Being Intentional

I mentioned in my post about the Miracle gel nail polish that I was trying to be more intentional with my life. I feel like it's really easy when you become a mom, especially a stay at home mom to get a bit shall we say lazy or lax with your life. Now when I was a teenager I was very intentional about my appearance, I wasn't over the top but I was intentional. I brushed my hair and put on at least eyeliner everyday and I would take ages in my closet finding what I wanted to wear, I think I owned one pair of sweatpants and I never wore them.

Now as a stay home it's easy to find myself wearing the same shirt 3 days in a row with badly chipped nail polish, dry skin, hair that hasn't been brushed and no make up and really, really not caring. But that reality has started to bother me recently. Not just my indifference towards my appearance, but my indifference towards a lot of things, from my appearance, to my health, to relationships. I remembered recently a time when I was in college and God challenged me to "fast" make up for a week, and it was actually really hard because I had gotten to the point where I cared to much. Now though I feel the pendulum has swung to far in the opposite direction and I'm needing to pull it down to a normal place again.

So this years resolution is to be more intentional. I am not going to wait till Newyears to make it either, 'cause let's face it there is no time like the present. We signed a contract for our new place today, lots of change is coming and it's going to be a good season. 

So I challenge you, any of you ... If you are feeling lazy about your life, make a change and make this the year of intentionality.

First Birthday

Happy First Year to my first little bundle of joy! It's hard to believe it's been a full twelve months since you first came into this world, just before the sunrise ready to greet the day! You've done so well and grown so much. You love to eat, your always on the go and you usually listen when I say no. With your 4 little teeth and your head that loves to nod yes and shake no. I'm so looking forward to watching you grow!

you can read about the full year over hear.

First year being a First time mom

I have always wanted kids, ever since I can remember. But being the baby of the family I never got a hole lot of experience taking care of them. Nonetheless going into this I had every expectation of being super mom! I was going to breastfeed and pump, I was going to baby ware and get everything done and blog a lot and make a huge vegetable garden and still find time for arts and crafts and writing maybe even pick up guitar again! I was going to do it, do it all and be fabulous! Well that isn't really how it went.... at all.

So labor and delivery went well, I wasn't scared or nervous I didn't want an epidural and that's probably good because I wouldn't have time for one if I did. Contractions started around 4 am on the 7th and I went to the hospital in the afternoon and they said oh your only about a centimeter dilated and three days early, first baby just go home honey, it could be days before this baby pops out. So next morning 5 am arrived back at the hospital they looked at me and said we'll check but they might just send you home or have you walk (I'm thinking I'm not walking anywhere) and at 5:58 am my little Guinevere Annette came into the world at 6 lbs even and 19.5 inches. She was so tiny and so perfect, with the deepest blue eyes and the blackest baby hair. Everything was going smoothly, she found my breast and latched on within an hour or so and the hospital does rooming in with all their newborns, so that was nice.

Labor wasn't all that bad, and honestly the thing that hurt the most was having the monitor strapped to my belly. But oh boy after ... I was not prepared for how painful the postpartum experience would be, or how long (it took over 3 months for me to heal completely).

And then there was the breastfeeding problem, it started out great and for the first month she only ever gained weight, she wanted to nurse almost constantly and I was exhausted but she was gaining and growing. Then some strange thing happened and she was still nursing all the time but it just wasn't enough. I tried supplements to produce more milk and even cut out dairy (which was dreadful) but it didn't do much and for some other dreadful reason I just can't pump. So after fighting a loosing battle for a while, I ended up supplementing and as much as I had wanted to be super mom the stressed exhausted mom I had become was so beyond happy for the 5 minutes of peace a 4 oz bottle of formula could bring.

That was all on the up and ups but of course life never throws just one thing at you and adding a squirt of lemon to that paper cut was just what I needed. I was still nursing and she was still ravenous and also a terrible sleeper so I slipped into a bad habit of letting her fall asleep while nursing just so I could have a break. She still will not go to sleep without me 75% of the time (bad habit, not going to repeat that mistake).

