July 1, 2007

I've been happily tracking down new family history and websites on the Akin line, thanks to my contact with cousin Terry Akin through cousin Larry Akin. Terry has carefully put much Akin information on the website www.findagrave.com. It is a free website where people can enter information about people and which cemetery they are buried in. Since Terry is my 3rd cousin once removed we share many relations that lived in Chautauqua Co., New York near Jamestown in the southwest corner of the state. I've spent many days, over three different years, driving around the area and researching my ancestors in that county, which also includes the Stevens, and the Blandings up in the Silver Creek area. Terry is my closest Akin relation that is doing genealogy and we are very happy to have found each other. Anyway, I was able to send him the tombstones photographs that I took at the Stillwater Cemetery and the Busti Cemetery. The oldest tombstone pictures are of Joseph Akin (1761 - 1847) (pictured) and wife Elsey Holloway (1760-1833) who were among the very first settlers in the Jamestown area. The photo on the right is of the original Akin homestead area at the Stillwater, Kiantone Twp, Chautauqua County, NY. Joseph traveled from near Albany along trails to purchase land from the Holland Land Co. near Erie. Then he probably sailed down the coast of Lake Erie to Westfield area and then followed Indian or trapper trails back eastward to claim his land in 1807, on the east end of Lake Chautauqua. He tried to establish a village called "Akinville" - but wanted to lease the lots instead of sell them fee simple. So eventually Jamestown became established and more popular. But Joseph had the first house in the township.

My great-great grandfather, David Akin moved west from Chautauqua County New York, to Wisconsin to teach, but became ill with tuberculosis. Terry's great-great grandfather, John Howard Akin, Jr. asked his younger 25 yr old brother, David, to come back to New York and stay with him and sit in the sun in his apple orchard, so he could get well. David did return to his brother's farm and he was identified as staying with him in the 1860 census. Luckily for me, David did recover, and went back to Wisconsin to marry Sarah Minerva Ells. Together David & Minerva and their Squier cousins then moved west on to new land in Goodhue County, Minnesota, to farm and establish the town of Skyberg. David Akin had dairy cows and built a school house on his property for the community. Good thing too, as he had 12 children. On the left is a picture of apple blossoms I took around Busti near John Howard Akin, Jr's land. The lower left picture is David & Minerva Akins in Minnesota about 1927. The picture on the right is David's brother, John Howard Akin, Jr. in New York in earlier years.

It's really fascinating history around there. Guess what Westfield, NY is famous for??? Two things - Welchs Grape Juice and the place where President Lincoln got off a train and a little girl said he'd look better with a beard -- and the rest was history.

I finally had to stop doing the fun things and settle down to getting my stuff together for my big trip to the Mainland. I courageously and cautiously approached my old Vaio laptop computer - which was such a faithful friend on my two-year Vagabond roots-finding journey - and attempted to start it. I bought it in 2000. After a few coughs, it started right up when plugged in. I don't think the batteries are any good anymore. Anyway the next challenge was to find the external CD player that connects to the laptop and see if I could download the latest version of my Family Tree Maker program. Amazingly it worked. The next challenge was to move my present 432 megabyte Family Tree file onto a flash drive, from my PC, and that went surprisingly well. Then with that flash drive stuck into the Vaio laptop I hoped beyond hope it would work, so I could transfer the family file to the laptop. But no, the laptop couldn't find the driver for the flash drive - of course. The Vaio laptop has Windows 98 still on it and the modem no longer works, but if I find the CD that came with my other the little flash drive and load the driver, it would work.... But the little flash drive is only 128 megabytes, so it wouldn't work. Anyway, I decided to burn the family file from my PC to a CD and copy it to the laptop. This worked!!! But then the copied file in the laptop is a read-only, so I had to re-copy it in the laptop and rename the file in order to be able to edit it. At last all systems are go, and I can pack up the laptop in hopes it will work when I attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Indiana in August.

