Family Events ~ February 21 - 27

February 21 ~ This day is marked by the death of my great-grandmother, Mary BENZIE in 1961 in Garretsville, Ohio. The picture to the right has a notation on the back "Ma Ritchie at the farm." I don't remember her as I was barely past 2 when she died, but I do remember visiting the farm. Her son Tom lived there all of his life.

February 22 ~ On this day in 1908 my grandfather (and son of Mary BENZIE), David Washington RITCHIE is born in Cleveland, Ohio. (Born on the day celebrated as Washington's birthday, thus his middle name)

He was "the youngest of the oldest four" as he always liked to say (in a family of 8 children.) So, that would make him the scowling youngest child in this picture. Maybe he didn't care for the hat??

This day is also marked by the death of my step-great-grandmother, Lena VENETTE DUNCAN in 1923 in Boulder, Colorado. She is buried with her mother Mary LEGAULT VENETTE BOWLEN and her daughter Melva Marie DUNCAN in Green Mountain Cemetery in Boulder, Colorado. This is a huge cemetery and I was fortunate to find a full index and map on-line (click the link above) that allowed me to locate this grave several years ago on a trip to Boulder.


February 24 ~ This day is marked by the death of a potential 7x great-grandmother, Barbara HUNZIKER in Staffelbach, Aargau, Switzerland.

February 26 ~ On this day Isabella DAVIDSON, my 4x great-grandmother is born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.


February 27 ~ This day is marked by the death of my grandaunt, Pearl Emma SAURER BIDLE in 1998 in Wayne County, Ohio.

One thing I remember about Aunt Pearl is visiting her when I was a teenager. I am 5'2" on a good day and Aunt Pearl is a good 3-4 inches shorter than I am. She was cooking something for us, I don't remember what, and she asked me to take a skillet off the burner. It was a huge old cast iron skillet and I used both hands to lift it. She later walked over and was slinging it around with one hand as it it weighed nothing at all!! Even then - and she must have been near 70 since she was my grandma's older sister by 10 year - she was stronger than I was. I guess living on a farm most of her life was better conditioning than 10 Minute Abs or Sweatin' to the Oldies ;-)

Family Events ~ February 6 - 13

As I ended last week's Family Events post, so I'll start this week's:

February 6th & February 7th ~ On these days, some years ago, right before and right after midnight my twin nephew and niece are born. I am using a more recent picture of them for this week - one taken at Christmas. We had the family celebration today so, once again,

Happy Birthday Twins!!!

February 8th ~ On this day in in 1835, my 2x great-granduncle Robert SWINTON is born in St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. Also on this day in 1894, my great-grandaunt Selma EICKELBERG was born in Denver, Colorado. She would only live to be nineteen, but I have a number of pictures of her. My grandfather's baby book is also inscribed, "Presented to Baby Quick by His Aunt Selma" so I even have a sample of her handwriting.

February 12th ~ On this day in 1754, my 5x great-grandmother Agnes STEVEN is born in Kilmany, Fife, Scotland.



February 13th ~ On this day in 1908, my granduncle Clair Raymond SAURER was born in Wayne County, Ohio. Wasn't he the cutest thing?!

I Give Credit to Midge...

....Midge Frazel that is over at Granite in My Blood for this post.

Back in early December I saw several Facebook updates from Midge about her new digital voice recorder. She even posted a short clip of her first recording (oddly enough, she has a New England accent - who would have thought!) I had been thinking about getting some type of hand-held recording device but just didn't have the energy to research them. I'm sure you all know how it is - there are a million choices and it just seems like you should thoroughly check them ALL out. Well, fortunately for me Midge mentioned exactly what she had purchased. I decided that was good enough for me! Now let me say that Midge never said, "Hey everyone, go out and buy this." I just decided that if she was happy with it and could upload a clip so (apparently) easily, that was going to be the extend of my "research." Besides, I could order it from Amazon and it met my price criteria. [Here is a link to the product, if anyone is interested]

As I mentioned in a recent post, I used this as part of my Christmas genealogy game. I had my nieces and nephew record answers to some of the questions on their quizzes. So, here's my first attempt. I chose this clip because I knew I had some pictures from one of my Grandpa Quick's photo albums to illustrate it:

Family Events ~ January 31 - February 7

[Yes, I know - February 6th should be the last day...but I have a special reason for including it here!]

