In nearby Wheeling, IL there is a new Westin Hotel that is 16 stories tall and has some great restaurants in the lobby. Amy and I wanted to take a look at the ballrooms in the hotel as a possible location for our wedding. When we arrived Laura, Hotel Sales, stated that someone in the hotel had mentioned the Presidential Suite as a possible location for the wedding since it is such a small gathering. Laura showed us the room and it is fantastic. It has a great view of the area and you can even see Chicago on a clear night. We did look at the ballrooms but they pale in comparison to the Presidential Suite. After discussing the particulars, we agreed that we would have the wedding on St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) at the North Shore Westin Hotel.

Now I just have to find something to wear ;).


Bill

Darrin of TNG has released a minor update which fixed some minor issues with help files, relationships, and GEDCOM exports to name 3 of the 35 items that were fixed. Also during the update, I installed some new reports which puts a different perspective on the data of all of the family members that are in the tree.

Enjoy!!


Bill

It seemed appropriate on Thanksgiving to share an old family recipe. This particular recipe came from from my grandmother (Honore) Wheeler.


Creamy Avocado mold with oranges and grapefruit.


1 cup of water
2 envelopes (2 tbsp) unflavored gelatin
3 cups diced avocado (about 2 med.)
1 cup each sour cream and mayonnaise
1/4 cup lime juice
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp liquid hot pepper sauce
Lettuce leaves
Segments of 2 grapefruit, 2 oranges, watercress and sprigs


Put in electric blender. Blend until smooth, scraping sides of container as needed. Chill until firm - about 3 hours. Unmold onto lettuce-lined plate.

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It was apparent after looking at other recipes that jello was a popular ingredient during the time and/or area as was wild rice.

Whether or not you decide to serve this dish, have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Just a heads up. On December 8th at approximately 8am the web site, email, etc. will be unavailable for maintenance. Okay, it really isn't maintenance. We're in the process of moving and we will be moving our Comcast service over to our new home. Pics of the house are on the Flickr site.

While working on the supplemental application to the SAR for Jacob Biesecker, I discovered that I have another Revolutionary War ancestor on my mothers side. The ancestor is John Reinhart Replogle. Since both are relatively close to one another in lineage, I will be working on both applications at the same time.

Darrin Lythgoe, the author of TNG has released a small update (6.0.2) to his Internet genealogy software. I have applied the update to the website and you can now enjoy the new features/functions.

I recently read about a program which assists with merging GEDCOM files. Seeing that I occasionally meet cousins that have GEDCOM files, the question is how to merge those files without creating duplicates. GenMerge is just the tool that also assists with identifying errors in your data (loops, duplicates, incorrect dates, etc.). You can download a demo from genmerge.com.

For those of you that are interested, the pictures that we took from the cruise have been posted to Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheelew/. I promise it isn't as painful as the slide shows that we all endured as children! :)

While on the genealogy cruise we received a consultation from Eileen O'Duill. One of the things that Eileen mentioned that rang true is the dropping and adding of 'Mc' to the surname. I had never seen my McGinty ancestor without the 'Mc' until now. From my second great grandfather's death certificate we know that his parents names are Michael McGinty and Elizabeth McGarry. My cousin Michael visited the McGarry farm in Ballygheer so we know that the information on the death certificate is accurate (which is not always the case). In addition to learning the McGintys' farm location from this marriage certificate, Farnaught, we also learn the names of the fathers of Michael and Elisa. It also raises new questions such as who are the witnesses?

A better copy of the marriage certificate is available through the web site. If you have questions regarding the document, I will be happy to answer them the best that I can.

Eileen - again, thank so much for finding this document and for all of your help!!!

We made it safely back home with a long list of things to do. While catching up on the news I found that Roots Television is running a series on military research. There are some very informative and interesting pieces which I encourage you to review. The web site is www.rootstelevision.com.

