Natural Medicine

    Six days without posting. Lately I've been bogged down by life events... birthday parties, weddings, other social events... not to say that's a bad thing, however, I really appreciate having time to myself on my days off. There's something very frustrating and relaxing about sitting down at my computer to blog or research. Although I love my soon to be in-laws and my fiance's friends I am very happy to have a few hours to sit back and talk about the past.
    Ahhh, so refreshing. Now genealogy is wonderful, however, it is not our only link to the past. There is a lot more we can learn other than just the names of our kin. We began discussing different ways of connecting to your past in my last blog post about cars. I feel a connection to those who came before me when I do things that they might have done. Another topic that I feel very strongly about is holistic medicine.
    I am going to throw out a disclaimer right now. I am not a doctor, I do not pretend to be a doctor, holistic medicine may or may not help the conditions we believe it to assist and cannot be a substitute for real diagnosis and medication. Phew, long disclaimer. However, I think that there must be something to the natural cures that have come down through out the ages. If it didn't work we would have stopped relying on it. Again that's not to say you should rely on the an old wives tale to cure cancer, but as long as the natural cure does not interact with the medicinal treatment, well it can't hurt to have a little extra.
    I haven't been sick in years so I've had little need to test these cures. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I do, however, have an arsenal ready if the need ever arises. Garlic is my first key. My house smell of garlic. It's in every crevice. Garlic is a great preventative, but when necessary it can also be a powerful antibiotic. In this study that came from India it was concluded that garlic has potential to fight against bacterial infections. It is effective even against some antibiotic resistant strains. With antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria on the rise further research is being given to the older medicinal options. The study does make a note that it is only a preliminary collection of data and that more research needs to be given on the side effects and uses in a larger study.
    Another problem that has come to the attention of doctors is how frequently people of all ages pop pain killers. Many of us out there even younger people (I am under 30 and rely on it at least once a month) rely on those pain killers in order to get through the day. Many people are starting to look back at old herbs and pain relievers. There do not appear to be any clinical studies on this, however there are many people who are willing to share their experience if you are willing to try an unconventional method for pain relief. (Always speak with your doctor to make sure the things you eat will not interact with any medications and of course seek medical attention for any severe pain. I cannot stress enough the importance of not self treating major illnesses.)

    Cinnamon has had a small clinical study done over seas. It has been shown to significantly decrease the severity and duration of pain, though it is not as effective as ibuprofen. For severe medical problems I may find myself returning to nsaids, however, when I have a small arthritis flare a little cinnamon in my coffee does wonders to alleviate the pain.
 

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    The last honorable mention on my list is Honey. The medical community is still out on that one. There's no doubt that it makes you feel better and coats the throat. It has been shown to help inhibit the growth of H. Pylori bacteria growth which is a cause of stomach ulcers. It can also be applied to burns and it has been found to help keep bacteria growth out of wounds. Then there are others who discuss the fact that these are small studies and that it is too soon to come to a reasonable conclusion. I believe honey was the only thing that helped to heal a bad throat infection two years ago. I had no voice for over a month with the classic white spots as the back of my throat. I tested negative for strep and my doctor did not give me any answer as to what was going on. It last another two weeks till I started a treatment of raw honey. My throat finally got better and I have not had white patches since.
    We are lucky to live in the future. We have available to us medical technology that people could scarcely have dreamed of a century ago. We now have a problem though where we are overly dependent on new medications. Take what you read with a grain of salt. I won't be offended if these three big holistic healers don't enter your medicine cabinet, but don't they all sound good? I think even without using them for their healing properties I could still use some more honey, cinnamon, and garlic in my life!

Cars!

     Remember there's more to connecting with your past than just knowing who your ancestors are. When I learn about ancestors in the distant past the information I gather is usually no more than a location, birth date, family size, names of other members and boarders, and potentially a profession. That seems like quite a bit of information, except it doesn't really tell you who they are. What did they enjoy? So I sometimes find myself building their lives for them in my own mind. Perhaps my own interests came from them? George Campbell was a laborer, but what knid of laborer? Did he build beautiful landscapes? Ursule Boucher, did she make her family quilts?
     There is one hobby I have that I know my grandfathers shared. Lots of people have taken up learning more about this particular creation in the last 100 years. CARS!