Also I couldn't find a nursing bra that fit properly and my breast were super sensitive so wearing anything more then a loose shirt  was extremely painfully and I couldn't do it for more then an hour or two. I remember going to a woman's meeting one evening and thinking its all moms and girls and I'm going to forgo the pain tonight, they might not even notice, they did though, no one said anything but it was obvious and that was the last time I did that. 

Another big issue was Guinys problem with car seats it is so much better now, but she still doesn't like it. When she was about 2 weeks old we went to my friends wedding an hour and a half away and the ride took probably 3 or 4 hrs because she screamed and cried the entire time and we kept having to stop. Side note we got a 5-50 lbs rear and front facing type car seat and that helped considerably.

Around 5 months I started feeding her baby food because she just wanted real food so bad. I almost wished I had started a bit earlier because after that she finally seemed to normalize eat and drink and then actually be full and okay for a while not so constantly hungry. But oh could she eat, no airplanes for her one mouthful swallow, open mouth, another mouthful swallow, open mouth and cry when the 4 oz bowl was empty and then when we started eggs and noodles and cracker and things she could actually pick up and eat oh you would not believe how happy she was. And she would eat anything and I mean anything (except green beans).

The summer went by fast and she went from rolling to crawling and then cruising along furniture, just last week she started to walk  and already she try's to run. She has 4 teeth and another two obviously not far behind. She's about 27 in tall and oh she must be 19 lbs or more by now. She loves to sing with her daddy and she has the sweetest giggle. Also she loves dogs, my brother and sisters pittbull is her favorite, and any other very large dogs. Actually she loves most animals except giraffes. She hates being strapped down (car seat high chair etc) unless she's going for a walk in her stroller, she loves the fresh air and sunshine. Oh she also loves sorting laundry and dusting furniture (mommies little helper).

Special thanks to my mom and dad and husband but esspecially my mom for all the help.

Till next year!

Excited for a New Start

So the plan this year was always to stay with my parents until after the China trip and then to find a place of our own. I must confess I was not looking forward to rental searching in Delaware, however last week a cousin of mine sent me a message and we went over to have a look. It's a little two bedroom trailer for $500 a month, and though I've never been a big fan of trailers I'm feeling very happy with the prospects of this one, it is very small. But it's a good starter I think, I can't wait to get it all fixed the way I want and show you all the before and after pictures of our new little home!

A Long Hard Month

So after a long hard I'm getting ready for what looks like another long hard month, we've been back stateside for three days now and still we've not yet fully recovered from the jet lag. The room is a mess and as much as I want to just get all cleaned up ... the little miss will not permit. She's getting to that stage where she is into everything and with our recent excursion she's over clingy and rather off schedule, all in all a very bad combination. Not to mention trying to find rental at a non exorbitant rate, without moving to another state.... and all I want is to take a relaxing bath, paint my nails, bake a cake and then eat it with coffee.

A Final Update

For a few weeks at any rate. I know it's been a while but I have a million excuses, life has been quite busy and quite stressed the last few weeks. And to be entirely honest I've been exhausted and my mind quite lacking in topics of interest, and things worthy of the time it would take to write and read them. But we'll be on the ups with lots to share when we get back.

Where are we going?   China.    How long?    Three weeks.    When?    In three days.

So the rest of my week will be quite busy, trying to finish everything, pack everything, clean everything, and hopefully forget nothing! Well here are some garden pictures  as well as a few of my corset for you and if you think of us say a prayer for easy, safe, successful and enjoyable travels.

Find your Ancestors for Free part 4

Sorry it's been a few days since posts 1,2 and 3, but as I said last time, today I'm going to talk about names.

Remember when searching that the exactness of a name is not all that important. Be open to different spellings, wrong spellings, nick names, middle names, wrong initials etc. If more then one person has the name in a family, one may use a middle name or a nickname, also very often census takers would guess on the spelling of names particularly odd names. For example my  3rd great grandmother was named Calista Yager Jones, however in the censuses it spelled Calista, calsta, cista, calistia and more. With that in mind you may be wondering how you can ever be sure, and that's where the rest of the family and dates come in to play. Remember I told you too write down everyone in the family and their ages, this is where you use that information. If you aren't sure it's them, use the other names and dates to compare and see if it is actually the same family.

