Genealogical News

Wow, it published it before I even wrote anything except the title.


Of late I have not done much with out genealogy.  I have about 111,000 names in the file, dating back as far as 1100 AD.

My major complaint is that I do not have all the data I need for persons about my age, as most PAF's, gedcoms, etc., will shield that data until at least 70 years from date of birth have passed.  Well, I am 72, so I cannot get the more relevant data on my own generation.  The Census Bureau did release the 1940 materials (that's 2 years before I was born.) 

And I refuse to use Social Security data/records, as I feel myself that information should remain private.

The biggest hang-up has been my computer.  For some time I could not access the internet, as the speed my ISP was giving me was so low.  I am on dial-up so it was going to be slow anyway, but speeds of 4.8 kbps is way too slow. After having my son check my computer over and pronouncing it sound, I called my ISP and we worked out a routine that gives me 16 to 24 kbps consistently, with occasional flubs, to as high as 38 kbps, which seems like lightning speed after only getting 10 or 12 kbps.

I have learned a trick.  If I don't like the speed it gives me, I log out and log right back in, sometimes as many as three or four times until it gives me 30+.  Or just postpone what I planned to do.  I keep a stack of papers to enter data from for such occasions.  Then when I do get a good connection, I go to Rootsweb and download additional data to use during the next downtime.

I have generally found that I can log into Rootsweb and then get just about all the information I need for one or another of it's subsets.

The other project I am working on is to have an ongoing list, by alpha, of all family names we have in the file.  I have to do this manually as there is no automatic function that I can find to do it for me in the PAF which I use.  I have it complete for the first 104,ooo persons, and am working to get it current again.  I go through it every four or five months to update it.

YEE-HAW, Let's do it again!!!

Naw.  We can't.  'Cause we just died from stupidity!


The news just came across that someone died while paragliding - hang-gliding?  Whatever!!

Yesterday the news was that someone died while riding an ATV  -  at five o'clock in the morning.  After doing it all night.  On a foggy Kentucky hilltop road (it was well paved and double striped, by the way), but you can;t stop stupid.

You are not invincible.  Take a good look at what you do.

Do you run red lights?  Talk on the 'phone while driving?  Even worse, text while driving?  Drink before or while driving?  Try to eat, drink coffee, smoke, read the paper, etc while driving?  Classic stupidity.

Humans are given free will, and cannot handle it.  Not only can they not handle it from a spiritual standpoint, they can't even handle it in day to day living.

I know, when I was younger, I did stupid things, too.  But, it only takes a few such occurrences to make anyone with any common sense stop such activity.  Common sense?  We used to call it horse sense.  And I got plenty of that.  I've been called the north end of a horse travelling south enough times to know for certain that I have lots of horse sense.

The gal on the news just said that you should always stop ten feet from a stopped school bus.  Where did she get that number?  Common sense tells you to stop at least a car length away.  But common sense tells you to stay at least one car length behind any vehicle in front of you for every ten miles per hour you are travelling, too.  Do we do that?  Very few do so.  And so, we have innumerable rear end collisions.  But does anyone learn from these accidents?  Emphatically no!

Stupidity is not the same thing as ignorance.  Ignorance I can live with.  Stupidity I can't abide.  Ignorance can be abated with education and training.  Stupidity can't.

So, the next time you scrape through a situation that you maybe should not have, stop and think.  Were you guilty of being stupid again?

Lesson's over.  Get back on your Harley, or your ATV or your hang glider or start texting again.  The only one you have to blame is yourself.

Yee-Haw!!!