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     I love cars. I love my car. I am a practical person. I would never fall in love with a luxury Shelby, but a Model T would have been up my alley. I know my grandfather's both had cars they enjoyed working on. Cars today are much more complicated than the days of the Model T. I think the satisfaction they got from fixing and pumping up their rides are the same as the satisfaction I get. Most of what I do is ordinary maintenance, but it still feels like I'm making my car healthier each time. Of course after six years with my car it's time for some upgrades. It feels good giving that vehicle a makeover... a new life. Of course I wish to do all the work myself.

     Did my love of doing things myself come from my ancestors? My grandparents, in fact most people's grandparents were a highly independent group of people. The greatest generation was great for more than just their efforts in World War II. The next generation had less general know how than the previous generation. My generation, AKA Generation X, has even less general fix it knowledge. This doesn't go for all people in my generation, but the majority of the people I interact with could not do the every day fixes people did three generations back. 

     We are frighteningly disconnected from the things around us. Do you need to know how to jack up your car and change a flat? In the age of cell phones help is just a call away. Need to shingle your roof? Again just another phone call. Perhaps those things aren't necessary for the survival of the species, but there is one thing we are horribly disconnected from that can be life threatening. Food, however, that's a post for another day. 

      To wrap it up, remember, there is more to connecting with your past than knowing your genetics or the names of your ancestors. You and your ancestors may be more alike than you know. Stop and think about the things you enjoy and the things they may have enjoyed after all some things never change.

Fear of Time?

     Connecting to your past can leave you feeling empowered and inspired. Maybe you find you are descended from a great war hero or a queen of Franks. Perhaps you are the great-great-great-great-great.... 26 "great"s later grandchild of a princess of Persia or maybe even the descendant of Genghis Khan himself. The people who came before us on the journey help to shaped who we believe we are, but don't forget to live in the present.
     Sometimes when I am deeply involved in genealogy research I start getting panic attacks. I begin to think about my parents and their grandparents and my brain begins to go back through the family tree. At this point an image appears. I usually envision my mother and my father as children. I see their grandparents in my mind's eye. As the old poem goes, "Stop ye traveler as you pass by. As you are now so once was I. As I am now soon you must be. Prepare yourself to follow me."
     I imagine the pain of seeing the older generations die around you. True I have lost many friends and all of my grandparents, but there's something different about my parents current age. Their parents are gone almost ten years now and they are the generation slowly moving towards death. I am not sure if it's death I'm afraid of or the concept of slowly creeping towards that eventual end. I think I've always been frightened, since I was very young, of the concept of not having enough time.
     My fear has gotten worse as my own life has gotten better. For years I did not fear death. I believed in reincarnation. If I lost this life I would simply move on to the next one. I still believe that, but for the first time in this life I am eager to hang on to my current moment in time. I think that inspires my panic. I know that I am a good forty to fifty years from that eventual end, but time seems to creep up on me quickly and I worry about not having enough time to soak in all the experiences of life. I wonder, am I the only one who feels this way? Or are there others who have the flash forwards as they dive deeper into the past? Only time can help me to face my fear, for it is time itself that is my enemy.

First Step into the Uknown

      The second trick to this free ancestry search is finding other people currently searching for the same family members. Although there may be few who are searching for your grandparents (my mother was an only child) and your great-grandparents, by the time you go to search for great-great grandparents there have been three generations of people who may be searching for the same relatives you are. The further back your search takes you the more likely it is that others have already found and recorded the information you seek.