That's first names, but let's look at family names. Those also get written wrong or sometimes even changed. My great grandmothers family was from Germany and there last name was Wiese, it has however been misspelled as Weise or Wise. On the other hand simple names such as Johnson could actually have started out as Johnston or Johanson. One interesting thing to note about family names is that within countries certain family names or more common in particular areas. For instance, here is a web-sight for German family names and when you search a name it tells you what the population density in each region is of people who bear that name. And here is a map of Ireland that tells the general areas that go with each family name. There are many other such resources as before mentioned, Google is your friend.

Now for a note on ships records and passenger lists. The best sight I have found for this is Olive Tree Genealogy, it's not particularly user friendly but it does have a lot of ships lists an they are free. Now remember one thing, even if you are sure your ancestors came from say Germany and landed in Philadelphia that doesn't mean they will definitely be on a list that say such and such ship arriving in Philadelphia from Germany on such and such date. They may have or they might have taken a ship to England and then on to America or they might have gone through France and then boarded a ship. So when looking for these records I advise you to be very open. my advice is if you have a year or year range and what city they arrived in that is where I would start. Another example generic random tidbit, always read the actual document if you can. I'll give you an example of why this is important, my great grandmothers two sisters on one census when asked where they were from answered, Neümunster rather than Germany, later on the census taker wrote Germany beside it but when the information was entered into the database it was only put in as Germany. So you see if I hadn't actually looked at the document I might never have discovered what area of Germany they came from.

One other thing to remember is that borders change with time, and it can be worth the effort to look up old maps no mater if you are looking in the US or abroad. On my fathers side for example the family was from West Virginia, but as we went farther back we noticed that it had changed to just Virginia. We began to wonder why they moved and as we examined the map we realized that the family hadn't moved at all, it was the state lines that had been moved. Another example in Europe, on my mothers said in the Wellman family it was said that they came from Wales, however people argued that there are no Wellmans. Later on someone else pointed out a that the Wales of the 15-1600's is not the Wales we know today, and that at that time it covered most of the southwestern end of the Island. Making it perfectly possible for him to have come from what was at that time known as Wales.

Happy Hunting! And remember don't hesitate to ask me any questions.

Find your Ancestors for Free part 3

If you haven't read part 1 or 2 please check them out here and here. For today's post I'm going to focus on smaller more localized help.

A great resource within your community is of course you local library, some libraries offer free use of ancestry.com through libraries personal computer. If you have a DE library card you can go on the Delaware library catalog (online) and use Heritage Quest. Check with your local libraries for any similar programs or materials they might have. 

Historical societies are also good places to get questions answered. If you know where your ancestory lived you can check with that areas local historical society and see if they can provide you with any information, documents, or even tips on other places to check! Preservation Directory is a great place to look for historical and preservation societies and as always don't forget, Google is your friend.

And last but not least for today, some blank forms you can print and use to better organize the information that you find. First we have blank census forms, and this web-sight has lots of free printable family tree templates.

I'll be back tomorrow to talk about ships lists names and origins. Remember feel free to ask me any questions! I'll do my best to get them answered.

Find your Ancestors for Free part 2

Yesterday I posted Finding your Ancestors for Free part 1, today I'll share three of my top tips!
   
   My number 1 tip as you begin to research is to keep a notebook with you and always write down any information you find and the source of that information. For example say you have just found a census with your great grandfather, you want to write down all the information on the census (some have more then others); name, spouse, children, ages, age at marriage, occupation, education etc it can even be good to look at their neighbors on the census. Next to this information write down your source i.e. Federal census 1880 or New York State census 1895. State, county, the date the census was taken. I also recommend keeping a document on your computer where you can save any links to information you find, it may not be as easy to find things later on as you might think. Also sometimes you will find a document and when you go to look for it again, it's gone or claimed by someone (like ancestry.com) who will make you pay to see it. This is one of the many reasons it's so important to write down all the information you find.

