When life throws you juicy stories ...

When life throws you juicy stories, you get distracted.

Seriously distracted.  I can blame Filia for everything, though, and back up that sentiment with hard facts.  Of course, we will have to skip the fact that she has my genes.  Or else blame the genes on my mother.  She was writing county courthouses looking for records and probates and such before I was even born.  I have the checks and the letters to prove it, thanks to a trunk or two from the garage. 

Because, as I have neglected to mention earlier, the juicy stories are of the family genealogy sort.  The internet has revolutionized genealogy for genealogy hobbyists, like me, who dive into it for a while, remember there is more to life than dead ancestors, and carefully extricate themselves from the tangle of begats and bequeatheds, and resume a normal life.  So much more data is available without even leaving the house. 

Like www.findagrave.com and www.familysearch.org and http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/.  And learning that the nearest Family History Center isn't two hours away, but is practically visible from where I sat in the library while Filius was in class this past year. 

Oh, my. 

The first story was that a great-great-great grandfather of mine may not have died in Michigan, as reported, because there is a probate record for him in Iowa.  Except the microfilm I looked through didn't have any mention of wife and children, like the on-line index did.  So it may not be him.  Then again, it may.  We've never found anyone with the same name as him elsewhere.  (How DO people whose ancestors are named things like John Carlson ever manage?) 

The second story was that a great-grandfather of mine figures prominently in four newspaper articles from 1898, involving the sort of wrong-doing that would have him and a few family members show up on a talk show.  We had no idea!

And the third story was that, thanks to Filia ferreting out relatives on Findagrave and linking all sorts of family members on there, a third cousin of mine found us and we have been having way too much fun mutually expanding our knowledge of family and family stories.  The third cousin isn't related to the great-grandfather of the second story, above, but her great-grandmother is.  And they had no idea either. 

With all that fun genealogy floating around, who has time for knitting?  Well, me. But it has not been easy, and I'm about ready to set a Real Timer That Goes Ding for my genealogy work, and leave more of the day for actual things which are useful.  (Not that finding new third cousins isn't a good thing ... and I do plan to write two relatives this week to stay connected with them, and perhaps get caught up on new things in their nook of the family since 1999 ... but losing entire days to the Genealogy Bug is just not something I want ought to do regularly.)

The garden grows.  Asparagus, Rhubarb, and Radishes are still being picked regularly.  Everything else is growing reasonably.  The weeds are, dare I say it, under control.  At least at my house.  Mom's yard is another story, but it is still an improvement over last year.  A great improvement.  Whenever I am up there weeding and lopping, I thank God for the mowers who are doing a superb job and not letting the weeds encroach on the yard around the edges.  In fact, they're doing the opposite ... each mowing sees some areas being expanded by a few inches.  Yay! 

I have just a few more samples to knit, and then there will be some blocking and seaming to do, and then that job will be done.  Which is good, because I have material for another job on the way.  And another job arrived today!  I am delighted. 

One of these days I will have charming knitting photos, but not yet.