     Finding others became a necessity when searching for my mother's side of the family. I knew my grandfather's name. I knew he shared a name with his father. I located their family census record in the upstate New York town where my grandfather was born. That census record told me my great-grandfather's birthplace was in Ottawa, Quebec, Canada in 1889. I now had my search terms. Joseph T. Morrissette b. 1887-1892 Ottawa, Quebec, Canada. What I discovered was an earlier census from when my great-grandfather was a child in that upstate New York town. It showed his mother Mary J. Morrissette and his father Alexander Morrissette. It told me they immigrated in 1892 and that they were married in 1884. That meant there might be a marriage record in that area of Canada. It also gave me their approximate birth years.
     So I searched. Ottawa, Quebec, Canada for Alexander Morrissette birth year 1855-1860. I always give a range of years because you never know who wrote down what as was discussed in this post. Unfortunately, I did not find any Canadian records. That was where my search on Familysearch.org ended. My next step? Google. Really is there anything Google can't fix? 
     I input all I knew of them. Since google does pull all things that have even one word in common I found myself scanning through dozens of pages of search results. I looked at the years. 1897, nope that wasn't him. Married 1867, no another dead end. Finally I had a bite on the L'Heureux family tree. Alexandre Morrissette and Marie Baulne. They had the same birth years/marriage year and were in the same location. Though the names are slightly different I can see how the recorder when writing the US census could mistake Marie Baulne and transform it to Mary Baune.

     I believe these are my great-great grandparents because all of my search terms added up. Do I wish I had someone who could sit and verify that yes this is the right track? Absolutely. Ultimately though even the pro's are doing just what I am doing. Matching up search terms as close as possible to help others find the path that made them.

First Tip

      The first thing that must be remembered when going through data bases of records is to keep an open mind about what you are searching for. I shall use records from 1916, 1920, 1930, and 1940 to give an example. When the census records, or any records for that matter, were recorded it was usually done by an official of the government. Those government official did their best with their current education level and the education level of those whose abodes they were visiting to collect information. For those who did not know how the census records were collected an officiant of the government would be elected to different sections of towns/cities. Those officials would visit each abode in the area gaining as much information about the familial unit and any people outside the family who resided in that home at that time. If the family was not home during the hours that the census collector came around it was required that they collect as much data as was practical from the nearest neighbors about the inhabitants of said address. A very good overview of early census collection methods can be found here.

     This means of collecting information meant that in order to translate the collection data the people giving the data would need to be reliable and intelligible with good handwriting. It was preferable that the informants were literate in the English language as well (at least for American Census records). If you are like me, however, and have relatives from countries whose native language requires a whole different alphabet make sure that you are flexible in your search options, or you may miss something important.

     My favorite database to tread is Familysearch.org. They give me free access to census records that I would have to pay for on Ancestry (though I do not know if ancestry would be more detailed). I have completed a large portion of my family tree tracing back my lineage with an average year and names. So I digress.

1916: Saroka marries Gregorkiewicz

1920: Horyhorkowicz

1930: Rihorkewicz

1940: Rehorkewig

     Each of these last names belonged to the same two people. However, the 1930 and 1940 census told me my great-grandparents wedding year. I had known the location of the area they lived and that they had met once they had immigrated to America. I found the 1920's census by chance thanks to that website I listed earlier. It will throw at me all names it thinks are of a similar sound and I happen to get a hit. I then took their wedding year and knowledge of what could have been different ways to spell their last name and was able to track down their marriage record. 09 Jan 1916.

     To this day no one has a proper spelling of that last name. It definitely makes it harder tracking people down, but with the aid of first names, general living areas, and knowledge of a few dates I was able to deduce that all of those records told me another piece of the puzzle that helped to create me.

The Beginning of the Journey

      I have determined that as a blogger I have set an unrealistic precedent for myself. I believed a blog should be updated everyday, however, this is only possible when one can set aside the other parts of reality. (AKA Professional Bloggers). I would hope to someday become a person whose life experience aids and penetrates people across the globe in the way other bloggers have influenced my life and thoughts.

     I have many interests. I have so many different interests that I explore at all different times that it can be hard for me to pin down a topic to blog about. Do I talk about my experiences as a barista? No, most of them are too positive. Plus, I would not desire to place my company name out there in the in.

     I love food. I would love to blog about food. However, limited space/equipment in my current living situation puts me at a disadvantage for that. But there is one thing that I have always been interested in. Something that requires a computer and the ability to travel…. Genealogy.

     This is about my personal journey of discovering my family history for FREE. I will do my best to update once a week about some of the great resources or tips I come up with along the search for who they were. Those people who sometimes all I know is their name. What lives did they lead and what can we discover about those who came before us?

     Thank you all in advance for reading about my journey.