Now if you are using the ancestry app you'll probably start getting hints almost immediately, but remember they are hints nothing more they might be the person in your tree or they might not. So go through those carefully and even though it's on the app I still recommend writing down the info, also if you want to look at it later take a screen capture. Sometimes the app will only let you view the document 2 or 3 times and then they will ask you to purchase it, which as you know is something we are trying to avoid.

My 2ond tip actually comes via my great aunt who got this tip from a professional many years ago. He said "you don't look for their birth records first, you look for their death records". The reason as you may be able to guess is that there is a lot more information at the time of death. This is where social security death index comes in handy, also findagrave.com. Some states have there own ancestry websights where you can search birth, marriage and death records. For instance I was able to google Missouri death records and find a state websight with that information. 

Tip 3 Google is your friend, it's always a good idea if you have someone with an unusual name to try simply googling their name with their birth and death year, you never know what you might be able to find. For example as I was doing family research on my maternal grandfathers family I ran across a Helen Elizabeth Wellman Wellman Banner 1838-1930 (my 3rd great grandmother) and we decided to google her, and we were able to find a google book entitled The Descendants of Thomas Wellman of Lynn Massachusetts which was published in 1918. Chances are someone somewhere along the line, somewhere out there has done research on at least part of your family tree, don't be afraid to use the work they've already done just be aware that they might be wrong and always double check it.

Now my last bit of advice for today is to use familysearch.org, it is basically ancestry.com but free. Now feel better equipped and get to work, send me any questions and I'll do my best to answer them!

Find your Ancestors for Free part 1

Finding your family ancestry has become the new big thing over the past few years and one of the biggest groups leading the way is Ancestry.com. I'm sure we've all seen the commercials, whether it's people expressing surprise and amazement at what they found or how easilly it was to search, from the websight, to the app or even DNA testing. An all encompassing subscription costs $50 a month or nearly $200 for a half a year, and the DNA test although very cool is is priced at $100 dollars and can't actually tell you everything about where your family came from.

    Researching your family tree can be an amazing adventure, not to mention really fun and potentially semi-addictive, but it doesn't have to be an expensive hobby in fact it can be free. So I am going to do my best to show you how you can find your family without spending a ton of money that could be put to better use doing something else!

     The first thing you should do is write down all the information you have, and I mean everything starting with your parents and working your way back. You want to write full names any and every importent date, births, marriage, births of children, deaths. You want to write where they lived where they were born, what kind of work they did. After you've done what you can ask your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents etc for any information that you might not have known about and write it all down. Then after you've done all you can do, it's time to really get started!

      If you have an iPad, iPhone or any other devise with access to the APP store, you want to go on and download the ancestry app from ancestry.com. You will be able to make an account and use their family tree device for free, if you only have a desktop I believe you can also do this through ancestry.com if however it doesn't work Familysearch.com also has a similar application for building your family tree, although it is not quite as user friendly. Now that you have a digital family tree, it's time to add all your information into it. And that should have you off to a good start, next time I'll tell you about free websights available and how you can use them, I may even give you some examples.

Please leave any questions in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them!

    

Shipwreck Adventures

A couple years ago I helped take care of an elderly neighbor of mine and on those late nights she would often tell me stories from when she was just a girl. One night I remember her telling me that there use to be a shipwreck on the south end of the beach and when they were children they would go climb around and play on it. Obviously I liked the story, but I'd been down that way so many times and never seen anything more then a couple of 12x12 beams. So naturally I assumed that the tides had long since pulled it out and down to a watery grave, and I soon after forgot about it.

However, a few months ago I was looking on the satellite view of google maps and what should I happen to see but what looked like a shipwreck. So after excitedly telling Leon (my husband) about it we decided that the next nice weekend we should go on a little family adventure and see what we could see! Needless to say it took us a lot longer then we anticipated for us to get around to it. But the Fourth of July came, and with it time off and clouds. Apparently the ship has been there since 1889, you can read about it here. I guess I should say that technically this area is now a "bird sanctuary" which is of course rediculous, however in my defense the signs use to only say no driving, so on the way down I wasn't even paying attention to them.

