Family Tree

I've been taking care of some things around the shack while the weather has been so nice. I even mowed the yard on Tuesday. It wasn't so much the yard needed mowing as it was to chop up the leaves but I don't think I've ever mowed this late in the season before - it'll be December starting tomorrow, after all.

I got the heat situation taken care of out in the shop. I broke down and bought another heater while it was on sale as part of the whole asinine Black Friday thing. I wasn't about to leave the shack on Friday but since it was a three day sale, I went about 10:00 AM Sunday morning and no real crowds to fight.

On those couple of chilly days when I was out in the shop working on the milling machine, I fired up the old kerosene heater. It took the chill off things but the heater wouldn't shut off when I was done. It's got a lever on it that you depress and the burner unit drops down and snuffs out the flame. Except now it won't. I had a hell of a time trying to get the fire out - one of the reasons I bought the new heater. So now I have a new heater and two old heaters, both of which need repair. I should probably just toss the propane one but I'd like to have the kerosene one as an emergency unit for the shack or to use in the barn or garage as a hand warmer since it requires no electricity.

In between all of this I've been typing up the family history. I'm not much of a typist but I'm making pretty good progress. I had most everything typed up a few years back but with the advent of Ancestry.com there's been quite a few additions, plus I want to scan in a bunch of photos - like the one of my Pops shown above.

I had my DNA tested earlier this year and it confirmed the family connection of a cousin who popped up out of the woodwork a few years back. It also appears I've got a couple more. I made e-mail contact with one of them this week through Ancestry and he lives less than fifty miles away. The Missus said I should check to see if he's on Facebook, and sure enough, not only is he on there but he looks a lot like the guy in the photo above. Small world. I'm still waiting to hear back from the other one.

So now that I'm finally putting the finishing touches on the book of Shop Teacher Bob, it appears as if I'll have to add a couple more branches to the family tree. I was going to print out a hard copy for my brothers and the cousins that are interested but I think now I'll just print out a copy for myself and put everything on a flashdrive and give those to people who are interested. That way they can print it out if they want and update their branch of the tree as it grows.