26 Nov
Happy Holidays
Made it through a Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning Brunch and then Chistmas Supper. Boxing day is a day of locking the doors, having some rest and getting a bit of cleaning done. I'm pretty sure our two Children have been spoilt.
20 Nov
Vacation and Sickness
Somehow, whenever I get extended time off of work I get sick. Monday was my first day off and received an ear infection, and then Tuesday had me asleep in bed for pretty much the entire day. Wednesday I slogged through, and now Thursday it's still irritating but the pressure has released.
Again another month has past without many updates. Quick recap: Nicole's Opa died after a fairly long decline and one of her relatives died due to an accident, have been working quite a bit with work and on weekends, vacation as of Monday, work Christmas party last Saturday, children party last Sunday, tried going to the Stanley Park Christmas train but they had a two hour wait, Nicole went to the Conservatory but they weren't holding their Christmas display this year, and Nicole with her parents went to VanDusen for their lights display. I've probably missed several items, but my brain fails me—I blame being sick.
In the last month I haven't done too much genealogy. Comparing the Ancestry and FamilySearch (Findmypast) census indexes, and finding there are quite a number of people I've missed. I like to think that for some of the censuses I'm at 95% completion or better, but whenever I go back and really start to look or do name variations or hunt individuals, I'm constantly reminded how many are missed and that I'm more at a level of 70-80% (hopefully not worse).
Quick Rant: Not happy with Canada Post. Not the workers, but the management for pulling some un-nice moves, such as increasing the postage rate by 1/3 and getting rid of the Permament Stamp (rates don't increase year to year).
23 Nov
November
Noticed I haven't updated for awhile, as I've been busy between family and work, trying to think back to what I've done over the last month and a half.
Took several days off at one point and went up to the Okanagan for several days and visitied part of Nicole's family, including her Great-Uncles whom are around 100 years of age. Have been working for the most part, with some work weekends. Currently my weekends for November are home improvement weekends with me repainting the house or making other improvement such as replacing the flooring in the bathroom. Have done a bit of Genealogy, but nothing too large with small bits here and there.
Andrew keeps getting more inquisitive, he's still a string-bean, and I'm sure one of these days he'll get a haircut, however, we keep on putting it off—his hair will never curl like it does now after a hair cut. Amelia is now large enough that she can roll over, sure in a few months she'll be crawling, and she's already working on her baby teeth.
Thinking I'll have to upgrade my Genealogy software, as I'm still using FTM v16, and I can't open newer version of Family Trees that are sent to me.
1 Oct
Fall is here
Been a little while since last update. We finished off our vacation in August/September by going to White Rock, PNE, visiting relatives, and relaxing. After Labour Day me going back to work, to an unforgiving schedule to make up for being away almost a month.
Not too much happened in September other than work, and more work, and taking a quick camping trip to Cultus Lake while it was still warm. We left a day earlier from that trip as the weather was changing from Summer to Fall.
Fall is now here, its quite gray, and will now be gray and wet for the next six months, with the snow staying on the mountains above the clouds.
Looking through FHL roles, and just noticed that they've microfilm almost all the Irish GRO birth records to 1952 with the exception of 1881-99 & 1914-29 (Though it ended at 1870, where Marriages/Deaths did). Will be maxing out my Photo Duplication requests for many many months to come (limit of 5 per month). At some point will update the birth records with the appropriate microfilm ordering information, and images when they become available.
27 Aug
Road Trip
Drove up to Calgary in a day and spent a week with a friend of Nicole's. Our respective children spent the week playing with one another. Visited Heritage Park, which I never knew about and is quite massive, and spending the day there we only visited about 1/3 of the park. Another day was spent over in a spray park, and the rest were mostly lazying around.
Had a chance to run around to all the cemeteries and take photos, which was good. Unfortunately the central branch library was closed due to the flood, which was irritating since there was barely any mention on the website, other than small text in the corner. The Guarda Security personnel that they had were useless, and recommended another library about 20 min away, which didn't have any of the special collections. Spent about 2 hours walking around downtown, thankfully parked across the river else the parking meters would bleed my wallet dry (parking fees were high even for Vancouver standards).
On return trip from Calgary we stopped in Kelowna for several days to stay with relatives. Visited the Kangaroo Creek Farm in Winfield, which has quite a number of Australian animals, and the place has been around for some time but is still somewhat of a secret. Time in general was fairly relaxing, with a few hic-ups here and there, and in the end the trunk was full of fruit from the Okanagan on the way home.