Now I have to collect all the stuff I'll need for my iPod and iPod microphone, for my Sony VideoCamera, my Sony digital still camera, and who knows what other crazy gadgets I must have. The worst thing is that I have to carry it all onto the airplane. So let's see: Laptop computer, two cameras, iPod, cell phone, all the cords for recharging the items, food, ear plugs, empty water bottle to fill up after security, a book, chapstick, medications - what else needs to be in the carry on? I'll be flying the ATA red-eye, an all-night delight from Hawaii to Las Vegas, then on to Tucson.... Oh yes, I need to carry-on my noise canceling headphones. Of course I'll have to remember to print out my e-ticket boarding passes before I leave.

I don't know if I'll be able to add to this blog while I'm gone, but maybe I'll be able to use my daughter's computer to do it. So until then, I'll say aloha. Don't forget to add comments to any of the pages.

June 14, 2007

It's been an extraordinary couple weeks, and eventful last few days. First, I must mention about volunteering for the television series "Extreme Makeover - Home Edition." The season premier, which will air Sunday Sept 23rd, 2007, was filmed yesterday in the Honolulu neighborhood of Kalihi. A very deserving woman and her family received a gorgeous new house and a children's learning center (Keiki o ka Aina). Work to build the house began a week ago. On Sunday I heard on TV news that they really needed more volunteers to help because they were behind due to the daily rain. So I went to Pier 38 to volunteer and board the shuttle bus to Kalihi Valley. Well, there were enough volunteers for Monday, so I signed up for Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday I helped set up the kitchen and living room, and tried to keep the dust to a minimum on the floors. On Wednesday I reported back to Pier 38 for the shuttle at 7:30am and stayed at the house until 5pm. After 3,000 volunteers and sponsors, the 2-story house went up. It was very exciting to see the television cast, crew and all the designers, etc. at work. I was attached to "The Maids" a local cleaning company, and went to work on detail cleaning of the kitchen. After that people were being released. Since I wanted to stay inside working until "the reveal" when the family got to see the house, I kept finding work to do. Besides it was raining outside and very muddy. So while the crowds were practicing "Move That Bus" and cheering, I quietly cleaned the kitchen, then the stairs, and the upstairs hallway on my hands and knees. No one kicked this hard-working lady out of the house, and eventually I was about the only one who was not a part of the cast left. By then the cast was calling me in to one room or another to help tidy up here and there. Believe me the bedrooms for the three children, and the nursery were amazing - as was the master bedroom / suite... which included an outdoor jacuzzi in a private garden with waterfall. Finally when the rain had stopped and it was about time for the family to drive up in the limousine, I went out to wait with the crowd. It was a thrilling and heart-warming moment to see the reaction of this humble family when they saw their new home as the busses blocking their view were pulled away. I'm very happy for the experience, but I had no idea I'd bruised and scraped my knees so badly. Well, it was for a good cause.

In the midst of this I was busy submitting and resubmitting a video I made at the Hawaiian Plantation Village Genealogy Workshop June 2nd. I took a couple all-day efforts in editing it, adding music and narration before it looked OK. Then I found out my knowledge on the "output" phase is severely lacking. I didn't -- and still don't-- know the best file type to output the video in for the internet. The first time I uploaded it up as an e-mail file. Much to my surprise it became a "featured" video on www.rootstelevision.com within one day. When I saw the poor quality and pixelation, I quickly went back to my original and edited out 30 seconds to get it down to 5 min 33 seconds. Then I had to find a output format so it would be as close to 100 MB without going over. I finally stumbled on something called "H.264" which turns out to be an MP4 file. At any rate, it compressed the video to 45.8 MB and Sam at Rootstelevision was able to switch out the old video for the new better version. It's called "Genealogy in Hawaii" and is in the "New & Featured" category at the website. Rootstelevision.com is an excellent genealogy resource, both informative and entertaining.

Also this week, all this my paperwork arrived to fill out for my visa applications to China and Cambodia. I put those in the mail at the post office today to PVS International. They handled my visa requirements last year when I went to Mongolia and Russia. I hope I get them back with my passport before I have to travel! In addition the "health form" arrived to fill out for my Elderhostle Intergenerational Program to S.W. Utah in July with my grandkids, which needed to be filled out and mailed. Lots of important paperwork, don't want to be disorganized!

I've been getting various immunizations and tests, etc. before my trip to China, Tibet and Cambodia this September. Unfortunately I missed the second in the Japanese Encephalitis innoculation series yesterday, and will have to get it tomorrow. I've got some "Diamox" pills for the high altitude (12,000 ft) for Lahsa, Tibet. I hope I don't get altitude sickness. If I were still living in mile-high Denver, it wouldn't be such a transition to go to those Tibetian altitudes.

