Thursday, July 5, 2012

Thankful Thursday - So many great things!

The past few weeks have been filled with amazing great things I am unable to pick just one for this Thankful Thursday.   I've been super busy and unable to post often lately but here is some of the great stuff that has been going on that I am thankful for in no particular order:

I met my father and paternal grandmother for the first time!!!  They were here for a day, and for breakfast the next day.  My father and I met up at a local mall (The Fairview Mall, where incidentally I went on my "first date" with my husband way back when I was 14).  Then we drove out to Queenston Heights, and stopped briefly at the Laura Secord Homestead.   We also stopped at a cemetery briefly and I showed him how I photograph them for Billiongraves and other uses.  Later in the day, my husband and children and I met up with them in Montebello Park so everyone could meet each other.  The next morning I, my father and my grandmother had breakfast at IHOP before they continued on to visit other relatives in Quebec.

My dad, myself, my two teenage daughters, my two younger daughters and my paternal grandmother!
my paternal grandmother and my baby son


Many people have asked me what the whole experience was like.  Its really hard to express.  I was intensely curious about both of them, and if I could have studied them for hours I think I would have.  Altho we had never met, they seemed like my family.  My father shares my (or I guess I should say I share his) lack of direction sense and ability to find our way to and from places, even with a map.  My grandmother is into genealogy.  My children were happy to meet more family.  My baby son even let my grandmother hold him, and hes usually not that agreeable to new people.

My husband has had many votes in a music contest where he is featuring some of the silly genealogy songs he wrote, that I have posted about before, "The Genealogy Widower" and "10 More Minutes" .  He had his music played on the Genealogy Gems podcast, and many people read my blog post and listened to his songs.   He is flattered you all took the time to listen to him.

He has now entered a contest at ArtistSignal.  Please click HERE to hear or download the songs and vote for him.  You can log in with Facebook and are allowed to vote up to once an hour.  He is currently in 24th place and there are still 64 days left in the competition.  If he wins the $25,000 prize, we will be travelling the USA and Canada by RV with our kids, with him doing music shows and me doing genealogy :)

Another thing I am thankful for is being sent a 23andme beta invite for the newest Ancestry features.  I'll have more to say on this in other posts I'm sure.

And finally, yet another thing that I am thankful for is being invited to beta test the familysearch Family Tree.  This made me so excited I was actually jumping up and down.  (If I ever discover who Edmund Rice's parents are or Jonas Friar's parents, I'll likely get arrested for disturbing the peace.....)  Im sure I will have more to say on the Family Tree in other posts as well.

7 comments:

  1. UPDATE: Mike is now in 23rd place....thanks so much all of you for voting!

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  2. Another UPDATE, Mike is now in 22nd place, thanks again for all of you voting!

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  3. Yet another UPDATE, Mike is now in 21st place, thanks so much all of you for voting!

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  4. UPDATE: Mike is now in 18th place and wants me to thank you all for voting and to remind you all that you can vote once an hour, so if you have time, plz vote again and again!

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  5. Yet another update, Mike is now in 14th place. please vote, https://artistsignal.com/thegenealogywidower

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  6. WOW! How many kids do you have?! ;-) No wonder you are busy!! Congrats on your reunion with your paternal family. That is really wonderful!
    CeCe

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  7. Thanks! Hehe, 5 kids so far....great guest blog post today at Geni btw!

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