12 Aug
First few days
Went and visited the in-laws for a number of days, lazed about, and had pie at Kilby Museum in Harrison Mills. Tried the minature train at Bear Creek Park in Surrey, disappointed
Started looking through the 1921 Census, have been able to pull quite a number of images, which will need to be transcribed. There are a few pluses (easy access for free, can easily guess a location using directories and previous censuses) and a number of negatives (missing books, illegible pages, enumerator errors, and lack of information compared to previous pages). Biggest irritation so far is that it appears that Britannia Bay is missing from Nepean Co in Ontario, a number of the books have missing pages or entire sections. Will have no love in the future, as from what I understand, the censuses at least until 1951 have been microfilmed and the paper copies destroyed by Stats Canada.
8 Aug
Vacation
Off work for the rest of the month. Don't have the highest paying job, but the vacation plan is quite nice.
Spent last weekend going to the fireworks, Confederation Park for the minature train, visiting Burnaby Village Museum and swimming in the local pool.
1921 Census is now available, time to start looking at the images
2 Aug
Huzzah
Finished teaching.
Two days next week, after the long weekend, for closing off course files and returning equipment, and then I have the remainder of August for a nice long Vacation.
29 July
DNA
The price was right, so had an English Skuce who lives locally (in Province) test for 12 markers. Results are to be expected—not closely related, however, reading the notes from FamilyTreeDNA indicate "genealogical time frame" means 15 generations (375yrs at 25yr/generation), which would be right on the edge of when the Skuce lines left England for Ireland. Results have been given over to the Skuce Family DNA project.
Have just about finished uploading all the available images from microfilm for Irish GRO Marriage/Death data. I'll start working on Births next month.
Last week of teaching. I'll be happy when the 60+/-hr workweeks are over.
14 July
Teaching
Pretty busy teaching right now, and will be until months end. Everything is currently consumed either by work or home life.
Took a look at the Family Tree function at FamilySearch, and it looks like someone dumped names in and then a program, without rhyme or reason, put family connections together. Rather disappointing, and would be rather difficult to fix unless starting at a clean slate.
15 June
Doing quite a bit
Quick Recap of the last few weeks, have probably forgotten a fair amount.
Went to Hart House Restaurant by Burnaby Lake for my Birthday. First time that I've had food done sous-vide. It was quite nice.
Have been regulary going to Confederation Park to take Andrew on the small trains.
Swimming Pool is now open where we live, it's heated this year which is nice.
25 May
Painting
Spent the long weekend painting the interior of the house; definately has a different feel now. Been busy with work, thankfully, after this weekend things should be quiet until the second half of June.
11 May
New Resources
Quite a few new resources for Irish Genealogy now available. Reading through the newly posted Calendar of Wills and Aministrations (1858-1922) on the National Archives of Ireland site, nothing earth shattering, but still a small piece in the larger puzzle.
9 May
Internet
Back up as of yesterday while I was working a late night, it was out since Sunday. Apparently there was an accidental disconnect out in the Box, all we received was a phonecall saying it was fixed.
Have a bit of catching up to do.
6 May
No Internet
Naturally when I get some time off of work we lose our Internet and Phone. Telus isn't too sure what happened, have to wait until Wednesday until they can physically check the bridge. This won't be posted until the internet is back online.
Recertified my First Aid over the weekend, had everything crammed into two days, and will need to study the book they provided as there is quite a bit of stuff to retain.
30 Apr
Calm
Since the last update, spent another week in the field with work, went up to Kelowna for a few days as Nicole had a several days off, closed off any year end paperwork, cleaned up my desk at work either by shredding or filing, started prepwork for the summer season, and generally tried to relax in the new fiscal. Also did some scanning and light genealogy work. Have been disappointed by Irish GRO Records, as they yield very little information, however, will be posting as many as I can in the future. Noticed some large holes in Familysearch when searching the Ontario BMD, as I have images from Ancestry, but when trying to compare I get no results, and trying to narrow in on the results show that there are quite a number of years missing, which is rather irritating (plus the constantly disappearing records).
Have some DNA testing that should hopefully yield results for the summer: Skuce FamilyFinder and my mothers side mtDNA. Not getting my hopes up too high with the Familyfinder testing, as I've had mixed results with my mothers side, however I do know I'll get information just not too sure if it'll be usable.
