We are the mundane
Our extended family – Dot and Harry, Grace and Jack, Mom and Pop, Grandma Mae, Linda and Richie, Ann and Carol
Two weeks ago Steve’s 90 year old mother fell in the nursing home and broke her hip. Off to the hospital we were for surgery. Then, last Wednesday at 7:30 AMÂ Dawn called doubled over in pain. I went over to take care of the kids and after a mis-diagnosis at a clinic (sent home with pain-killers), Dawn went to the emergency room. By 11:00 PM she was having her appendix removed.
It’s been a crazy few weeks, but everyone is home and recuperating!
Geni.com is a combination social network/genealogy site. They are trying to use the social network concept to create family trees with the eventual goal (quite ambitious I might add) of creating one giant family tree that includes everyone in the world – hence their motto “Everyone’s Connected”.
The site is extremely easy to use and is growing by leaps and bounds. They only went live six months ago – within one month they had signed up 100,000 users and they just recently added their 5,000,000th profile. I’ve registered on the site and started building the Fall Family Tree. I’ve also created a link to Geni.com under Web Identities on the blog sidebar. However, you won’t be able to get to the tree until someone who is a part of it invites you to be a part of it. Once you accept an invite to join, the link in the sidebar will take you to your view of the tree.
I though I’d run a little test case and see what you guys think of the idea of continuing to build the tree (I know Marilyn had a little bit of a genealogy urge a while ago but don’t know if that’s still there).
I added us, Mom and Dad, and our grandparents, along with Harry, Grace and Jack. That gave me a pretty good perspective of how the tree is built. I’m going to extend an invitation to Marilyn and Gary and encourage you two to add to the tree and invite others in your family to join (you can invite someone to join by merely putting them in the tree along with their email address – you can also add people without their email addresses if you just want to expand the tree).
Marilyn – I suggest you add Shannon and as much of the Bergquist clan that you can get to buy into it (also this might be a good opportunity to include Linda, Richie, and Carol). Gary – add the kids and see how many Cortners you might get to go along.
If that little test seems to go well, then we can open it up to Ken, Steve, and Ron and their in-laws and we’ll run with it.
One thing to keep in mind is be be sensitive to how much personal information you include when filling out an individual’s entry. At least for the living, I’m just going to put in their name (and email address when I invited them), then let them make the decision about how much info to include.
The two of you should be getting an email invite shortly (Marilyn – I’m sure this means tomorrow morning for you but Gary may still be awake). Let me know your thoughts as you play with it.
For any others who might be making their once a month visit here and are curious about what the site is like, here’s a Wall Street Journal article on Geni.com.
We just spent a week in Orlando at our timeshare checking out what amenities Marriott had to offer families…we can’t wait to take Blake (with or without his parents). We probably should wait till he can appreciate Disney, but we were pleased to see how family oriented the timeshare is.
Of course, while there, we saw Linda, Richie and Harry. Harry looks absolutely fabulous (as you can see in these pictures)! He’s 92 now, 93 in June. He’s in assisted living and still has his driver’s license. He basically drives to Linda’s once or twice a week, or to a store here or there (only day-time). We met for lunch the day we arrived, then golfed another day at Linda and Richie’s country club. Harry joined us for lunch after the first nine holes, then watched us tee off the back nine. Had a great visit with all of them!
First a little story.
When I was somewhere around 12 years old, Grace and Jack gave me a coffee table sized book for Christmas. I can’t for the life of me remember what the book was specifically about but somewhere in it there was an article or chapter about Edgar Allen Poe. For some strange reason, while I was reading the article I found it absolutely amazing that Poe was a graduate of the US Military Academy. I felt compelled to immediately share this new found piece of information with Mom and Dad so I trotted into the kitchen and interrupted whatever conversation they were having with “Wow – did you know that Edgar Allen Poe went to West Point?”.
Mom and Dad thought this was absolutely hilarious and cracked up laughing. From then on, whenever I would come up with some off the wall “did you know?” trivia fact (which it seems I was wont to do), their standard reply would be “No – and we didn’t know that Edgar Allen Poe went to West Point either.”
I share this story with you for a reason. When I saw your photo of Lex and his umbrella hat I had an “Edgar Allen Poe” moment.
Did you know that Lou Brock, the Hall of Fame basestealer for the St Louis Cardinals, was the inventor of the umbrella hat?
Well, newly met cousins. Lisman’s cousin Ruth (Lis’ father’s brother’s daughter) and her husband Keith have adopted 2 kids, Alex and Andrea. Now 9 and 6 1/2, they were just months old when adopted. We’d never met the kids, they live in Idaho. But they spent a few days with us this week during a 2 week East Coast vacation.
The kids hit it off famously. The first day here they all got to play, along with a bunch of neighborhood kids, in the backyard. I think that cemented the friendships. By the time I got home that night they were best buddies and definitely family. Hangin’ in PJs helps too, I guess.
Pretty cool. From the mouths of babes and all that, y’know? Quite heartening.
