End of Two Tunnels

I supposed I'll slow down to posting once a week or so once all the newness wears off, instead of almost every day. I just finished yet another major branch of the Fisler family. Just one smallish branch to go.

I have a Family Tree Maker program that I enter all the informtion into. Then I can print out ancestor trees, descendant trees, etc. with whatever data I want to include. Some of the popular (and, therefore, annoying) first names on the Fisler hit parade are, for the guys, Samuel, Joseph, Benjamin, Charles, Jacob, Lorenzo (believe it or not!), Wade, Felix and Leonard. For the gals, it's Rachel, Elizabeth, Mary (no surprise there), Hannah, Henrietta, Sophia, Sarah, Ann/Anna/Annie, and, believe it or not, Euphemia. Yep, there are 3 or 4 Euphemia's just in one branch. At the other end of the spectrum are the "Your parents named you WHAT?!!" names, like Euphemia (LOL), Lynnton (male), Elbert, Mulford, Luberta (female), Thorn (male), Vestina (female - not a blood relative, thank goodness), Athalan (female - that's what it looks like on the actual census page, too), Kesiah (female - I've come across this name in a totally different section of the family, too), Barzillai (male - also unrelated to the Fislers), Gilden Elvin, who married Ola, the previously mentioned Oarmel/Armel/Armol, and one woman who also had three different versions of her name - Lorene (not bad), Lonzene (bad), and Alonzene (worse). There are a couple of names that I like, but would never name my kid that - like sisters Arabella and Isadora, and distantly related Cornelia. And one woman married Clayton Moore! No, not the Lone Ranger. He was a RR Express agent.

And then there are brothers who marry sisters, which isn't too bad, or the guy whose first wife dies, so he remarries . . . her sister or cousin. Got a couple of those. Or the guy who marries a distant cousin with the same surname. ACK! And THEN when he remarries, it's to her sister/cousin with the SAME NAME again. I think the only situation I haven't come across (yet) is where multiple wives have the same name, at least the first name.

Is there a gene for farming? I haven't actually counted, but at least 75% of my father's side of the family, up to 1930 anyway, were farmers. My mother's family were more city folk. I'm glad I don't farm full time. Just trying to get the garden to grow vegetables, not weeds, is a chore.

I'm also almost at the end of a spinning project. When in NJ, DH and I volunteered at a living history farm for about 8 years. Each year, after the sheep are shorn, they get the wool processed into roving (washed, dried, and carded into a long continuous strand about 1 inch in diam.). A spinner would then spin the yarn from the roving. We visited the farm last September and I learned that there are at least a couple dozen bags of roving being stored. The two employees there who spin don't have time to do it. Since I spin, I offered to bring one bag home and spin up some yarn that they could sell in their gift shop. I picked a bag of medium gray that's an amalgam of several sheep; it weighed about 8 lb. I'm now on the last half pound and expect to finish it in the next two weeks. That includes making two-ply yarn, winding it into skeins, and washing the skeins to set the twist. I also made some labels for the skeins with farm's logo on them. About half of the yarn has already been sent to the farm and the rest will go next month. So pretty soon I can get back to spinning for myself. I have a wool/silk blend that I think I'll work on next.

I am determined to get to bed at a decent hour tonight, so buh-bye