Nicole mentioned that unless one know what information one is looking for, that the site is hard to navigate. Will have to evaluate how to better structure it. Open to suggestions. Have noticed when doing a google search a number of pages do not show up, or were last archived over a year ago.
24 Mar
March Madness and other Events
Went to the states with work at the end of Feb, and the sickness came back. Took several weeks to recover from the Cold, however to this date, Nicole still has the a stuffy nose.
Went up to Cypress Bowl and went sledding. Sled slops were a bit smaller then we thought they'd be. Tubing looks like it'd be a good day of fun.
Celebrated Andrew's 3rd Birthday.
Very busy with work, trying to close off end fiscal. Seems I'm working long days, and doing paperwork while at home.
Had the 11 year reunion with fellow Toque newspaper staff, at the rebuilt Finnigans in Abbotsford. It was great fun getting together again.
19 Feb
Better
I can say that it was a pretty nasty cold, and although I'm over most of the effects it still lingers slightly.
Doing some incremental work with Genealogy, nothing major, with most of my efforts still on getting photos and other items scanned. Noticed that my DNA testing has now been upgraded to 67 markers, however, never received an email indicating that it happened. Waiting on the first English Skuse to have their DNA results come back, and just received notice today that another Irish Skuce line has just been tested and matches the other Skuce/Skuses. I think the DNA tests are now at the half-way mark for Irish lines originating from the 1700s that still have a male descendant, however, this should be an interesting year in seeing how things connect.
12 Feb
Winter Sickeness
Spent last week with work in the US getting everything setup for an exercise, I thought it could be done quickly unfortunately they had the person who was basically unqualified doing all the computer setup and paperwork. It turned into an exercise of thumb twidling. I'm pretty sure I could've done it faster, gotten home earlier and maybe worked a bit on the ever increasing in-basket/counter/box/etc (I have way too much paperwork piling up that needs dealing with and sorting).
Over the weekend I was fairly sick, am still sick, and Nicole's sick too. The joys of having a little one means having a little plague carrier.
27 Jan
January
Haven't updated in a little while. A few events happened over the month, starting with Nicole's Grandmother dying while we were in Seattle after a long illness, me going back to work with having the amount of work ramp straight up and still climbing, Andrew and Nicole being sick the last week, getting more photos to Scan (Allan side in Scotland all the way back to mid 1800s) of which some of the names on the photos identify the photos that I already have, having contact with a whole slew more cousins, and now waiting on FamilyTreeDNA for more results.
Some good news, PRONI in Northern Ireland should have their GRO information in a pay service later this year in a format akin Scotland's People, foresee my next Christmas present. Just wish the Republic would follow suite, instead of bickering between various government departments.
On a personal note I seem to be transitions a bit from the Genealogy name finding side to the family history side, which really fleshes everything out and provides more connection to the past.
As per the first para, due to work, have not had much time to do anything, including photo scanning, genealogy research, email, etc. Should have a weekend off in a few weeks, and maybe some compensated time off.
5 Jan
Quick Trip
Indulged Nicole by going down to Seattle for a few days, visited Pike Place Market, humored Nicole with going up the Space Needle, and walked around downtown. Received a really good deal with Best Western by Seattle Center, unfortunately neither of us slept well.
Looked around to do a tiny bit of shopping, but in general the prices south of the border are about the same as north of the border, except for the occasional item that cost half as much.
1 Jan 2013
Happy New Year
Hope Everyone had a good Christmas and start to the new year.
Started off the end of last year making a run to Chilliwack as the hospice that Nicole's Oma is at made a call to come out, and then we came back today.
Have ordered a FamilyFinder DNA test for the Skuce side, as well as an upgrade from 37 to 67 markers yDNA for the Skuce side. The family finder will be very interesting, as It's given me plenty to think about on other family members that have received the test, whereas the yDNA will then ensure better results should anyone else decide to upgrade at a later point. Something to note is that an English Skuse has decided to get tested, will be interesting to see what the results are in the next month or so. FamilyTreeDNA sale has been extended to the 3rd January, so it's last chance until either their is a weekend sale or next Christmas.
If anyone knows a good location to get Irish General Register copies could you please let me know. The official Irish GRO costs about 6 Euro ($12CAD) for a Photocopy, whereas getting a microfilm reel from the LDS costs about $8CAD. Was hoping for a cheaper/easier option (like Scotland's People—easy as putting money into a slot machine).