Last Saturday our monthly Honolulu Genealogy Society meeting was held and I made a presentation on the "Family Tree Maker" software, while Richard Souther presenter "The Master Genealogist" software. With a laptop projector and many members with their own laptop computers, we had a very good and productive meeting. About thirty people were there. Afterwards many of us went to the Tree Tops Restaurant at the end of Manoa Valley again for lunch.

Tuesday, Mark Bennett, our Hawaii State Attorney General, spoke to us at the East Oahu Breakfast Club meeting in Hawaii Kai. I enjoyed talking to him, as I'd seen him often at various state hearings during the legislative session at the Capitol... including his own re-confirmation hearing.

And all this while I've been eager - chomping at the bit - to get to the packet of papers that arrived this week in the mail from the Lilly Library at the Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. The packet is correspondence in the Grace Marks collection in the Manuscripts Department. It is all about the Thornburg(h) family who, it's said, came to the Barbados then to Virginia, then Kentucky and in 1811 came finally to Indiana. There is also information on the Harbisons, and they are quite confused as to who Rachel Harbison's father was. Rachel married Amos Thornburg. I have visited Perrysville, KY and Salem, Indiana and know the areas of which the letters refer. It's been very difficult not to push everything else aside and delve into the papers, but with all that I've described, above, I just couldn't. Maybe if I don't have anyone log on to my genealogy support session at Family History Live Online, Friday, I'll be able to devote some time to reading and comparing the information. Amos Thornburgh and Rachel (Harbison) Thornburgh were my 3rd great grandparents on my father's side. I have a photo of their son, Richard Hope Thornburg. The Hope name came from a family friend or relation in Kentucky, and probably before that. So much to do...so little time.

June 3, 2007

June is here and I am still working on figuring out which cord or cable goes with which electronic gadget. I've finally finished the first cut on the first three hours of the Mongolian adventure, and downloaded the 4th hour of videotape onto the hard drive, and backed it up to my external hard drive. I will have to begin editing that, then download hours 5 and 6 to finish with the video from Mongolia. The Adventurers' Club meeting was held at the Outrigger Canoe Club on Waikiki and the subject was about some of the cities of Europe. The presenters' photography was outstanding and the the food great. I'm editing my Mongolia tapes to do my own presentation in Feb 2008 for the Adventurers' Club.

I've spent some time getting involved with FamilyHistoryLiveOnline.com and have volunteered to give online genealogy classes and genealogy support. I've also connected up online with familyoralhistory.us which has a blog of Family Oral History Using Digital Tools. Susan Kitchens, the host, had a "scanfest" where we could connect using a download of "Gizmo" service. If what I'm saying doesn't make a lot of sense to the reader, well, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me sometimes, either.

Today I was searching on Ancestry.com for Howard Blanding (picture on left) my "3rd cousin once removed" on my Blanding side, of Erie County, NY, and lately living in Florida. He has given me a lot of information about his line in New York, we have a common ancestor in Ebenezer Blanding II, whose father was in the US Revolution. I found his Carey family in all the census back to 1850 and it was quite a challenge with different spellings and different transcribers' interpretations of the name they saw. I didn't find the link back to Ireland for the Carey's, but at least I may have shed a little bit of new light on the Careys. Picture of Howard's grandfather on right - Samuel Love Carey.

Yesterday I drove up to Waipahu, about 45 minutes away, and participated in the Genealogy Workshop at Hawaii's Plantation Village. The village is a wonderful collection of authentic homes and other buildings from the collection of various cultures that lived on the sugar plantations. This day was a chance for different cultures to get help with genealogy: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, Okinawan, Portuguese and our table from the Honolulu County Genealogy Society. It was a fun event and we helped quite a few people. One Japanese-American woman, (and her mother -- both born in Hawaii), didn't know that her mother, was born on the island of Kauai, until we had her fill out a pedigree chart! I think she got the message that she should find out about her 92 yr old mother's life before it is too late.

I've got one month left at home before I fly out to Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Iowa. I bet I won't feel very prepared for the trip by the time comes to leave.

