End of Summer

     Summer's about over and I've stayed in Hawaii enjoying home for a change.  My grandkids (Emily 16, Braden 13) were her all July and we had a busy and fun time.  Emily was involved in "Project Hawaii" as a teen mentor for homeless/disadvantaged kids on the Big Island for two weeks, so I took Braden to the Big Island for a week as he'd never been there.  Braden and I stayed two nights in Hilo and stayed busy doing geocaching, visiting the shores, the zoo, some caves and the Pacific Tsunami Museum.  We drove out to Kalapana where earlier lava flows have covered houses and entered the ocean for many years.  And we took a helicopter ride to see what was going on - we saw red flowing lava in spots.  Three days after we left Big Island a new lava flow engulfed a house and covered more of the road.  We had some rain but not as wet as it often is there.  Then we stayed up in Volcano for three cold nights.   The Halemaumau Crater of Kiluea Volcano is active and the huge red glow from the inner crater lights up the night sky at the Jaegger Museum lookout.  I hadn't realized that the crater rim drive has been closed for two years, since the volcano had it's latest destructive explosion, and gases/smoke continue to spread over the rim.      

      Back on Oahu we went on the Atlantis submarine ride and went down about 111 feet off Waikiki. We hiked to the mountain tops, and did a little kayaking also. On day we went sailing in Kaneohe Bay and spotted the pirate ship "Queen Ann's Revenge" while they were filming "Pirates of the Caribbean -4 - On A Stranger Tide"  or something like that.  It was a big black ship, and looked intimidating!  We didn't see Johnny Depp, however.  Arrgh!   So it's been busy, and I loved having the kids, now it's back to the normal things of life like genealogy, hiking, daily walks, and back to volunteering at the military hospital.

     My new blog, which is mentioned in the last post, " Ancestor Tracking Dream Roadtrip" about my 2001 to 2002 roadtrip tracking my roots. 

     Just this week I've connected to distant cousins on the John L. Squier side and we've been able to compare old family photos.  In fact, last night Cheryl sent me photos that have identities with them, which answers my years of wondering "who is in that old photo?"  In addition we will be able to correct and add Squier information to what's already entered at the Akin Family Tree on ancestry.com

    I've initiated a new "thread" on the Ancestry.com "Hague" Message Board.  I'm calling it "Hagues of Rhode Island" and hope that all Hagues with ancestors who came to Rhode Island will go to it and add information about their Rhode Island roots.  I think that most of the Hagues there came from the Lancashire/Yorkshire, England area, after the time of the industrial revolution, and they brought their cotton/silk mill-worker skills to the mills in Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the mid to late 1800s. 
   Below is my Hague family in Warwick, Bristol Co., Rhode Island, enumerated Aug 13, 1850.

   Above is the 1850 census of Warwick Co., Rhode Island.  It was a real breakthrough in finding my Hague family in USA because the census taker wrote the last name as "Ache"  - which, I assume, is how it sounded.    At any rate these are all the right children and parents.  [By the way, it took me a long time to select three parts of the two pages of census images to paste them together into one image.  Does anyone have a favorite was of making this happen - like a collage or something?  I have photoshop and powerpoint, but generally use the free photo software from http://www.paint.net/.]  I've never mastered the use of "layers."

     Of sad note was the death of a highly esteemed Pacific Navigator, Mau Piailug, on July 12, at his home in Satawal, Micronesia.  He taught the Hawaiians the skills of navigating in the vast Pacific without instruments.  This enabled the replica of an ancient voyaging canoe, Hokule'a to traverse all corners of the Polynesian Triangle, and beyond, without any instrumentation/compass, etc.  I was on one of the voyages in 1995 from Tahiti to the Marquesas.  Last Thursday I paid tribute to Mau, with a presentation for the Adventurers Club of Honolulu.  I honed my power-point skills and was able to use my little Acer Netbook to hook up to the digital projector at the meeting.  I was happy that the presentation went well, and people learned much about the important man.