Today I have been mostly engaged in ancestry.com. I signed up for a 14 day free trial, so it is a bit of a race against time to see how many ancestors I can find in a fortnight. Just when I thought my Dad's ancestors - prior to migrating to the ship yards in the north east - had been in Norfolk since Adam was a lad, one James Bell turns up in Southampton in 1804. So I am not just going back to the century before last, but practically the one before that.
Pat has been helping and turned up some very interesting research. She found that our father's cousin was the principal soprano for the Intimate Opera company, and also sang leading roles at Sadler’s Wells Opera. Also that another ancestor, also on our father's side of the family, took over the ownership of a Music Hall in Middlesbrough in 1866.
When you go back 210 years to 1804, that's an awful lot of ancestors, so we are focusing in on two of particular interest. Pat is interested in a great grandmother, whose Bible she has, and my particular interest is the great great grandad, who legend has it was from Ulster, and an Orangeman. He left Ulster and went to Scotland, then to the ship yards in England, but I don't know what part of Ulster, or exactly when. A lot of Irish records were lost in a big fire in Dublin, but with all the advances in genealogy I think a lot of research has been done.
So what else have I been up to today. Well, another big thing on my mind and agenda is the Bake Sale on the 20th, so I've been baking in between sessions on the computer. And this evening there was desserts for the Wednesday meal. I took the brownies I bought at yesterday's Senior Centre bake sale, which I buy to support Kiwanis and the sale. I also pulled out a bowl of frosting from the back of my fridge and conceived the idea of spreading it on the bases of some cookies from the dollar store (I am catering for young people here, cakes for the residents at the retirement home will be a bit more sophisticated) They were actually smaller than I thought, so I tipped them out on a plate and put the frosting beside them, like a dip.
Today was the last day of the Westminster Dog Show in New York, the greatest, most prestigious dog show in the world (I actually thought that was Crufts), and the winner - a wire haired terrier - was adorable.
It has done the rounds of all the news shows today.
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