Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

Ok, it's a usual day here at the farm. Chores are done, animals are fed, and knitting is commencing while I start working on a few things. I've been working on extending my family tree a bit more. Whatever I had done was left pretty much in the air about 8 years ago. We had a years' subscription to Ancestry, but couldn't afford to keep it. Now, there are a bit more free sites that will help you without having to pay up $70 to see them. The two parts of my tree that were stuck were on my Mother's side. The Laws' side was stuck in Kentucky at the start of the 1900's. Now this might be fine for some, but come on! I've gotten one part of my tree back to the 1500's.  So I started searching, using the LDS website. Back when I started, the only persons in their database were ones 'sealed' to their faith. It's a part of their religion: If you become a Mormon, all your ancestors were 'sealed in the faith' -or baptised in Mormon. Many ...

I've been hearing a lot of whining from people these days about this or that offending them. Here's the deal; your offensiveness is yours. No one needs to change to keep your petty little sensibilities from being nicked. YOU are stronger than that! After you read this, go look at yourself in a mirror for a while. Heck use your cell phone if you have to, but LOOK at yourself. YOU are the result of thousands of years of survival.  Your ancestral parents have survived many things for YOU to be where you are. There were three pandemics in the world over the last 700 years. One wiped out about 50 -80% of the world's population. No, I didn't say just *one* area...THE WORLD LOST UP TO 80% OF THE PEOPLE.  Had one of those  people been your ancestral parent before you were born? You wouldn't be here. But the Bubonic Plague reared it's ugly head a few more times over the millenia. In the 1600's it hit England again, decimating 30% of the population. Yet, your a...