More research

Despite the hot and humid weather I went on the free bus to the mall Saturday. In retrospect, I probably should have stayed at home. It was an ordeal to try on clothes and shoes in such a temperature. Even though most of the stores are under a roof, it took a long time to get cooled off indoors. I did find a few tops and a pair of (short) jeans.

The rest of the weekend was slower. I talked to my mother several times on the phone to help her with clues to crosswords. It's kind of difficult when you don't see the actual crossword, but we finally managed all of the missing clues. I hope she wins something when sending them in. I also did some more searching in my grandfather's ancestors, trying to get further back on the Danish side. It was fairly successful, thanks to other researcher's postings on the internet. We descend from people named Lorup, Finck, and Torm, in addition to more Danish-sounding names like Christensen, Jensen and Olufsen. They originate mainly from Denmark, northern Germany and Holland. Several lines can be traced back to the 15th century, and that's rather unusual. I would never have found information about the ancestors that far back without access to the internet.

Speaking of ancestors, my mother got an interesting book for her birthday at the end of June. It was from John, and the book was entitled: For my grandchild. It is like a simplified autobiography. It contained many pages with questions like favorite color, lucky number, how did your parents meet, where did you grow up, where did you go to school, when did you leave home, and many, many more. There was also a family tree with spaces to write the names of the ancestors. The idea is that she fills in all the answers and then gives the book back to John. I encourage all efforts to make people write about their lives, and I hope my mother will take the time to fill in the answers in this book.