Birthday Greetings

Thank you to everyone who sent birthday greetings via facebook and in so many other ways. Turning 65 has an odd feeling and this has been a challenging week. The greetings came from almost as many genealogy friends as all my other friends combined. That is especially true as anyone who knows me well knows a little about genealogy. What a blessing to live in this time of easy communication and DNA matches. This year many of my important items on my bucket list have been accomplished. I am grateful for wonderful, supportive family and friends. We are blessed to live in a beautiful area. Our home is comfortable and our lives are busy! Thank you again for being apart of my daily life in so many ways.

An angel came to visit me yesterday

An angel came to visit me yesterday and stayed to clean our house She swept, vacuumed and mopped the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, removed the trash. She brought her charming, handsome young helper who entertained me as she worked. It was lovely getting to know them and amazing to watch as they went about their work. I will look forward to their coming again. There have been others, a darling daughter in the fall and a young one from church came in the summer. They are each truly appreciated and bring joy to my heart. Angels come in all types, but the ones who serve others are certainly heavenly sent to encourage us in our struggles. Now I rest more peacefully and feel such joy as I look around our house and see it clean and sparkling for all to enjoy.

jamboree 2019, California this weekend

Watched three genealogy presentations from the jamboree 2019 conference in California this weekend. Very well done. It is free to watch and download the syllabus after you register. There will be five classes on Saturday and five on Sunday. You can look at the list and see which ones are of interest to you. Thank you to the presenters, providers and sponsors for making this happen. For those of us who can't travel easily this is absolutely wonderful! http://genealogyjamboree.com/ under live streaming.

Washington County Museum, Hillsboro, Oregon

Tonight my feet are just killing me, but it is worth the cost of researching at a local history center. The Washington County Museum in Hillsboro, Oregon, has a wonderful repository of records. Some of my ancestors donated some nice pictures and two priceless autograph albums. Years ago, likely about twenty, I made a couple of trips there. In doing so I created a three page list of items to look up. Now after almost four years of living closer I finally made arrangements and made the journey to follow up on those records. My good friend Tricia drove and looked up stuff for the Watts family for me. The researcher was fully prepared with having the boxes ready for me to start working. Then we saw another friend and later on another friend came to oversee the fun. After four hours of photographing items of interest, 190 pictures, documents and other materials, I had to quit for the day. There is one more box that I hope to get to in a couple of weeks. Now I need to compare my collection of family pictures and see what they do not have. This is all part of my focus for the present to organize and make useful what we have and then share with others. Now I need to go put up my feet for a few days!

I would like to sincerely thank Debi Knox for preparing records for me to come and take pictures of for our family history. The collection included items from my grandfathers older sister and his older brother. There are two autograph albums, one of which my great grandfather wrote in. It was so nice to arrive with things organized for our four hour work out in taking many pictures. Debi went one step further and pulled information for the Watts family who lived in Scappoose, and Milwaukie. Friends joined in as Tricia and I worked very patiently to capture the images of history held in this collection. What a fantastic place to visit!

My Friend from Oaxaca, Mexico

My friend of thirty years came to visit with her daughter and brought me these lovely flowers and vase. We met at school and been good friends ever since. We celebrated her getting her green card after living in the US for thirty years. It took her five years and thousands of dollars. She had several lawyers and many people willing to help her. It will take another five years to be naturalized. When she came to the US with her family, to be with her husband who was already in Oregon, she came with just one small suitcase full of documents and pictures of her family.

Now she can legally make a visit to Oaxaca, Mexico to visit her elderly parents whom she has not seen in thirty years. Two of her daughters became naturalized citizens. It is wonderful that they are now able to make a visit and be able to return to the US afterwards. I love these people. They have been hardworking, honest, caring and taught their children to appreciate the important things in life. She has certainly persevered and accomplished this major step forward!! 

I met her in the grade school at Clackamas, Oregon. They were registering her children for school and I volunteered to help them get settled here. They had four girls and one boy. I taught her how to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving that year. The school staff literally provided their Christmas, tree, presents and food! She has had a huge struggle these past thirty years. One thing we share in common is our love for the Savior.

Happy Blogiversary

Happy blogiversary to my blog at gophergenealogy.blogspot.com. Eight years and it continues to serve others. More posts to come.

Almost Finished Initial Sorting

Almost finished with the initial sorting of twenty years of family history research. I already have notebooks for each ancestral line with family artifacts and pictures. I have sorted by families and places. I have just about finished all of my unsorted materials and now can focus on what to scan, keep in a notebook or shred. For my favorite family and New England line there is one large tote of materials. All my other ancestral lines fill just one large tote for all of them. The last large tote is for work for others which most likely will be scanned for teaching information. Any materials may be given to the clients, which I have already done. It is a long hard process, but this is over twenty years of research and numerous trips to the Family History Library in SLC. The wonderful thing is I am now at a time in my life when I can focus on organization so when I am gone the family might have some interest in it. I may also do more writing and even print a book or two. By knowing what I have there is less chance for duplication, but so far I have done well in the copies that I made.