January 31st ~ On this day in 1901 in Edinburgh, Scotland William Hannan RITCHIE, my 2nd cousin twice removed is born. He will only live for 4 days.

February 2nd ~ On this day in 1838, marriage banns are read for David RITCHIE and Agnes GOURLAY in Ceres, Fife, Scotland. They are my 3x great-grandparents. This day in 1993 is also marked by the death of my granduncle, Windsor Benzie RITCHIE in Ohio.

February 3rd ~ This day is marked by the death of James KIRK, my 5x great-grandfather in 1829 in St. Andrews, Scotland. I am fortunate that there is a marker for him in St. Andrews, erected by his son and that I got to see and photograph it! It was an early Tombstone Tuesday post last year.

This day is also marked by the death of Selma EICKELBERG, my great-grandaunt in Denver, Colorado in 1913. She was just 5 days shy of her 19th birthday.

February 4th ~ On this day in 1897 Edna SAURER is born in Dalton, Wayne County, Ohio. She will become the wife of my great-granduncle Raymond GRABER. She will also cause be no end of problems early in my genealogical "career" as she was born Edna SAURER and became Edna GRABER while her sister-in-law, Raymond's sister, is born Edna GRABER and becomes on marriage Edna SAURER!!! Even when people noted names on the backs of pictures it all depended on who was doing the labeling as even after marriage both women might be noted by a maiden name.

And now for the most special days of this week:

February 6th AND February 7th ~ On these days, some years ago, right before and right after midnight my twin nephew and niece are born. My niece, the one born on the 7th used to say that the 6th was always, "the worst day of the year for me" because on that day her brother would tell her, and anyone who would listen, that HE was a year older! "I'm already x but you are NOT" I'm sure any of you with brothers can imagine. While they are teenagers now, I just couldn't resist using their one-year old birthday party pictures.

Happy Birthday Twins!!

What I Did On My Christmas Vacation...

...or how I tricked my family into a Genealogical Holiday!!

I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering how to create more interest in my genealogical pursuits among my family. I know many of you are familiar with the glazed looks that appear anytime the subject of family history is ever so subtly dropped into a conversation. Oh, some members of the family will humor you and at least TRY to look interested for awhile, but oddly enough none of them ever seem to actually get excited when you tell them that yes, you finally found great-great uncle Zephaniah on the 1880 census - listed as an inmate of the Podunk County Jail.

Well this Christmas I resorted to games and bribery ~ and it worked!

I have 2 nieces and a nephew who are all teenagers. During a lull in our Christmas morning activities I brought out a pile of presents and told them I had a game that would result in their winning some of this loot. [I do have to say that they are all very good-natured kids and are used to humoring their slightly wacky aunt.]

I had put together a family tree for each of them and worked back through their great-grandparents...except that the 8 greats were all blank. [in the example here I have deleted some of the information, but the originals had all had full names and birth dates etc]

I also gave each of them a list of 20 question and told them that they would have to work together because contained within their questions were answers that would help them fill in a few of the blanks but not all of them (each one of them had different questions.)

Some of the questions were straightforward - "Who is your father's father's father?" Others required them to go around and talk to multiple people - "Who had a dog named 'Stinky' and how did he get that name?" Still others required them to take my hand-held recorder and interview someone to get the answer - "How, when and where did you Dad propose to your Mom? - and then get your Mom's version of the story."
The reward for finishing their family tree and list of questions was to pick one of three presents. First one finished got the first choice. In addition there was a smaller present attached that would go to whichever adult couple they were "competing" for. So, when my youngest niece finished first, she picked her present and the attached present went to my Mom & Dad. Once all the gifts were selected and everyone (or each couple) had one they all opened them. Of course when they unwrapped the presents they soon discovered that they were all the same - a family history calendar that I had created using Ancestry.com's MyCanvas application. I've attached a slide show of the calendar below.

Everyone loved the pictures and actually asked me questions about who they were and how they were related. It was so much fun. At one point my nephew said to me, "What are we going to do next year? We will have to get different relative so we can have more questions." I told him not to worry, I have a lot more stories and questions about his current relatives. I was just thrilled that they really seemed to think this was now a family tradition and wanted to do it again next year.

The final bonus was having 9 short audio clips created...but that's a story for another post.