ANCESTOR HOMES

I've been looking through old family photographs my sister has scanned and have been drawn to family pictures taken in front of their homes.  I think this is such a treasure.  I absolutely love seeing my ancestors and their homes!

Vine Cottage in Thatcher, Arizona around 1900

Pictured is my 2nd great grandmother, Sylvia Louise Bentley Sessions, 3rd great grandmother, Sarah Ellen Haws Sessions and my great grandmother, Martha Louise Sessions Huntzinger

1896 family photo in front of their Utah home.
This family photo includes my great grandfather, William Daniels, my 2nd great grandparents, Petrea Christofferson Daniels and Charles Henrick Daniels and my 3rd great grandparents, William Frederick Daniels and Sophia Thompson Daniels.

Rose Cottage on Bay Street in Santa Monica, CA in 1884

Pictured is my 3rd great grandfather, Edgar Sessions and my 2nd great grandmother, Sylvia Louise Bentley Sessions and other family members

My 2nd great grandparents, George Edwin Young and Sarah DeArmon Rich Young, in front of their Gusher, Utah home, around 1940.

My 3rd great grandmother, Katurah Vaughn Vincent and 2nd great grandmother, Harriet Maria Vincent Smith on the porch, of possibly the Mercur, Utah home, in 1912.

My grandfather, Ferra Marcel Young, with his siblings and parents, Sarah DeArmon Rich Young and George Edwin Young, around 1925 in Gusher, Utah.

My great grandmother, Rachael Elizabeth Smith Daniels and Harriet Maria Vincent Smith on the porch, of possibly the Mercur, Utah home, in 1912.

My 3rd great grandmother, Sarah DeArmon Pea Rich, in front of her home in Salt Lake City, Utah, around 1890

Home of my 3rd great grandfather, John Stock in Paris, Utah.
In 2008, my sister and I took an impromtu family history trip.  We knocked on the door and got a tour of the home!   

This year, my goal is to have a family picture taken in front of our home.

WIENCKEN EXCURSION

This is the Wiencken family - Larry's 2nd great grandparents and the cute little girl up front is Larry's great grandmother.

Today we visited a few of them.  We cleaned their headstones, there was a lot of lichen growing on them, and tidied up the surrounding area.

I cut some of Grandma Betty's peonies this morning from our garden and we took them to the cemetery.  They looked gorgeous by the headstones.

I printed images of the family members so that it would help put a face to a name for my man clan.  It was such a great family history excursion.  They want to know more about these family members now and that thrills me!

You don't associate the word "darling" with a cemetery, but this one really is.  It is beautiful, old and oh so charming. 
Today was a good, good day.

SOME OF MY RELATIVES WERE HUNG IN THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS OF 1692

My 9th great-grandmother is Rebecca Towne Nurse.  She was indicted on charges of witchcraft and hung on 19 July 1692.

John and Elizabeth Proctor are my 9th great-grandparents. They were indicted on charges of witchcraft. Elizabeth was given a temporary stay of execution because she was pregnant.  John, however, was hung on 19 August 1692.

Two of my 9th great-grand aunts were also accused of witchcraft - Rebecca's sisters, Mary Towne Eastey and Sarah Towne Cloyce.  On 22 September 1692, Mary was hung.  Sarah was never indicted and survived the witch hysteria.

My parents and aunt and uncle are back east visiting the family homesteads and memorials.  I have LOVED getting text messages from them with photos.  I'm super jealous I'm not with them but so happy they are sharing their journey as it goes along.

 John Proctor's home.

 Rebecca Nurse's home.  I love the door knocker!

Although this era of history is horrendous, I think it's super cool to be connected to this history.
I'm very thankful that the homesteads and memorials have been preserved so that we have the opportunity to see them.

I hope I see them sooner than later.

PS - Here's a link to the Salem Witch Trials.

ANCESTOR CAKE

Tonight we started a new family tradition that will help the family learn, in a fun way, a little bit of their family history.  Ancestor cake.
I went back six generations and wrote down all the grandmas and grandpas birthdays and did the same for Larry's family.  This month we have eight ancestors who had birthdays.
I looked to see if we had a photo of them, wrote down their vitals and if there were any interesting tidbits about their life.
We took turns reading a life snip-it of a birthday ancestor and then sang happy birthday to them.  The kiddos got to blow out the candles and then we talked about family history memories over dessert.
I hope that with us doing this every month, it will help our family realize their ancestors were real people.
Also, I hope it ignites some family history interest.  Some of our ancestors, all we know is a birth and death date.  No photos.  No personal information about their life.  Some ancestors have a few mysteries to solve.  Some have skeletons in their closet.  Some information is heartbreaking.  Some, we have loads of information about, including fun journal entries that really help bring alive their personalities.  I hope when my children are studying something in school, like the Civil War, for example, they come home and ask me, "remember that one grandpa that fought in the Civil War?  Can you tell me more about him?"
More importantly, I hope they connect with an ancestor and want to help fill in 'the dash' between their birth and death dates.
This new family tradition, besides being delicious, is enlightening, humbling and exciting.