Despite the fact that it has been several days since we got engaged, the news is still making its way around the ship. Everyone has really been great about it! Eileen O'Duill has offered some places where we could have our honeymoon should we choose to have it in Ireland. Cindy Lorenz from FlyAway Travel took our pictures and will be sharing the news on her website.

We spent like sleeping in on our last day so our first lecture was not until 11am. While from a weather perspective we picked the right day to sleep in as the weather was pretty rough. Plenty of people were using the bags throughout the ship due to seasickness. I've never seen so many people so many different shades of green!

As we pack our bags and get ready to return home, the cruise was absolutely fantastic. We make a lot of friends, learned a lot of new things that will be helpful in researching our family history and put on more than a few pounds. While I doubt that we will be going on the cruise in 2007, we will definitely be going on another Genealogy cruise.

Friday was my first full day of genealogy since I had a scuba class on Thursday. All of the classes were great! After the timelines lecture, we discussed some of our brick walls with James Petty. Gary Smith then discussed some of the resources that all genealogists should have at home. The afternoon was spent with the O'Duills and George Morgan.

Friday evening was our second evening of formal attire for dinner. Only one more day of genealogy before we return home.

We arrived in St. Martin (or Sint Maarten) at approximately 7:00am on Thursday morning. My morning was scheduled for two dives off the coast of St. Martin and Amy was going to venture around the island. While my dive excursion was a little bumpy on the first dive when one of the divers from ship ran out of air and forgot to exhale when he was doing an emergency ascent, both dives went very well and it was great to be back in the water. We saw two sharks (one 7 ft and one 4ft), several baracuda, lots of lobster and lots of other marine life. While St. Martin is nice, the dive sites were heavily over-fished and are only now starting to recover. If I was going on a week long dive trip, I don't know that I would select St. Martin. Cozumel I understand is the place to dive. Meanwhile Amy took a tour around the island and got some great pictures.

Having left St. Martin and are now enroute back to Florida, we have two full days of genealogy lectures. My day begins with talking about timelines with Diane Smith. While I'm sure that Amy will be attending a couple of the lectures, I have a feeling that the majority of her time will be spent by the pool.

On Wednesday at approximately 7am we arrived in the port of St. Thomas. It was an absolutely beautiful day of which very little was spent doing or speaking of genealogy. After having breakfast, Amy and I ventured onto dry land to tour around the island. We didn't join and of the groups that were arranged by the ship's staff. We decided that we would venture out on our own. We were originally going to take one of the skyview trips to the top of the island but one of tour guides convinced us that for an additional $7, he would take us around a good portion of the island. We're glad that we took him up on his offer.

Otherwise, the day was spent informing friends and family about the recent news of our engagement. Tomorrow I will be scuba diving in the morning and most likely shopping in St. Maarten in the afternoon. On Friday, once we are back at sea, we begin our genealogy lectures again.

Tuesday turned out to be a busy day. But, we'll start with the important news. Last evening Amy and I got engaged. Why did I choose Halloween to get engaged? It turned out just to be a coincidence that it was Halloween. Otherwise, the time just seemed right. And luckily for me, she said "yes".

Earlier in the day turned out to be eventful as well. I completed my refresher scuba diving class and passed with flying colors. That will allow me to get in the water on Thursday in St. Marten. Of St. Thomas and St. Marten I am told that there is more marine life in St. Marten. I will be taking pictures so marine life is important. While I missed several lectures on Tuesday morning since I had a scuba course, I was able to attend the afternoon class.

My first session was scheduled to be with Eileen O'Duill and it was basically about planning research trips to Ireland. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties, we couldn't proceed with the class. Eileen adapted extremely quickly and we started with the consults. Long story short is that Eileen found the marriage certificate of my 3rd great grandfather and grandmother, Michael Ginty and Elisa McGarry.

My second session was concerned 40 lesser used sources. The 3rd session was a very funny and interesting session with Sean O'Duill which discussed very detailed rites the Irish would follow with regard to the dead.

Again, it was a big day!