What is cuter than a kitten in your arms? NOTHING!

Above you can see a very cute picture of my brother Mike with our teenage kitten Bucket laying in his arms. I thought this would make a great pic and so I rushed to get the camera.

I think it definitely was a worthy shot. And good enough to post. Enjoy!

Time has nearly run out for my Christmas Tree Project, I think I have about two and a half weeks before I have to stop and get it printed.

I did a trial run a couple of days ago, creating a large scale pdf chart that I should be able to get printed, at a normal print and copy shop without too much hassle. Using my Family Historian software it is quite straight forward to create the chart.

The research side of things is still ongoing, I have pretty much given up on find the three 4x great-grandparents that are still missing, although I may still be in with a chance of finding the mother of Sarah LAY if I can find her baptism record.

I still need to order a birth certificate for one of the children of Thomas and Rebecca BATEMAN to try and confirm Rebecca’s maiden name, although I am pretty certain it is TOWNSEND it would be nice to confirm it once and for all.

Other than that it is pretty much a case of filling in more gaps. Most recently I have been working through my ancestors making sure I have all the birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial details for them where possible. Most of these are not going to be exact dates, because I can’t afford to buy dozens of birth, marriage and death certificates.

In terms of census details I don’t think there is much more that needs finding, as I think I already have most of them, but I will have to have another check in a week or so just to make sure.

Next week I need to start work on the actual text scheme that is going to appear in the boxes on the chart. I am thinking about leaving out photos, because I don’t have enough of them, but I need to make a decision on that soon.

Even with the information that I have on my the tree so far I think it is going to look quite impressive, or at least I think it will, whether my relatives will be similarly impressed remains to be seen.

I performed a concert today in Purcellville, Virginia with Linda and David Lay, the three of us together known as Springfield Exit. It was a fun show for sure. We went over like the Beatles. I’ve never heard so much screaming in all my life!

It’s all because Linda has one of the best voices on the planet…and knows how to use it, too! When she sang today, people just about fell out of their chairs with excitement.

As many of you know, her husband, David, is the hardest working farmer this side of the year 2000. He plays the guitar about as cleanly and perfectly as humanly possible.

When the three of us sang today, we could hardly hear ourselves because of all the excitement in the audience.

Now with this new blog, I can keep you better informed about Springfield Exit shows, along with everything else I’m up to in the music world and beyond.

Springfield Exit will also be performing at the old schoolhouse in Lucketts, VA this coming January 9th. Go to the Lucketts Bluegrass website for more information:
http://www.luckettsbluegrass.com/

I’ve been out for a while, but I thought it would be interesting to at least keep track of the jobs that we’re losing through mass layoffs.  This is a list of high profile job losses since the month of November 2009.

Aetna- (1000 jobs lost) (11/18/09)
Applied Materials- (1200 jobs lost) (11/11/09)
Sprint- (2500 lost jobs) (11/09/09)
Electronic Arts- (1500 lost jobs) (11/09/09)

If you know of any companies laying off more than 50 employees, please let me know in a comment.

In a land far away, in a time long ago, there was a man who had enough and had he not just enough, but to excess had he. His hours were long, his toils sincere, and his earnings quite dear. He ate well, he lived well, and he slept well. For this was a man with enough to spare and did he, with others share. For this, he was well regarded by his brethren, kin and neighbor, too. Even his foes kept a fond distance, for they were few and their character untrue, with only the cowardice of envy to spare. And so, the man slept well and he lived well.

It was common in those times, as in times now, for like to live by like. And so it happened that in a dwelling nearby lived a second man, well to do as he was. This man, too, had more than enough, enough even to excess. He ate well and he lived well, but he did not sleep well. Though his hours were likewise long, his toils were not sincere. The wind hums in question, how were his earnings dear? With cunning and not without conniving, this second man pondered and plotted his hours away. He left his toils to others near, that they may have reason not to stray. And stray they did not, their fear keeping them near. His foes were neither few and ever nearer they drew. Respect for this man fell away; in its place, stood only their contempt. And so, the second man, though he lived seemingly well, did not sleep so well.

It was true in those times, as in times now, that where a mountain stands tall, a valley lays nearby. And so it were that a third man lived not so far from the first and second men. But though he ate well enough, he did not live well and he did not sleep well. His toils were many and his hours even more. And whilst he would utter not such words, it was for the second man that he toiled so. Neither foe had he, nor friends with which to be. His hours filled with anger true and one part angst, and toil alone did he. And so, the third man did not sleep well, because he did not live well.

It was inevitable in those days, as in days of now, that where the sun shines upon a tree, never the land below is a golden ray to see. And so there was a fourth man, who served below all the others. Of excess and its meaning he understood not, knowing it to be a thing only that he lacked. His toil was not much, his time of rest neither more. For his hours were long and he never knew when, if, it would end. Foes he had not; for nothing did they fear nor more was there to envy dear. Friends were likewise few, too afraid of filth to stand even near. He ate not well, and by no man’s standard did he live well. But he did sleep well. With little to weigh him down and not a regret to hold him back, only the night was his friend, ever to return and always to keep him until the morn. And so, the fourth man did not live well, but he slept so very well.

With a heavy heart do we toil away what otherwise would we idle, or with light heart shall we rest when the day has met its end and bids farewell the eve.

