Monday, March 23, 2009

More Geneology


Here is the Haggerty Crest. As you can see, there are 2 gs in the name. I think the extra one was dropped with my Grandfather Gilbert, or perhaps his father Silas Sharp( the first). I have been in contact with someone who is also researching the Haggerty line. His family name is Watt, so a cousin. It's been kind of fun comparing notes and stories.
One of the questions he had was about the change in the spelling of the name. He had heard stories that there had been a falling out over a family business that didn't go well,and part of the family dropped the extra "g" in protest. I suspect in had to do with the county in Ireland that the family came from. The Northern counties in Ulster, were more often protestants and spelled thier names with one "g". Those from farther south like county Cork were more likely Catholic and used the 2 "g" spelling. It could have been something else, as well.
I had already seen the family crest, but I was able to get a download from an Irish website. There's a website for Aran sweaters. Each family has their own design for an Aran sweater. The Haggerty design is really pretty, but $250 is a little steep for me right now.
There's also an Irish connection through the Peck line. My Grandmother Jefferies maiden name was Peck. It seems that she has, so far, the most interesting lineage. It can be traced way back bcause she was desended from royalty, making her easier to trace. The Peck line went back into the 1100's as Peck, then became Provost and finally, the names were with titles so every one was different. The names were often Fitz followed by the father's name. One ancestor was William Fitzgilbert. He accompanied William the Conqueror,(who is a cousin) to the Battle of Hastins in 1066. For his valor, he was awarded many titles and given much land. He took the name William de Clare. One of his estates was in Ireland,and he lived and governed there. He must have done a good enough job, because they named a county after him, County Clare.
It's fun to look at the royal lines because there's so much information on them and you can feel the history. Some of the lines are more difficult to research. The Hagerty line is proving to be that way. There are so many of them and many immigrated to the US so it's hard to separate the facts. Maybe someday, I'll go to Ireland and see things for myself.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Changes

I just finished reading a news column from Thomas Friedman. He quoted an article from "The Onion" where a Chinese worker in plastics talked about the crazy things Americans would buy, like salad shooters, use them for awhile, then just throw them away. You know, I used to have a salad shooter. I used it quite often for awhile. I must have thrown it away or hopefully given it away when I moved after my divorce. I've actually kind of missed it though.

Getting back to the point: Friedman says that this depression may actually be more than just a depression. 2008 may be the year that Mother Nature, and the stock market said "stop". It's time to stop spending more and more for things we don't need, stop trying to make more money than we need, and stop using up our natural resources and throwing away whatever we get tired of. He mentions that we're constantly working to grow more and make more money to buy more things made in China so they can get more money to buy more T bills so they can lend us more money to buy more..... You see where this is going.

I've always thought that a country who's gross national product is essentially it's consumers spending more and more is likely heading for a fall. Have you noticed a falling feeling? Fortunately, people are beginning to realise we need to build sustainably, recycle etc. Hopefully, it will all come out well, but the new world may be different from the old.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Update

I can't believe I haven't posted since Feb. 19 ! I guess I've been spending so much time doing geneology, that I just didn't get around to it. I also wasn't sure anyone wanted to read another post about my ancestors.

The past couple of weeks I haven't been feeling too well. I'm not sure what's been wrong, just another strange virus going around at work I guess. The first week, I had so much back pain, I couldn't sleep unless I used a heating pad.Then I got blisters from the heating pad. That's been a lot of fun. I'm sleeping okay now, but the blisters are itching. New kinds of fun.

We've had lovely warm days, temps in the 50s and 60s. We even reached 70 one day. We've had really strong winds for the last 3 days. Today we're back to snow. Seems like a typical March. Yesterday I was toying with the idea of starting to dig out a garden spot, today I have to clean 2 inches of snow of my car. Still, the sun is shining bright and the wind has calmed.

My poor bank account is getting szhitsophrenic. One payday can be almost normal, the next has only 3 days on it. The last posted schedual gave me 12 days off. Fortunately, I got asked to work tomorrow, giving me 2 days this week. I haven't a clue what will happen next week. Vendors are cutting back on demos due to the economy and it's the vendors paying for demos that pays my salary. The last time we had a normal amount of demos was the weekend before and the weekend of the superbowl. Maybe March Madness will produce some demos. There's always Easter, but that's not until April. I'm thinking of trying to change departments. Still, with my not feeling well, at least I haven't had to call in sick, but I have worked sick. Oh well, I haven't been that bad anyway.

I've been looking at my spelling in this last paragraph. Not good!

I can't resist a little geneology. I found out we're related to William the Conquerer. He was actually the brother of our ancestor, not the direct ancestor, but still, kind of cool. This is from my maternal grandmother's line. Charlamaigne also shows up, but that's certainly something to take with a grain of salt. I discovered an ancestor named Mael Coluim Mac Doinnail, King Malcolm I of Scotland, evenfound a picture. He was born in 0983. He was also in that same maternal line. It's amazing how the lines spread out, like a tree, right. I've found over 2800 people and that only includes my own lines, not my ex husband's lines. That includes a lot of brothers and sisters who I probably won't persue, other than a few recent people.