Why Don't You Blog Something?

A favorite blogger friend popped over and asked if I were going leave that last little post there forever. There are so many excuses for not posting. Two come readily to mind. The first is being hooked on reading my favorite bloggers every day and then, they mention another site or two and I am off and reading several more blogs. I have a huge bookmark section just for bloggers.

My second excuse is that Ancestry.com offered me a fourteen day free trial to trace my forefathers. It happened to arrive the same day we received a family history for my husband's mother's side of the family. The cousin who sent it, spent years gathering information and researched in other cities' courthouses. This is so complete and well done (back to the 1600's) that I had to try the free fourteen day thing. I burn the midnight oil looking for more and more threads to my family's origins. You cannot explain how wonderful it feels to see your own Dad's handwriting on the 1930 U.S. Census. I didn't know that the Census is not available for public perusal for seventy-two years after it is taken, to protect privacy. The 1940 Census will be available in 2012. I am finding some family secrets that are not so pleasant, but it does explain some relatives that were sort of hinky in my memory. This is a picture of my father (in the suspenders) when he was a boy in Arkansas. (Taken about 1912) He is shown here with some of his siblings. Notice that that are combed and prettied up, but barefoot and obviously walking in the dirt. The nine children here range from one and a half to twenty, but two sisters were already married and mothers at 21 and 22.

I always knew that Dad had ten siblings, but I could only name nine. In looking at Ancestry.com, I found a message board with a lady who was looking for her husband's grandmother, whose one brother had moved to Ohio and become a lawyer. My Dad! The grandmother was my long lost aunt, who had died eleven years before I was born. Everything started falling into place and I am finding relatives all over the country who would have been lost to my children and grandchildren when I die and take my few pitiful memories with me.

With such exciting hunting going on here in my computer, I have been lax indeed, memories are almost gone, but somehow are trickling back a bit at a time.

Another reason for no new posts is my "forever friend", the hubby. He is tired of watching television all by himself. Living together in Florida without our children and grandchildren means we need to amuse each other and we aren't very funny any more.

I have one more really big reason for not blogging, but I am still trying to think my way through this one --- I'll let you know if I will write, close my blog or change my place of blogging.