This story of four men is but a tale of two: two ways to eat, two ways to sleep, and keeping true –there are but two ways to live.

I vaccuumed my room today! That makes my day.

Adam is really afraid of the vaccuum cleaner. He won’t run away, but he scrunches up his face and whimpers. Which, is cute and funny.

It’s the first time I vaccuumed my room since moving in. So, yes, I am incredibly hygenic.

It takes a lot for me to do homework, finish things outside of school that don’t have immediate deadlines and then bypass watching a movie or playing guitar or whatnot to clean my room. I wrote the rough draft to my cover letter. Yes, it has taken forever, but I did it. I think it’s a pretty good start. Now, to edit and revise. Which is where the real writing is done. Because anyone can write a whole bunch of pretty words. But, making them coherent, and choosing what is superfluous is a real art. One that I have certainly not mastered.

Like this blog, which I do not edit before I post. I started it to have as a reference if a recruiter wanted to see my blog work. But, now it’s mostly just a conversation with my 30-some loyal readers, or few loyal readers and 20-some random clicks I get a day. A one-sided conversation. Which is the best kind. Like Twitter. This is the age of narcissism.

Anyway, my floor is clean if anyone would like to come lie on it.

Did these keywords bring you here?

Let’s get this up front.

This is NOT about gambling.

Gambling is hope and chance mixed up with a dose of luck.

Would you like to eliminate the chance, and turn that into CERTAINTY?

Would you like to change the hope into ASSURANCE?

And then throw out the luck.

Now, we are left with the assurance of a certain outcome, in other words ‘GUARANTEED‘.

Yeah, Yeah everyone says ‘it’s guaranteed to do this, or that’.

The ‘GUARANTEE‘ that i’m talking about is that if the system i’m going to show you doesn’t return you DOUBLE YOUR INVESTMENT in 60 DAYS, then you get YOUR MONEY back.

What can be fairer than that?

What are we talking about?

Sports Arbitrage.

What’s that?

I’m not going to tell you about it, when there’s someone better to answer all your questions.

GO HERE

Read all about it.

Join. or JOIN HERE

Use it.

Come back and use my comments to tell me how you went.



The marriage certificate for Henry SHORNDEN and Sarah LAY arrived yesterday, and it has already been scanned and filed away. For once this appears to be a pretty straightforward marriage certificate, no unexpected surprises, in fact it confirms much of what I already know.

Henry SHORNDEN and Sarah LAY were married on the 25th December 1840 (I wonder how much it would cost to get married on Christmas Day now?) at the parish church in Milton next Gravesend, Kent. Henry was a bachelor and Sarah a spinster, but unfortunately their ages are only given as “full”. Both gave their residence as Milton.

I was pleased to see that Henry’s rank or profession was given as “Cutler”, that ties in nicely with information from the census and baptism records from Alton, Hampshire. Not surprisingly Sarah has no rank or profession shown.

Henry’s father is William SHORNDEN, this matches the information from the Ospringe parish registers, and he was a labourer. Henry’s profession and the name of his father mean this provides a nice link between the Henry from Ospringe, Kent and the one from Alton, Hampshire, adding to the evidence that suggests they are the same person.

Sarah’s father was Joseph LAY, and he to was a labourer. Joseph would be another of my 4x great grandfathers. That leaves me with only three left to find, including Joseph’s wife.

Interestingly neither Henry nor Sarah signed their names, I am sure this led to much of the confusion with different surname spellings once they got away from their native Kent. The other interesting thing is that the witnesses were William and Mary Ann WICKER, could these be relations of either the bride or the groom?

So where now? Well there are still two questions to be answered:

1) Where and when was Sarah born and who was her mother? I have an approximate date of birth (1821), but no definite place for Sarah’s birth, Kent seems most likely, so I need to check all the baptism registers for the places previous mentioned, Milton next Gravesend, Ospringe and surrounding parishes for a daughter of Joseph LAY.

2) What about the two daughters that Henry and Sarah had, who are shown in the 1851 census as being born before the couple were married? These two girls were most likely Henry and Sarah’s daughters, but as well as checking all the above parishes for their baptisms, I need to check for a variety of different surnames as well. It would be nice to find the family in the 1841 census, but their appears to be very few SHORNDENs in the south of England that year.

This family are certainly one of the most challenging I have worked on so far, they are the first case I have in my tree of a name change, rather than just different variants. I do feel however that this is a story worth investigating and I will probably try and put together a full report on the family once more of the facts emerge.

This wasn’t a good week for research, but a good week for organising. Another chunk of my stuff to sort folder has been sorted. I have ordered the marriage certificate for Henry SHORNDEN and Sarah LAY, and have discovered I am missing quite a bit of data on the ancestors I already have in my Christmas Tree Project.

• Continue working on my stuff to sort folder, I cleared quite a bit last week, and I think this week I will try and sort the few United States census pages that I printed out a few years ago.
• For my Christmas Tree Project I need to start filling in some of the gaps in my research, probably by trying to find all the GRO Index references for birth, marriages and deaths that I am missing.
• I should get the marriage certificate for Henry SHORNDEN and Sarah LAY this week. That should be interesting and may well generate some more follow up work.