May 14, 2007

My days are filled with discovering more about internet resources for family history and genealogy. Last week I was preparing for Saturday's Honolulu County Genealogy Society meeting where I helped discuss "Ancestry.com." Our President, Tom Bopp, does a wonderful job getting all the technology together, and many of the 30 members who were present had their laptops connected via Clear Channel wireless and could follow the presentation projected on a screen from Tom's laptop and a projector.

I showed an example of ancestrypress which is the part of Ancestry.com where you can print out in "book" form, the genealogical information/trees/stories/photos, etc that you have at your family history site. It's quite innovative right now, but there will be many more places on the web that offer working online and all your work is available on the Web.... Web 2 ... it's called now.

I even tested recording the meeting with my iPod and a special microphone attachment. I just set it on the table, and the Belkin microphone picked up the whole meeting. I downloaded the hour of audio from the iPod to my computer, then edited it with my Roxio "Sound Editor" software. I'm learning how to use this software, which is a little more complex than in the last version. I split the resulting 52 minutes of audio into three parts and e-mailed Part 1 to Harriet, who was unable to attend the meeting. Part 1 lasted 19 minutes and totaled 8.8 MB in the e-mail attachment. Only takes about 2 minutes to upload. AOL is only able to upload 16MB in an attachment.

Many from the Genealogy Society meeting (May 12th) went to the Tree Tops Restaurant again for lunch. This is in the rain forest area in the back of Manoa Valley by the University of Hawaii. After the lunch we had a board meeting there, which was the first for our new board. I wore a beautiful orchid lei that my daughter, Alisa, in Arizona, had delivered to me for Mother's Day, from a local florist. It was beautiful.

My fellow travelers on last year's trip to Mongolia came over to my house May 10th where we watched more of my videotape from that fabulous adventure. We watched a couple hours of our cavorting around with all the camels, goats, and sheep and trudging up sand dunes in the Gobi Desert. We also watched Joung's photos from her recent trip to Bali. We just put her CD into the CD player and watched her photos as a slide show. Phyllis, has just returned from a Windjammer sailing vacation, and Renate just returned from a trip to Samoa. Jim goes to Baton Rouge every three months to care for his elderly mother. It's tough to get us all together in one spot at the same time as we're all over the globe.

May 5, 2007

A most interesting morning today - I sat in on a "Pajama" conference - for the Family History Live Online's monthly conference - the "Online Family History Fair." It was on online conference - just like at a regular conference that you attend, for lots of money. With this situation, I downloaded the ReGL viewer from www.familyhistoryliveonline.com then tried to follow the directions to sign up for the class, etc. It was not easy, nor really simple. Or maybe I made it more difficult than it should be. But finally I was able to get squared away a couple days ahead. Then this morning at 5 am when the conference started (8am mountain time), I was still sleeping, of course. Well, I signed in at about 8 a.m. and found "Dear Myrt" discussing "Blogging: Getting the Word Out" presentation. Every 45 minutes there was a guest speaker and then a vendor followed talking about their wares. Also on the schedule was Robert Larson on Ancestry.com; Gena Ortega on Cemeteries & Their Secrets; and Amy Anderson on Basic PAF. Vendors were on "Footnote" and "US GenWeb." There were onthers earlier in the morning that I missed. There were up to 50 registrants who signed on, around the US and also Karin in Sweden. They noted I was signed in from Hawaii. We could type questions or comments as the lecture progressed and we heard them respond. We watched the computer screen as the speakers put up various images. It was really fantastic! I even recorded one of the presenters on my iPod! I can see that this is the beginning of a new wave of at-home conferences. I'm sure they won't all be free like this was, in the future, but I'm sure they will be popular. Also at the familyhiltoryliveonline website, they offer free online genealogy support classes and free genealogy classes according to a weekly schedule. I'm going to try to drop in on some of these groups this week.

