She married a Vanderbilt!

So much information is being thrust upon me about my Grandfather's family that I feel my head and my heart are going to burst! I am extremely saddened at the discovery that my Grandfather's sisters lived so very close and yet the rift in the family was so big that they did not associate with each other. Yet at the same time, that was between them and because of that it has made the discovery of Warren and Heather that much more special. We are already forming more then a familial bond, it is a spiritual bond, a bond of love and bond that I dare say, will never be broken.

This little piece is about what I have learned about Harriett so far. Harriett it turns out was quite the looker and hot to trot. She had a brief marriage....wait for it....to a VANDERBILT! You may recognize that name as the nemesis of the Astor's and the fabulous designer Gloria Vanderbilt! Well that marriage ended in divorce and good ol' Aunt Hattie took off to gay Paris to live it up. To have been a fly on the wall in her life huh? She came back to the U.S. in 1920 I believe and shacked up with a man who unfortunately my cousin Warren has no name for. What he does know is that this man went wacko and went on a shooting spree killing several people!  A New York police officer named Fred Stout shot and killed him and was wounded in the process. Somehow, divine intervention or just dumb luck, Aunt Hattie fell in love with good ol' Fred and married him. What a pistol! I can't wait to hear more family stories and finally start working on the family tree BEFORE they immigrated:).

I have a birth date!

Wooty Woot Woot! I found my Great-Aunt Florence's death record and I now have her ACTUAL birth date! This is HUGE since I only had a month and year before. This is definitely going to help with tracking down other records now, SO EXCITED!

Ancestry Explosion Part Deux!

Where did I leave off...oh right, sister no one knew about, blah blah blah. After my post earlier I logged into my email and discovered that a family tree on Ancestry that I had contacted, emailed me back. Their family tree mentioned one of my father's sisters, her husband and her daughter. So I asked them how they were related and such and I got my answer.

The person putting the family tree together is the current husband of my Grand-father's Great-Nephew's Ex-Wife.....did you get all that? LOL His Great-Nephew is now remarried and living in North Carolina, this is a direct bloodline people, my Mother's second cousin and my third. I am just tripping the heck out on all of this. After so many years of searching and looking and being disappointed and becoming convinced that my Grandfather's family just vanished....here they are.

So I emailed back thanking him for responding and being willing to get my contact information to my cousins. Through him I found my Great-Uncle's WWII draft card, which was pretty darn cool. Plus I learned that they were living in Passaic, New Jersey at the time, I had been searching in New York!

So now I sit and wait, wait for more responses from this contact and the Masonic Columbian Lodge #484 in New York. Turns out the lodge is still around so I emailed the current secretary to find out if they have any records of my Great-Grandfather that might possibly fill in some of the gaps that we have. Which is why I am back to hurry up and wait.

Cricket is sick and Bean isn't feeling much better which means I will have time to research more when I get home. Onward and Upward!

Ancestry Explosion!

What a whirlwind weekend it has been, after taking over 6 months off and not doing any research, I dove back into it full force on Friday. All I can say, is it paid off big! All of a sudden I had hits on my Grandfather's family, the branch of my family tree that for years had sat there mocking me and yielding little or no information. Another family tree had tagged my Grandfather's entire family and all of sudden the whole world opened up. I discovered that one of my Grandfather's sister's Madeline (whom my mom and aunt had said died of cancer when they were kids) might have actually been alive and well. I found her daughter and grandchildren (although we still have to confirm this) and the kicker is I am in contact with them and they live an hour from me!

After finding the information on Madeline I turned my attention to finding the cousin (Arlene) that my Mom and Aunt swore exsisted, I finally found confirmation of her when I came across my Great-Grandfather's obituary. Reading this tiny little paragraph I gained new information that I never in my wildest dreams knew. First I found out that my Great-Grandfather did not have a Jewish burial, he was a life long Mason and had a Masonic burial presided over by the Master of his Masonic lodge. I confirmed Arlene's existance because she was mentioned in the obituary (although my Grandmother wasn't even though my Grandfather was already married to her) and then the kicker. The shock heard round the world that no one saw coming......"brother of Sarah Tiederman" there it was, in black and white! My Great-Grandfather had a sister that not even my Mom and Aunt knew about. My Grandfather never mentioned her and if my Aunt or Mom ever met her they don't remember.

