Saturday, March 19, 2011

Real Life entered into my blog life!

     So Sorry Dear Readers! I have not posted for 12 days. First of all I have left all you Mystery Photo Followers up in the air with the Wind Palace in Jaipur, India. And I haven't posted the other great pictures I have from this city. I still plan to do that.
      Why haven't you posted lately, you ask. Well like I said Real Life entered in.
     First of all, I had signed up for a free two weeks of usage on Ancestry.com, the greatest genealogy website in the world. I have not been on it in a year or so. And low and behold, I found all kinds of family pedigrees that extended several lineages by a generation or two. But the most exciting was finding a lineage on my mother's father's side that goes back to the 1700s in Maryland, USA. But then by crossing over to the female line and following it back a couple generations, I could again jump to the male line taking this line, the Winder family back to Lancashire, England in 1635. Wow. That was impressive. I reviewed this pedigree quite extensively and it does seem to be my line. John Winder was born in 1635; his son John Jr was born in 1668 and had a 3 year old son with his wife, when he died in Y, Somme, Picardie, France. First of all that town, Y (pronounced E) is the shortest town name in the world. But what was this young man doing in Y, Somme., Picardie, France in 1688 that made him die there. England and France were not friendly then, so this would not have been a tourist trip. But they also were not at war, so he was not there in a military capacity at least that had to do with war. 1688 was the year that Charles II abdicated his throne, and escaped to France in December. William and Mary from Holland were invited to take the English throne. Charles II was Catholic and fled to France after he abdicated. But he would have come ashore near Calais, and Picardie is well inland. Someone suggested that perhaps John Winder Jr. was engaged in something nefarious such as smuggling. It is possible. I am going to try to find out what happened here. At any rate, his 3 year old son Thomas grew up and came to the US, to New Jersey along the Delaware River, eventually moved west to western Maryland. That's where his descendents married into my Spielman family line. Anyway if you understand a genealogist's addiction and excitement at finding these lines, I had to use up that free Ancestry.com membership before it ran out.
     Secondly, we are getting our two downstairs bedrooms and their walk in closets recarpeted. So we have been emptying those rooms and the closets. And I really don't want to put all that stuff back in the closets, so I am trying to weed out a lot of stuff and throw it away. This has been occupying me for some time now. The carpeters are coming on Tuesday next week. Then I will have to work to get the stuff back where it goes.
     And thirdly, lastly, but not leastly, my son's family was here this last weekend and I had to sort of get ready for them, with some food and with the house and my toy collection rady for my grandson's onslaught. It was great having them here and we (Grandma, and the two little boys) played with those toys all weekend.
     So now I am back to normal. Expect a posting with photos of Jaipur, India soon.

2 comments:

  1. Actually, your ancestor almost certainly did NOT die in Y, Somme, Picardie, in France, despite so many of the amateur family trees on Ancestry.com saying so.

    Save yourself a LOT of pointless conjecture and check out this blog for the explanation. It's really quite simple.

    http://ysommepicardiefrance.blogspot.com/

    (Get ready to say "Aha!")

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for the information. I now understand. It just didn't make sense. Helpful genealogical comments like this are so appreciated.

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