Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your 2023 Christmas Genea-gifts

At first I was thinking that I had not received any genea-gifts for Christmas and therefore was not going to comment on today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post from Randy Seaver, but then I reconsidered.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Was Genea-Santa good to you?  What genealogy gifts did you receive for Christmas this year?

2.  Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

So I had only one item in my 2023 Dear Genea-Santa letter:  I am still trying to find Raymond Lawrence Sellers, the son my aunt gave up for adoption in 1945 in New Jersey (a very unfriendly state to deal with for adoption records after 1940).  And I might have made progress.  Maybe.

After I posted my Genea-Santa letter, I was contacted by someone who thinks s/he (nope, no reveal here) was in contact with Raymond.  The person I was told about VERY STRONGLY resembles (I saw a photo; could almost be a twin) a known person in my family.  The known person in the family would be a sibling to the person being hypothesized as Raymond.  And the person being hypothesized as Raymond knew he was adopted.

But the hypothetical Raymond is older than Raymond should be.  So does that mean that my aunt had her facts mixed up?  After so many years of hiding information and outright lying on her part, absolutely possible.  Or could this almost-twin be related to the known person in the family in another way that would explain the VERY STRONG resemblance?  Also possible.

So Genea-Santa didn't give me a straightforward gift for this but instead a tantalizing teaser that still needs to be resolved.  But it's certainly the most progress I have made on this in the past six years.

And I did get another gift from Genea-Santa.  In Linda Stufflebean's updated "December Meme" from two weeks ago, one of the questions was where you wanted to be dropped off if you could hitch a ride on Santa's sleigh.  I chose Lebanon, where my two oldest grandchildren live.  It turned out I didn't have to go down to Lebanon; the sleigh apparently dropped them off for a visit in Vancouver!  And that was a wonderful present indeed.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Keeps You From Doing Genealogy?

I find this week's topic for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun somewhat ironic, because the main thing that has been keeping me from doing genealogy in general is pretty much the same thing that has been keeping me from posting on my blog, including for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music here), is:

1.  What keeps rou from doing genealogy?  What real-life activity do you have to do, or like to do, that takes time away from genealogy research?

2.  Write your own blog post, or add your response as a comment to this blog post or in a Facebook Status post or note.

My thoughts on the subject:

The primary thing that has been keeping my from genealogy during the past three to four years or so is my health.  While I absolutely love living in the Portland area, having moved here from Oakland, California in 2017, I have had an unfortunate series of health events that have prevented me from doing everything I want and need to do.  Most of them are resolved now, and I am hoping that I will regain my strength and really be able to start catching up.

That said, the other activity that I love to do that sometimes might take away from genealogy voluntarily is spending time with my grandchildren and other family members.  One of the wonderful benefits of having moved here is that all five of my grandchildren are within easy driving distance.  I admit that I take every opportunity I can to visit them.

I do have a few favorite things to watch on television that take up about ten hours a week:  the nightly news and weather forecast, Chopped!, Name That Tune (notwithstanding the constant mugging from Jane), and The Masked Singer.  I actually watch much less TV now than I did in California.

And, like Randy, my body does need sleep every night, although I usually get about 6 hours.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Halloween 2021 with Two Grandchildren

I spent a mellow afternoon with two of my grandchildren for Halloween.  We didn't carve pumpkins, we doodled on them instead.  Our artistic talents produced an alien, a cat, and a big screaming mouth with sharp, bloody teeth.

Then they modeled their costumes for me before they went to a safe, socially distanced Halloween candyfest.  We had a cheerleader, a "regular extreme fire ninja", and my daughter-in-law as a reindeer.  The cat and dog declined to dress up.

It was a very good afternoon.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Tell Your Life Story in Two (or Even Five) Minutes

Talk about ourselves?  No genealogist likes to do that.  We love to talk about our ancestors!  But that's what Randy Seaver wants us to do tonight for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) Everyone has a life story, and mine is still ongoing.  Tell us your life story — start with today and go back to your birth.  Do it in 200 to 500 words, so you could tell it in two to five minutes.

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

And backward, no less!  Let's see how I do.