There is so much more that I found but I don't have the time to post it. Where does this leave me in my search though, well here is where I am at. I am searching for my Great-Grandparent's sisters Fanny Strauss (Great-Grandma's Sister) and Sarah Tiederman (Great-Grandpa's Sister). This one isn't going to be easy but I am going to take my time and not try and force it, who knows, by tomorrow morning I could have another hint on Ancestry.com and it might be the right one:).

Cheers!

Sick

It's been awhile since I have blogged, I have been battling whatever the heck this thing is and I just can't shake it. First it was fevers, then chills, then vertigo, now it's sore throat, sore nose, stuffy, not stuffy, headache, no headache...I just can't win! A lot of my friends have also come down with the beginning of the year bug, how about you?

ACOCAACN

R.I.P. John Dye

INVERSION

In meteorology, an inversion is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude. It almost always refers to a temperature inversion, i.e., an increase in temperature with height, or to the layer (inversion layer) within which such an increase occurs.^[1]

An inversion can lead to pollution such as smog being trapped close to the ground, with possible adverse effects on health. An inversion can also suppress convection by acting as a "cap". If this cap is broken for any of several reasons, convection of any moisture present can then erupt into violent thunderstorms. Temperature inversion can notoriously result in freezing rain in cold climates.

I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT! In my life Inversion = Migraine, which in turn equals a very sad and unhappy me:(

ACOCAACN

Slap a Bitch

Yes, the image above is funny but there is a reason I posted it and it is not for comedic purposes. I found out yesterday, that on New Years Eve, a member of my family was violently beaten by her boyfriend. He beat her in front of their kids as her 3 year old daughter yelled at him to "Quit hitting my Mommy!". I don't care if you are in a bad mood, I don't care if your dog got hit by a car or someone pissed in your Cherrios and I sure as hell don't care that you were drunk and got pissed off that she woke you up!

She tried to call the police, he took away the phone. She tried to get out the front door, he pulled her back inside the apartment and locked her in. Oh, did I mention the neighbors were at home and heard what was happening and DID NOT call the police. Yeah, mighty Christian of them, huh? So he beat her and beat her and beat her and then stopped. He picked up the phone and called the police because he thought he had just killed her. 

Thankfully he was arrested and is sitting in jail with no bail. He faces 1 to 5 for domestic violence and commiting an act of domestic violence in front of a child. The protective orders and no trespassing orders are in place and the justice system seems to be working on the side of good for once. But it scares me, what happens if somehow he gets out. How do we really prevent him from getting ahold of her again. What's going to stop him?

We treat domestic violence like it's nothing. We see it on television, in the movies, even in the books and articles we read. We have become desensitized as a society to where major violence doesn't even phase us anymore unless it happens to a child. Murder, rape, sodemy, molestatiton, beatings....it doesn't matter if happens to a woman who is an upstanding citizen or a drug addict or a hooker. They were all somebody's child, they were somebody's wife, mother, sister, aunt, cousin. It saddens me to think that we no longer cherish the women in our society that are the bearers of our furture generations. The souls that bring forth new life to love, care and nurture. We can no longer turn a blind eye and say, "It didn't happen to me so why should I get involved". I will tell you why, because you have  no idea the pain of looking down at a steel table where the body of your daughter lies.....and you never want to.

ACOCAACN

Coffee Wars!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I apologize that I have been a bit M.I.A. lately, but of course with the holidays and all:). To ring in the New Year I had to share the most awesome of awesome fireworks display. I swear London outdoes itself every year and of course, this year was no exception. So sit back and enjoy!