what I was able to find on Ancestry.com today! Now that is just the lineage from my great grandma Jeanette, who I was close to growing up in Ashland, WI. She died in 1990, and her sister, my great aunt Fern, who I was also very close to growing up (she and her husband would take me camping in her Coachman camper! Loved her!) died in 2002 at age 90.

This was really interesting! To find an ancestor going back to a birth year of 1820 was fascinating, and it seems like my family on this side is Irish and English, which I knew. The surname "Skahan" is very intriguing, it doesn't seem like an Irish or English surname, it may be Scandinavian. Which would be so neat, since many of my friends and people in my area I grew up in were Scandinavian, and I didn't think I was. (which was perfectly okay because Lutefisk would never be my thing...)

On my father's side, his surname is Hunt, which is such a common name it is impossible to find anything. I googled the name Hunt, his dad's first name, and the city of Batavia, Illinois, but there was nothing I could find, and nothing on Ancestry.com.

Finding the names of some of my ancestors is certainly fun, and surprisingly easy so far. I should look up my husbands farther back, but he has most of his written down already. One of his paternal great grandparents was from Croatia, which was interesting for him to find out!





Saturday, March 23, 2013

Barney really had good advice when you think of it.




My 6 year old son was shockingly watching and enjoying Barney episodes this morning. I actually like that he likes this sweet and cuddly stuff still, because he usually watches kick em, punch 'em action shows like Power Rangers. 
And I was watching along, because the songs made me so nostalgic for the years 1999 through 2003 when my teen daughters were little. I realized the dinosaur who is the butt of jokes for his sickening sweetness actually taught some great life lessons.

1. Good manners are important to everyone in the world. (That is so true, many adults are rude and obnoxious jerks.)

2. Everything is more fun and special when you do it with a friend.

3. Please and thank you are the Magic Words!

4. When you're feeling silly and happy and want to laugh, let it show!

5. Give a great big hug and kiss to your family members who you love.