Thursday, August 31, 2006

This morning I awoke to a chilly weather, I went to town and had my windshield wipers on, and I saw some ice . A sure sign that the cold weather and snow is not far away. I have been busy with my genealogy, and I have been transcribing the tombstones from a cemetery, there are three sections and I have done one out of three. I shall have to go earlier in the mornings to have a head start on the cemetery and be able to get home before dark. This cemetery has many of my ancestors and relatives in it. The reason I am doing this is so that we have the names of the people buried there before the stones fade away or break, there were many stones already not readable or broken. It is such a shame to see this. To many this may not seem interesting or worth doing but maybe your grandchildren or their children one day may come looking for you in some cemetery. Would you not want them to find you? I know I would want them to find me, then they would probably say oh there is my great great great grandmother,and my great great great grandfather. If my descendents or some of them carry some of my likes and dislikes they will love genealogy as I do.
Have a great day.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Egad, what a day. Although it could always be worse. But on the other had it is so nice to have friends is it not?
I have finally took the big step and acquired my own Domain, and now I am trying to master creating my website. What is FTP? Well I found out that that is File Transfer Protocol, that is great (If I ever understand it).
Next HTML? Well I had delved into it a while back, no great result so a very nice lady has been giving me advice, suggestion and she even did my index page, or began it, what a big help that was.
She also told me to practice my html, so i decided to see what I could learn. I went to a website and viewed the source, wow, it was all in html. Now for background I found this , body background=" http://www dot dot .com/carolgebg3.gif ".
I think that it will take me somewhere. I am determined to try and master my website, I would have prefered the easy way with no html, but I was told once I master it I will be happy I have done so.
I have also have some of my members from my acadianroots club offer to help me, and I do appreciate it so.
So if any of you understand what I am talking about, and if you know a bit about websites, please say a little prayer so that I can create a great website on acadian genealogy.
Have a great day.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Today I will share a bit of my memories with you, to begin with I was talking to my son this morning, and I told him I was very proud of him, which I really am. He is just like his dad was , a hard little worker. He is a very good family man, having two children who he adores. I know he would go through fire for his kids. He is so much like his father, soft , easy going, everything is ok as far as he is concerned.
So today he was telling me he had done some repairs around his home, I think he wanted my approval, which I replied, if your Dad would be here he would be so proud of you and I said because I am. Then I continued " Although we nearly traded you for a little indian when you were small but we changed our minds. He laughed and said yes Mom I remember seeing those arrows along the road and highways and Dad saying that. That is true,back then we did not have seat belts and my son was standing between me and his dad, and he just leaned over to face his dad and said nooooooooooooooooooooooo Dada. I don't want you to trade me. haha.
Thinking back, and NO Seatbelts, boy that was dangerous. I am so glad we need seatbelts now.
I have so many nice memories of when my son was small, I remember he was around three or so and we lived on a main road and there was lots of traffic, I had put him outdoors in the back yard, in a split second he was gone, I looked in the road and there was my son with his little toy broom in the middle of the road he wanted to sweep the floor. Well I brought him back home, and I went out and got a little child harness and when I was not with him, he was wearing his little harness. I remember one time, my late husband and I decided to take a trip to nowhere that is what we called our trips, so this paticular time we were going towards Montreal, arriving there I said to my son we should go see your aunt in Sudbury, so my son age around 4 started asking his dad to go to Sudbury, so we headed that way, but shortly after entering Ontario, our universal joint let go on our old station wagon, so we spent all day at a garage. So arriving in sudbury we did not want to tell them that the car broke down,we didn't have to, my son said to his aunt and uncle, Dada's car broke down we went to a garage to fix it. haha. So much for keeping a secret huh?
Have a great day.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Well I will share Acadian Day with you.
Tuesday evening around 545 pm I went to Bouctouche for Acadian day. Arriving there we had missed he tantramare, so we did not know where the music was playing. There was this lady dressed in Acadian costume sitting in her car. I said to her " Where is the band going to play?" She replied "oh they are playing at Le Pays De La Sagouine , and the bands have been playing for a while". So off we went to the Pays De La Sagouine, I had never gone there. We went through the admitting place paid our fee and entered through the door to a board walk, it was quite a walk, but as we walked we looked across the water and we saw Bouctouche, it was nice to see. Arriving at the park, there were people everywhere, so we got as far as a stage and sat on the edge until someone offered us a chair, which I gladly took. They had numerous bands, the first one we heard were so good. They played lots of acadian songs, then the next band took over , they too were good, we never stayed for the third band, but as I was sittling on the stage, I looked at the crowd and what a nice site to see. The music was playing, the people were clapping to the music and rocking to and fro. They were all happy, and it was just like one big family. I am so proud to have been able to be among them.
They had over 3000 people there. In the year 2009 will be the Congres Mondial around Caraquet and if I am able I am going to try my best to attend. There will be Acadians from all over, Louisiana, the USA , maybe even England and France.
So maybe you should think about attending the joyful occasion.
Have a Great Day.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

