Family history

I took a break from quilting, reading, cleaning and life yesterday 

and spent the day at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City yesterday.  

There's nothing like spending a day searching for clues as I comb through microfilms looking for family. I'm so grateful to have literally millions of records available to me without cost. It's a wonderful place to spend the day.

My heritage is a mix of English, Welsh, German and Polish. Yesterday I spent the day looking through records from Poland.  Right now I'm looking for more information about this man's father.  This handsome man is my great-grandfather Bartholomeus Bugaj. He was born in 1868 in Poland. 

I have been searching for his father's birth record for years. There are many records available at the Family History Library but there are still some missing as well.  I was so excited to find the marriage record for his parents. Sometimes marriage records include a plethora of information, including the names of the couple's parents. Unfortunately that wasn't the case this time and the only reference to the parents was  the notation that they gave their consent.

Oh well, it's still always a thrill to find an original record and glean what information you can from it. This is from 1864 in Miniszew, Poland. 

I learned that Ignatius was the son of a farmer and Magdalena the daughter of a shepherd. No hidden royals in our family, just plain hard working people. I hope to meet them someday. 

The geese have taken flight

I've been making flying geese.

 It felt like I made about 1,000 geese but it actually was only 120. Nevertheless this took hours and hours. I have a mental block with flying geese. I don't know why, I just do. This particular pattern has you make them too big and then trim them down, one by one, to the correct size. (At least that's the plan....I still ended up with some wonky looking geese). Maybe I shouldn't have been watching a movie (and singing along) while trimming. 

I was so relieved last night to finally be done with the blasted geese. I was doing a happy dance in my sewing room. Then I made the dreadful mistake of turning to the next page in the pattern. 

There it said that I should make 48 flying geese in combinations A/B and 48 flying geese in combinations B/C. 96 more?

I may cry. 

By the time I finish this quilt I'm going to want to encase it in gold and hang it in a museum rather than use it. It's taken much more time than it should have. I do believe it's going to be beautiful though when (if) it gets done. 

Bittersweet

A wonderful man was laid to rest today.

We all miss you so much Dad but are at peace knowing
that you're with Mom again.

Goodbye to a great father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother and friend.