My name is Janice Marie Sellers, and I am 59 years old.  I live in Gresham, Oregon.  I am not married and never have been, but I have two "stepsons" from a former significant relationship.  Through the older of the two I also have five grandchildren (with very complicated interrelationships that would drive a genogram designer crazy), and I stay in touch with both of my former daughters-in-law, who live in Vancouver, Washington (15 miles away, with three of the grandchildren) and Lebanon, Oregon (95 miles away, with two of the grandchildren), respectively.

My daily activities are family history research, taking care of my two cats and three macaws, and (still!) trying to finish unpacking everything from when I moved to Oregon in 2017.  The latter was delayed because I came here with a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder and then proceeded to tear the cuff in the left shoulder (I guess I wanted a matched set).  After surgery on the left shoulder in summer 2020, I am much more able to move things around again, although I have to be careful not to push it.  I try to get six hours of sleep each night, which I am getting better at accomplishing.

My last regular job was as a train operator at BART in the San Francisco area (that's the job that gave me the torn rotator cuff in the right shoulder).  I was an employee there for five years.  Recent employment before that was transcriptionist, "office manager" (really a door guard) at an upscale daycare in a poor neighborhood, and more than 35 years as an editor for various companies and print publications.  I also was able to travel for business as an editor, primarily in the United States but a few times internationally.

My formal education ended several years ago with courses in computer programming, music, and library science, none of which culiminated in a degree or certificate.  I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities (emphasis in French), which functionally was a B.A. in French with minors in Spanish and Russian, from the University of Southern California in 1983.  I attended Niceville Senior High School in Niceville, Florida for my diploma.  I detailed my pre-high-school education for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post a few years ago; suffice it to say that I attended schools in many locations.

I was born in 1962 in East Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County hospital (prior to its association with USC), the first child of Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. and Myra Roslyn Meckler.  Both my parents were born on the East Coast, my father in New Jersey and my mother in Brooklyn, but they met and married in Miami and then drove to California to start their life together.  My family lived in multiple locations in east Los Angeles County until we moved to Australia in 1971, living there for two years before returning to the United States in 1973 and going to Florida.  In California, we saw my mother's parents often, as they lived relatively close by in Las Vegas.

The highlight of my life has been my grandchildren and their parents.  I did not have children of my own but always wanted a family, and I love being a bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother).  I wish I could spend more time with the kids and parents.

Did I go over my five-minute limit?

Christmas Memories and Traditions

I was waiting to see what Randy Seaver posted for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but it wasn't a topic that inspired me, so I'm wandering off on my own tonight.  I'm thinking about my memories of Christmas, which, like me, are a little eclectic.

One of my earliest memories of Christmas isn't about something expected like Santa Claus.  No, it's how when my mother's best friend, Sam, used to come over for Christmas, we would have not only the traditional turkey but also ham, because Sam loved ham.  (When Sam was over we also had ham with the turkey for Thanksgiving.)  I suspect not many people associate ham with Christmas, but I do.  And we usually had sweet potatoes, which my mother tried to convince me once were candy (as in candied yams).  It's really hard to trust a parent again when she pulls that on you.  By the way, no, I don't like sweet potatoes.

We didn't have a Christmas tree for Christmas; we had a Chanukah bush.  Yes, it's the same thing, just with a different name.  I don't know why my mother called it a Chanukah bush, since she didn't do anything else Chanukah-ish other than put out a menorah.  She didn't light the candles, mind you, just put the menorah out on display.   But we had our Chanukah bush to go with the menorah.

One tradition we had whether Sam was visiting us or not was to open one present on Christmas Eve.  We had different ways of trying to pick the present:  What looked the coolest?  Which was the largest?  Which had the prettiest wrapping paper?  Did one make a certain noise when it was shaken?  And my mother was pretty strict that it was only one present, so if you picked a boring one, oh, well!  Have to wait until Christma smorning to open the rest!  I don't remember any really boring ones, so maybe it always worked out okay.

During the time my family lived in Australia, Boxing Day, the day after Christmas (i.e., December 26), became part of our Christmas routine.  I remember that we used to receive an extra gift on Boxing Day, but I don't remember that we gave gifts to any of the people who did work for us during the year.  That doesn't mean we didn't, just that I don't remember it.

