November 2021 Days of Gratitude 1-15

November 2021 Days of Gratitude Day 1 of Gratitude. I am so thankful for our family. Having children and grandchildren to share our lives with is wonderful. Each one is so unique. They help to lift me up when I am feeling down. They distract me from my worries and concerns. I treasure every minute that we get to spend together. This is my tenth year posting and my family is always the first post. Thank you for all that you do for me. Day 2 - Gratitude is such a wonderful gift. When we reach out to each other and they reach out to us we come to know pure love. We bring out the best in each other when we serve in love. If you are needing more love find someone else who you can give love to. Let us be patient, kind and focused on making each day better for those around us and in turn the days will be better for us. Day 3 for this day I am grateful to be alive. We often do not take the time to appreciate each day and the challenges that they bring. After all the amazing things that I have experienced in sixty-seven years it is a miracle to have survived. Moving forward every day brings new discoveries and renewed confidence in those around me. Enjoy the journey and know that there are many who will see us through to the end. Day 4 - I am thankful for the simple things in life. The cactus and orchid are amazing to watch. I enjoy sharing them with others. In our backyard the birds have once again discovered the bird feeders. The hummingbirds are back and an assortment of smaller birds. They love the flowers and several were using the bird bath this morning. I like to see the changing weather, rain, sunshine, clouds, and soon enough snow. Being at home more allows me to appreciate all of nature’s beauty while being warm and cozy indoors. Day 5 of gratitude my focus is on quiet moments to catch up on the order of life. It is great to have a day at home when you can sort, clean, and declutter. It feels so good to put order to paperwork, computer files, calendars and all the things that make our lives run more smoothly. Maybe this has to do with the change of time tomorrow night. So grateful for an extra hour of sleep. Day 6 last night I worked on my own family history. While I am a mixture of English, German, French, Danish, Norwegian and some unknowns, all in all it is interesting. My English line includes some Mayflower people and other early New England inhabitants. I am grateful for those people who came in the early 1600s and settled in the primitive areas of Massachusetts. They were humble and hardworking people who survived the many obstacles thrown in their way. Now they are linked to me on the Family Tree found at familysearch.org. Day 7 and I am grateful for my family. I have been blessed with a wonderful husband and six great children. They have enhanced my life in so many ways. The most beautiful part to me is how they support each other. They know that they can call on their siblings for advice, a listening ear, encouragement, and love as needed. They have been taught to work hard, contribute to society and serve others. That service truly begins at home with our family. Day 8 and we are one week closer to Thanksgiving. Being Veteran's Day Week I spent some time looking at military records for my Revolutionary War ancestor Daniel Tidd and his five brothers who served, two of whom died at Valley Forge. Then I looked at records for my Civil War ancestors, one who died in the war, Samuel Reed, and one who only filled out a draft registration, Daniel Tidd, but did not serve. There may be more, but so far this is what I have discovered. They all served with a strong conviction in the cause that they fought for. Then there are the parents or spouses who sent them off to fight not knowing if they would ever see them again. With pride we honor them and are grateful for the service that they gave. Day 9 today I am grateful for wonderful friends. Many of my friends do not do facebook. Sometimes I am connected to their children and enjoy knowing the highlights of their lives. Several of my friends have endured terrible health trials and have supported me in mine. How grateful I am for their unconditional love and caring ways. Day 10 I am so very grateful for our grandchildren. So far we have six, three boys and three girls. They are like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. Today was a day to slow down and recover some from a busy week. These days give me time to pause and reflect on all of our many blessings. Each of the six are so unique. They are loving, caring, thoughtful, patient especially with me, considerate of others and generous to everyone. Their parents have taught them well. I treasure the earlier years when we spent more time together. I am thankful for the Internet and easy phone or video access for the moments we share on a regular basis. Day 11 - Veterans Day - At one time I thought we did not have many military veterans in our family. The more I discover about the actual individuals I realize we have veterans from most of the various conflicts and types of service. Some of their stories are posted on my blog, gophergenealogy@blogspot.com. I am very grateful for the service of all military personal who have given of themselves to preserve the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. For the Marines who are 246 years old today, those in our family are some of the best. Day 12 I went to the eye doctor today trying to determine what is causing changes in my vision. I am very grateful for the medical staff and their focused medical training. While I am fighting T2D (among other things) my brother has fought T1D for over forty years, and our grandfather died from T1D when I was age two. Our other grandmother had T2D. While it is all around us, knowledge for treating it is improving every day. So grateful for wonderful medical staff who have joined us in the fight. Staying positive is critical to survival. Get tested, know the facts and enjoy every day in every way possible. Be supportive, give encouragement, offer support and know that we are all survivors of something. Thankful to join with my family and friends as we gather for the holidays. Day 13 of gratitude I am thankful for modern transportation. It is so nice to travel in a cold/warm car and sometimes in an airplane. With the physical challenges I have these modes of travel are so important. The greatest blessings are those who drive the vehicles. I hope that I can drive for a long time, but I do realize that the day will come when I will not be able to. My handicap parking tag is critical for being able to walk short distances. The electric shopping carts make it so I can go shopping. Today we drove to our daughter and son-in-law’s home in Portland. It was a nice gathering of people - family, friends and new acquaintances. Day 14 - Today is my Dad's birthday. Even though he has been gone for thirty-three years I often reflect on the great influence he had on our lives. He would be 87 today. He had a love for his ancestors and pride in their accomplishments. When I was given family artifacts, especially furniture, he refinished them for me. While he worked as a warehouseman, he had many skills that were mostly self-taught. He grew up in the era of make do with what they had, fix what they could and treasure what they were given. During the tough times he only had one pair of shoes and hand-me-down clothes. He worked very hard to provide for our family and left our mother well cared for after he was gone. What we inherited from them has great meaning to the four of us their children. Those are blessings that will impact us and future generations. Day 15 – Monday and another gratitude thought. I am grateful for my blog readers. GopherGenealogy.blogspot.com passed 231,749 views. Writing is a wonderful way to share the joy of family history and life in general. I am grateful for the free web sites that are available to post on and the tools we have today that were not available not so long ago. I encourage everyone to write something on a regular basis to help preserve the precious memories of your family, friends and acquaintances. Share some of those thoughts as you gather with others during the coming weeks. More to come!