I have been reading many things online about the acadians, and I hadn't done so before. If you are into reading about them , there are lots of great books out there. Regis Brun has a book on " The acadiens before 17 55, John Mack Faragher has a book on A great and Noble Scheme. We have some great writers of Acadian Books and Acadian Genealogy, to mention a few we have Stephen White who wrote the great genealogy book Dictionaire Genealogique des familles Acadiennes, if you are into genealogy these two volume set are a must, Paul Delaney has written about the exiled acadians who were deported to Georgia and elsewhere, he also wrote a great article on The Bergeron dit D'amboise and ancestors.If you have ancestors in the yarmouth area, Father Clarence D'entremont wrote a series of stories, there are one hundred of them online, and very interesting to read.
I am always looking for little tidbits regarding my ancestors, at the moment I am trying to look into court cases to find records of when my maternal grandfather burned my paternal grandfather's barn because he was angry that my father eloped with my mother, since she was very young, later the priest remarried my parents. But you see I have this info in my book, more stories for my grandkids and great grandkids if I am lucky enough to have any.
Many of you into genealogy may be unable to find some of your ancestors, could they have been in prison? Could they have been a patient in a hospital? Could they have been lost at sea? There is only one way to find out, dig dig dig.
Have a great day.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

A walk through the past sure is an experience . I decided to take a trip to Caraquet and visit the Village Acadien. I took the scenic route to go, followed the seashore, through Neguac, Pokemouche, Tracadie-Sheila. The weather was beautiful . Arriving at the Village Acadien entrance, a young girl who worked there saw that I was trying to take a photo with my digital camera, she very nicely asked if I wanted my photo taken, I said sure and she took my photo entering the village. I thought what a nice welcome that was. Entering the admitting building, another lady told us there was a little show beginning in five minutes so we waited to see the movie, it was about the acadians, and the deportation, and what I liked about the movie it was both in french and in english, and educational. Leaving the movie we went through the gift shop, oh I love looking through gift shops, I saw lots of books on Acadian and genealogy, postcards, little trinkets, even wooden shoes.
Next we were on our way into the village, we had a map to explain each stop, there was the Robichaud house, the Martin house, the Godin house, the Leger Blacksmith and house, the Cormier woodworking shop. Inside the houses the workers dressed in costumes acted as if they were in the late 1800s, one lady showed us how they make yarn out of wool, another man told us that long ago, the parents used to make mattresses out of straw, cover it with cloth, and under the bed they would put fresh spruce boughs, I wondered why? He replied the boughs were put there to keep the straw from getting moldy and to keep the bugs away. Now I remember my mother telling me that her father used to make their mattresses out of straw, this was in the early 1900s. What a nice thing to know.
Next we walked to the one room schoolhouse, a teacher waited for us there, we sat in the old desk which were long and seated about four to a row, it had eight rows, meaning it held 32 children. The teacher went on to explain the school system back then, and that first of all they had english reader books, she had one to show us, then they translated them into french readers, and it was first reader, second reader, third reader. She had this wooden strap, and explained to us that if you were not very bad you would get the strap on the ends of your fingers, but if you were bad the teacher would hit you across the knuckles. ouch!. Having ended her story, she then asked us to join in on an old acadian song, it was fun. The song had the words ma petite Marianne in it.
Leaving the school we proceeded to more houses and through a covered bridge, we saw ducks , we saw cows, sheep, chickens, turkeys, pigs. Old tools , old furniture, it was something to behold, knowing some of our ancestors lived that way, but to our ancestors, it was a way of living and I am sure to them it was an everyday thing, they did not know that the future would get to be so much easier. So we finally ended our walk around the village , and we headed for home a bit tired but very pleased with our day. Our next stop Fort Louisboug in Cape Breton.
Have a great day

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

The weather is lovely, today it is suppose to be very humid. So not a good time to go out in the sun, since too much sun isn't good for you.
I received an email today from one of my members in my acadianroots group, and every once in a while I get some very nice letters either of appreciation of just a plain nice letter. Today's was about a lady who shares many similar things as I do. We are both into genealogy and we both have the same purpose, and that is to leave something important to our kids and grandkids when we leave this earth. As you all must encounter, for instance, photos , in old boxes, negatives in old boxes, no names, no dates, just a photo. Who were these people? That lady sure looked elegant, who was she? Look at the clothes they wore in those days, gee some of them look similar to some of our latest fashions. So now is the time to identify your photos, maybe making a scrapbook since today that is a hobby, or just create albums and list who these people were, and maybe even where they were living. You never know , maybe somewhere down the line someone will be looking so hard for this info. You can even put all your photos on CDs or DVDs.
They are very important. My grandmother took photos, my mother did to, and I am so thankful that they did.
A diary is also a great thing to do, I would really love to have had a diary written by my grandmother or greatgrandmother, knowing how they thought and felt, and what kind of things were important in their lives.
I cannot give lots of money and things to my grandchildren, but I sure can give them a sense of where they came from and my love.
Have a great day.