After moving from home to start college, I flew back and spent the next four Christmases with my parents.  What I remember most from those trips is that my mother had gotten hooked on daytime soap operas, and my sister used to watch them with her.  I would come, not having seen anything of the shows during the intervening year (because I didn't and still don't watch soap opears), and yet somehow I was able to follow the plots with no problem.  That reminds me of an old joke about soap operas:  They're the only place where it takes a woman eleven nmonths to have a premature baby.

After I graduated college I didn't have the money to fly back east for Christmas.  I started celebrating Christmas locally with friends for the most part, the specifics of which might change from one year to the next depending on where I was living and other factors.

When I was with my ex, I regularly traveled to Portland for the Christmas holidays, because that's where his world was centered.  That's when I really started spending Christmas with my "family of choice" (and also had my first white Christmas).  And then after we had grandchildren, I went to Portland as much as possible, espcially during Christmas, because the grandchidlren were mostly in that area.

Now that I live in the Portland area myself, I don't have to go as far to see my grandchildren, which is good, because they're now the most important part of my Christmas.  This year I visited the three youngest in person on Christmas Eve and had a video chat with the two older ones on Christmas Day and was able to watch them open their presents.  And those are great memories to add to the others.

All five grandchildren, Christmas 2017

 

Grandparents Day

To celebrate National Grandparents Day today, here is a photo I recently found of my five children with my second (former) daughter-in-law.  It looks like they're having a fun, silly time!

Photo Books for Everyone

The theme for this month's Genealogy Blog Party from Elizabeth O'Neal is "Create!"  That gives a lot of latitude.  There are so many creative things one can do to celebrate family history.

One creative thing I have been doing for several years is making photo books for family members.  Although I know how to use real desktop layout software, I use the Shutterfly site to put the books together, because it's so convenient and I can always find coupons for free books.  I'm still paying the "shipping and handling" fees, but the cost ends up being worth it.

In looking at my projects on Shutterfly, I discovered that I have created fourteen different photo books.  One of my favorites is the book I made to replicate my grandmother's photo album.

Only one person can have the original photo album (and that's me!), but I scanned the pages as they were in the original and made copies of the book for my brother and sister.  That way they can have their own copies of our grandmother's album.

In 2015 I managed to put together a small Sellers family reunion to celebrate my father's 80th birthday and 35th wedding anniversary (to his third wife), and my aunt's 90th birthday.  And then I made a photo book with the best photographs and gave copies to everyone who was there.

I created a book focused on my Gorodetsky family line and the city of Kamenets Podolsky, where my great-great-grandparents had a photo taken (they're on the cover).  I made a version for myself and then customized versions for my brother and sister.

I made a book for my stepsons' mother (which sounds less awkward than "my ex's ex-wife", I think) with photos of her grandchildren.

I've put together several books with photos of my grandchildren.  This is the one for my youngest granddaughter.

I even created a book with photos of my furred and feathered children.

These books are an easy but thoughtful way to create gifts for family members.  They are also a great way to share family photos.

And Shutterfly functions as a print-on-demand publisher.  Any time I need another copy of a book, I go to the site and order one.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Grandparents Day

To celebrate Grandparents Day this year, this is a photo of my five grandchildren last year when we went to Sauvie Island for the corn maze and choosing pumpkins for Hallowe'en.  Unfortunately, the light rain that started when we arrived turned into a torrential downpour before we were halfway through the maze, which we bailed on, and we all ended up looking very soggy.  This photo was taken when we had only been dripped on a little bit.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday for Christmas

Wordless Wednesday

Grandparents Day 2018

So today is Grandparents Day here in the United States.  While cynics may believe it was created as a manufactured holiday designed to sell cards, I think it's a great excuse to post a photo of myself with all five of my grandchildren.  This is from June of this year, after a day-long visit to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Christmas Eve 2015

I think I have decided that spending Christmas Eve with my grandchildren is one of the best things I can ever do with my time.  These are some of the highlights.

The "sticking out tongue" contest

Everyone keeps an eye on the baby going into her playpen.

No, I don't want my picture taken right now!

Group photo with Dad, fighting for camera time

lots of love for baby sister

The first presents opened were new pajamas for Christmas!

The present bonanza in full swing

A cool wooden car from Cuba!

Matching dolls from Cuba

A four-generation photo that will stay in the family