Serendipty Moments While Sorting and Processing Pioneer Diaries

I was working on a sorting project for the Scappoose historical society. Someone brought me another bag of materials from the Watts house museum collections. For them I create notebooks with page protectors as I sort. This bag had papers with some information on relatives or ancestors of the people who built the house. It had several copies of pioneer diaries. I finished it last night. Then this afternoon came a package in the mail from the California Historical Society who I contacted about pioneer diaries for the Watts family in their collections. For the final step I will review the diaries to see if they are the same, but already I see new items. Feels like serendipity when things randomly show up when I need to work on them next!

Seeing Our History in Pictures and Momentos

I made individual photo albums for each of our six children. Recently I transferred the photos from the magnectic/sticky albums, scanned them all and gave them to the kids with a flash drive. Still have three to complete. I also went through all of their school things that I kept and did the same. They are delighted to have them, I am happy to have those done and now I have more room in my office. I also have family albums covering the same time periods. When Costco had the print your photos get a second set free that was great. I still have five paper boxes to go through and four boxes for my middle son. Covid did me the favor of providing me many hours at home. I now see my children lives more clearly and the grandchildren see their parents history. Actually on the flash drives are the collections of all the children. So they have their own and all of their siblings. Our mother did the same for the four of us and I borrowed each of the others and scanned their albums. When I did my parent’s albums each of us choose our favorites and then I gave each one a complete set of the favorites. We had a nice gathering and enjoyed tagging our favorites. We started with forty albums and I condensed them to ten albums.