The Hawaii State Legislature has finally finished it's last session for the year, Thursday was called "Sine Die" which is Latin, I guess, for "it's all over" -- for better or worse, and I suspect the latter. But there were some good bills to come out of it, I'm sure. Now, that I won't be down at the Capitol running around or typing the captions on the bottom of the TV screen. I work with CapitolTV which televises live hearings and sessions at the Legislature for the local Community Access Television, Olelo, and also live streaming on the internet. Now, I guess I'll have more time for -- guess what --? Genealogy and the Gym. Mostly genealogy! But for awhile I will still be doing some of the graphics for television of the Honolulu City Council meetings. In this photo I am at the computer, while Randy is at the Director's place in the middle, and Ed is doing remote cameras. This is in the City Hall which is called "Honolulu Hale" for a live city council meeting.

Another interesting night, Thursday, at the Adventurers' Club. This time at the Waialae Country Club, at a beautiful locale on the beach. My friends, Carolyn and Don Yacoe presented their film on "The Drum and The Mask: Time of the Tumbuan" from New Guinea. I'd seen it a few years ago, but it was even better than I'd remembered.

Friday I was so happy to attend the Nisei Veterans Endowed Forum Series, Universal Values for a Democratic Society "One Ocean, One People" with keynote speaker Nainoa Thompson. Nainoa was just back from sailing from Hawai'i on the Hokule'a voyaging canoe which has just arrived in Japan, still making stops at various ports. As usual his talk was riveting and very inspiring. I am sure it was especially inspiring to the 28 high school students who were honored for their award winning essays on values. See the websites: http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu for the Hokule'a's home website; and to see the weblog of the long voyage to Micronesia and Japan as it is occurring now go to http://pvshawaii.squarespace.com . Here, on the right, is a photo of the Hokule'a in Hawaii, probably taken by Monte Costa.

It was Recycling day at the Hui Nalu Canoe Club today. A chance to get rid of stuff. I found 13 pair of shoes I could finally part with! I'm sure the recyclers were looking for copper and other metals, and others were there for the cans and plastic bottles - Hawaii has a 5 cent deposit on them. A good portion of the scrap/recycle value of everything is donated to the Canoe Club. Goodwill was there too.

Beginning of a Blog

Greetings to all who might read this blog - the product of a world adventurer who has had an underlying (and not so underlying) addiction to genealogy and family history. I'm living in beautiful Hawaii - a continuation of the westward migration my family has made through the generations from Wales, England and Scotland, and then From Plymouth Rock to Diamond Head

With renewed vigor in stepping into the world of the mysterious internet, and while listening to the Genealogy Guys podcast from October 23, 2006, today I am inspired to try out creating this blog. I gave a presentation March 3rd, at our Genealogy Society, titled "Podcasts, Blogs and RootsTelevision" - in which I mentioned how easy it would be to set up a blog - so here it is! My "web log" or blog will probably take the shape of a journal.

17 March 2007 - Saturday - Happy St. Patrick's Day - Honolulu, Hawaii

Last night I got together with friends from the Honolulu County Genealogy Society for a workshop about Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker. There were five of us, but it kept us busy all evening. Harriet and I acted as guides for the others and got them up to speed about the benefits of getting the latest editions and subscriptions. In one evening there were oooohs and ahhhhs to be heard as new discoveries were made.

Plans for the year:

I'm busy with the technicalities of planning my summer and fall activities - which include plane reservations to Arizona to visit my daughter and her family. I'll be taking the grandchildren for an intergenerational Elderhostel week in S.W. Utah, and also a week at a time-share exchange at Pinetop, in Eastern Arizona, for a week in the mountains. Both my daughter's and my birthday will be celebrated before I leave. August 11th, I'll get a flight to Ft Wayne, Indiana to attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies Annual Conference and do some research at the famous Allen County Library - Genealogy Section. I've got reservations at a B & B near the library and convention center so it should be very convenient and productive.

Plans are that my Hague cousins, Dorothy and Don, on returning from their Civil War Battlesites travels, will stop in Ft Wayne and pick me up to go back to Des Moines, Iowa with them. I expect I'll stay there a while and we can do more Hague family research in Polk County. I also want to squeeze in Pearce research in Boone County, Iowa; Wallace and Williams research in Warren County, Iowa, and other assorted branches.

I'll be making some decisions about a month-long trip to China in September. After a wonderful experience last August in Mongolia and a trip on the Trans-Siberia Railway across Russia, I think I've got to return and see more of that part of the world.

But first, the dreaded income tax deadline is fast approaching, so my time today will be filled with that preparation (I hope).