HOMESTEAD WATER PITCHER

While we were at the Huntzinger Homestead for the family reunion, there were a lot of "treasures" that were found while we were looking for landmarks.  Family members got to take a piece of the found treasures home, which I thought was really fun.

Lach found this water pitcher and now it's our newest flower vase.
There are quite a few things I love about it, but I mostly love that it's been through the ringer.

THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE HUNTZINGER FAMILY REUNION

was going out to the family homestead.  We traipsed all over the place, finding landmarks referenced in photos and journaled memories.  Flooding over the years disintegrated the abandoned adobe home.  Flash floods to an unkept area changes things drastically.  We found the well, windmill, animal coral, and some fun treasures like a few pieces of silverware, broken pottery, gate pieces, etc...  It was so much fun.  Unfortunately, Eddie's grave couldn't be confirmed.  That would have been icing on the cake.

I loved meeting family members and being reunited with family I already knew.  Hearing stories with added information and clarification was invaluable and so fun.  Plans for the next family reunion are already in the works and I can't wait!

1450 MILES, 27-ISH HOURS, LOTS OF PIT STOPS AND SNACKS

and we're finally here!

The three of us,

with my dad (aka grandpa, old man, girlfriend, driver extraordinaire)

are in Arizona for a family reunion and some desert sight seeing.  We're braving the scary creatures,

and the heat - seriously, 111!

We're needing lots of chapstick because we are addicted to black pepper sunflower seeds and we've stocked up on liquids and sunscreen.
We're so excited to meet family members, catch up with family we haven't seen for a while, go out to the family homestead (this time we won't be trespassing) and be tourists for the week!

TUESDAY WAS GRANDMA'S FUNERAL

We had Grandma's services held at the chapel at Sundberg-Olpin Mortuary.  It was a beautiful service and I  loved what I learned about my grandmother through my uncles and aunt's talks.  Then we followed her casket to the Orem City Cemetery, where she was buried next to grandpa.

Grandma made this tablecloth.  I thought it was so beautiful.
All of the flowers at her services were different shades of her favorite color, pink, and they were gorgeous.  The florist did such a great job.

Grandma was told she was never going to be able to bear children.
Here are all eight of her miracles in front of her casket.

AS OF TODAY, I AM NOW AT THAT AGE WHERE I NO LONGER HAVE ANY LIVING GRANDPARENTS

My grandmother passed away this afternoon.

Lucille Ida Huntzinger

28 Dec 1918 - 5 Feb 2013

I'll think of her when I make her Caramel Dumpling recipe.

I'll think of her when I manually water the flowers with a hose.  When I was younger she taught me to "water the flowers like rain".  Luckily now a days we have hoses with the 'shower setting', which makes it much easier, but there are those times that you just have to get your hands wet.  Such a silly thing to be reminded of, but it's something that's stuck with me.

I'll think of her when I do family history.  I grew up a Navy brat, so we never lived around family.  It wasn't until after I was married  that we bonded and became friends.  It was fun to call her when I found something that got me excited or to brainstorm.  She got a kick out it.

She wrote me two beautiful letters.  The first one right before I got married and the second one while I was pregnant with Larry J.

I have a few of her paintings hanging in our lair.  The first one she painted for me as a wedding present.  Unfortunately, I didn't appreciate it or her painting talent at first.  But thankfully I grew up and my appreciation for art, family history and maturity kicked in.  Throughout the years, I have acquired a few more of her paintings through family members downsizing.  I love having pieces like that around me.

I'm thankful that I have photos of all my boys with their great-grandmother. Lach has one when he was a baby, but the last time he was in Utah with me, he didn't want to be in the photo. He was too busy checking out her snowglobes.

Until we meet again, Grandma.

MY MOTHER-IN-LAW HAS A FUN LITTLE TREASURE

of her father's. Two kitchen knifes.

These knifes are about 80 years old and they are still in use in the kitchen.

Her father was a handyman.  When one of the rivets came out of the knife, he replaced it with a copper rivet.  That's my favorite part of the knife.

Robert McConnell was also an inventor and didn't even know it.  One awesome memory my mother-in-law has, is that they had an automatic garage door opener before they were invented.

I love hearing stories about him. I can see that Larry inherited some of his characteristics.

If Larry and I lived in his time, I could completely imagine me making a comment about getting wet and cold when I had to open the garage.  Larry would get an idea and whip something up in no time to surprise me.  Viola!  An opener for the garage.  Just push the button.  Problem solved, easy peasy.

Larry has an amazing brain.  It's fun to see where he gets some of his tinkering ideas from.

ANCESTRY DNA RESULTS ARE IN!

Months ago, I sent in my DNA to Ancestry.com and now I have my results that reflect my genetic ethnicity, going back up to ten generations! I'm still figuring out how to exactly use this information but one of the exciting things is that they found two 4th cousins that are a 96% match.

I've contacted them and now am just waiting to hear back. I know I shouldn't get my hopes too high, but I have visions of them having family photos we've never seen or awesome family memorabilia. We shall see....

photo via in5d

I'm:

53% Scandinavian - Denmark, Norway and Sweden

41% Central European - Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland..

6% Other

Although we already knew it, my father will be so excited to know we do, indeed, have Viking blood. We have the DNA.