It's All Relative....

Well, I'm supposed to be on mini-vacation, and had this grand intention of posting something exciting and colorful every day. 

Except yesterday, I did nothing. (And it was everything that I thought it could be!) Well, not quite nothing.  We played some baseball. We had Richmond Friend visit, which is always a pleasure. But nothing really lending itself to colorful anecdotery, ergo, no exciting or colorful post.

So instead, I will tell you about the side project I've been dawdling along on, and an unexpected surprise. 

The side project is a genealogy of sorts -- found here, if you care in the slightest. (Though why you would if you aren't related, I don't know. There are probably some amusing anecdotes in there, but it's a godawful lot of sifting for not much return.) It's been a back-burner thing. Posts are written in e-mail English, with bad syntax, no attribution as to whether the stories are written by me or someone else, a lot of missing capital letters.

So .... why would I bring this up before it was ready to launch?

Because Google already launched me.  Heh.  Last week I got an email out of the blue from a lovely woman in Stamford, Conn., who said we share a grandfather a few generations back. I immediately called my father, who responded, "Ohhhh, yeah, I remember someone with that last name..."  And so the email began. It turns out we are ... some breed of cousin.  My great-grandmother and her grandfather were siblings. What's that make us? Yeah, me either. Like I said, some breed of cousin.

Here is something she sent me yesterday, that I have yet to put up in its proper place on the other page, but am so excited to have I can't tell you ....

CORRECTION: Clearly, I need an editor. And a better flow chart. My great-great-grandfather is the old guy in the middle row, and great-great grandmother is in the middle next to him. My great-grandmother is the kid on the end next to her.

So how cool is that!?! I sure do heart me the Internet when stuff like this happens.  And like I told Newfound Cousin -- my dad's immediate family was notorious for playing sort of fast and loose with the truth, so the idea that any of the tales handed down to me were at all  grounded in reality pleases me no end.

And, it gets me motivated to get back on this project and do some file cleaning! Ahh, spring.

Comments

[lane]

Was anyone happy in the 19th Century?

[cosmiccamper]

How cool is that!