At any rate it was a fun day out with my loves, and a nice first outdoors adventure for my little Guin!

The Jones Line

I recently wrote a post about our little Rode Trip to New York and in that post I kind of half promised to tell the story of my moms family line. Now my mothers maiden name is Jones and with a last name as common as that we didn't expect to get very far when doing our genealogy searches. (Note here, don't waste your money on an Ancestry.com subscription, I mean unless you're rich and like wasting money....then by all means do as you please). Fortunately for us, we already had 1. A lot of names and information and 2. The family stayed in relatively the same area, making it much easier to track things down by census information. My Great Aunt who is now 92 and her older sister had at one point started doing some research and she was able to give us some names and dates as reference points.
    It's funny how we as people always hate the multitude of questions they ask on Census records, but when we look back, oh it is so wonderful to learn the little details! Now I'm thinking I'll write another post soon on how to research your ancestry for free, but for now I will simply share a few sights that can get you going. My top 3 are probably Familysearch, FindaGrave and Rootsweb. Now there are a lot of sights that you have to pay for, like Ancestry.com and Fold3. My advice is to not bother with those for as long as possible, and if you find any information that only those sights have put it on a list and when you've got it all together and you have a not too busy month get a months free trial and research all those at once for free. But I digress ....
      Ah yes, the Jones family line, we have traced it back to the 1600's and a man by the name of Teague. No one seems to know to much about Teague, there is some conjecture that he was the son of Christopher Jones (captain of the Mayflower) but there's really no proof, also there is some possibility that he was half Indian (leaving the possibility of an illegitimate son of C. Jones, though not likely). At any rate he lived in the area of the Plymouth Bay colony, at Chatham and Yarmouth, and though there is no record of his marriage it is believed that his wife was a woman from the Wampanoag tribe. There are however records of Teague, mostly court records however as he was often in trouble.

    Next in line is Josiah Jones and his wife Elizabeth Berry (daughter of Richard Berry, friend and fellow trouble maker of Teague). These two lived in Yarmouth and later move to East Greenwich RhodeIsland and seemed to live rather respectable lives. Their son Seth (first of many by that name) married Priscilla Hamilton they had a son who they named Josiah and he married Sarah Place. Their son the second Seth was born in 1763 in East Greenwich, he moved to New York and married Nancy Carr ( who there is very little record of. Seth and Nancy had at least 7 children, two sons who they named Seth Nelson and William Jones. Seth Nelson Jones was born in Otsego county NY and married Calista Yager. They had a son who they named Seth Eugene and he married Frances Amellia Wellman ( another long family history). Together they had six children, William, Howard, James, Alice, Lulu Bell, and my great grandfather Warren Benson (who as the story goes, owed his interesting name to the stove). He married Anna Marie Wiese who's family had immigrated from Germany and they had 4 children Seth (my grandfather), Lorenz, Emma and Ruth (who we visited last month). My grandfather Seth Eugene Jones married Rose Mary Feeley and together they had three children of which my mother is the youngest. 

    So there you have it, a rough history of the Jones over the past 400 years.

Road Trip to New York

Last week we drove to upstate New York to visit my Great Aunt Ruth, she is 92 years old and though she sends me birthday cards and other letters every year this was the first time I had ever met her. She is my mothers, fathers, baby sister and we had such a lovely time visiting with her.

While we were there we did a lot of talking about our family history, visited some interesting places and a couple of cemeteries. She is the family member who has all the pictures, knows all the names and remembers all the stories. 

The vacant building to the right use to be a hardware store that was owned by my great great uncle Howard Jones, the sign is long gone, but the building still stand on the Main Street in Fly Creek, NY. Below are the grave stones of what we are pretty sure are 3 generations of Jones family, the one in the middle though probable isn't definite as the writing has faded from the stones.

This past year or two of genealogical research has turned up so many interesting things and though there are still a lot of shady branches that need further researching the Jones family line at least has been traced back as far as can be traced. Which for the record is about 1640, but I think that all is a post for a different day.