Family Tree Addition

David our youngest son and Shelby were married today. It was amazing to observe them as they made this commitment in front of family and friends. Watching online was wonderful and I really appreciate her sister for creating the live video feed. With restrictions on gathering there was a limited number who could attend in person. For the ceremony they were required to wear masks. Even with masks on their happiness shown right through! Thank you for this awesome event. We are thrilled for both of you.

Happy Ten Year Blogiversary – GopherGenealogy.blogspot.com- 24 April 2021

Happy Ten Year Blogiversary – GopherGenealogy.blogspot.com- 24 April 2021 What an amazing ten years it has been. I am not a frequent writer, but there always seem to be plenty of viewers. So far this year I have written ten posts. It appears that changes are coming in notifications for followers so you can friend me on facebook until I figure out the new blog delivery system. For now here are some stats showing the amazing progress and support of family, friends and viewers. 

  85 followers 

 404 posts 

 129 comments 

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 8 Pages 

Daniel Tidd Article

Portland, OR WWII Article

ICAPGen 2010 Tidd Rev. War

Adril Gates – War of 1812

Ole A. Brown Article

Law On Village by Tony King

Lectures

French-Canadian GFO 

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 Gopher Genealogy by Susan LeBlanc provides information about research, lectures, published articles and book reviews, and Serendipity Moments that are the results of searching for ancestors both personally and for clients. The objective of the blog is for others to receive insight and inspiration in doing their family history research. It is an evolving method of communication and input from reviewers is welcome.

Surviving Lock Down

A year ago today I signed up for Zoom and attended the first of many group meetings. As the time went on I attended many more such meetings with many different types of groups. With things advancing quickly with restrictions it was so nice to have a means of communicating and learning. The Genealogy community found a whole new method of interacting as almost all in person events were cancelled. Our local Genealogical Forum of Oregon went virtual, with general meetings, seminars and a week-long virtual Open House that included eighteen free presentations. The sixteen Special Interest groups provide a wide range of learning opportunities and I attended ten of them, some on a monthly basis and all for free and some with handouts. As the year progressed the GFO volunteers worked hard to provide virtual access to records and websites for the use of their members. The more recent attendance has grown into the hundreds. Familysearch, Ancestry and My Heritage sponsored the RootsTech Virtual Conference and it had attendance in the millions. Instead of racing down hallways, paying for airfare, motels and other expenses we met the challenges of planning our time around the classes, presentations, virtual vendors hall and so much more. By the time this occurred in February people had adapted to learning online. The truly adventurous attended presentations throughout the United States and around the World. My favorite was a presentation on the customs of food and drink of old England with the group from Lincolnshire, England. The most challenging part of the process was calendaring the events so that I did not double book a reservation or forget about watching those for which I had a reservation. So, what is your take on the massive growth of online virtual learning opportunities and the formats for attending them? Do you have a favorite presentation format? While Zoom was the new kid on the block, with some learning curves involved it is my favorite. It is especially great with children and older adults. The biggest blessing of the entire year was being able to communicate with family, friends and neighbors in a virtual format. What it did for our genealogy work was truly amazing.

Vaccine Recovery 2021

 

Vaccine Recovery 2021

Before I had the two Covid vaccine shots I worked hard to finish up projects and organize my office. The first shot was okay with some discomfort mostly to my hands and feet related to my neuropathy. The second shot has thrown me a curve ball. After two phone visits with my doctor I gave up and had an office visit. It turns out that my sciatica has been activated and generating a lot of pain. My hands and feet continue to be aggravated. Nine days of discomfort with lots of sympathy from the doctor. She ordered pain patches, rest and patience. Now I look around my office with little energy to consider doing much. Even the 677 page book on the History of Woburn is a challenge. The next 830 page book on The History of Lexington is not due to arrive for another month.  I am working very slowly on probate documents from 1696 and it is a struggle. Anyone want to give a try at transcribing it?