Climbing My Family Tree

With our rally over and our trip to San Diego behind us, it’s time to settle down and get some work done.

As I wrote a while back, the standard size of American newspapers is shrinking, and our regular printers here in Arizona have switched to the new smaller page sizes. This has required a complete rebuild of the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, setting us back on our print date. We’ll be sending the new issue out late next week, a little behind schedule, unfortunately.

One of the challenges to publishing America’s only on the road periodical that we are aware of, is that we don’t have just one newspaper we use to print every issue. We farm the actual printing out to different newspapers in different parts of the country, wherever we happen to be traveling. Sometimes they get us in and out fast, and other times we go to the bottom of the pile and wait while they take care of their regular customers. I understand why they do this, and when I was running my own print shop, I did the same thing. But it’s still frustrating to have to cool our heels and wait.

We’ll never be able to retire, but if I ever did, I think I’d still be just as busy. There is so much I want to do, but never seem to find the time for. As I wrote a few days ago, Dan Foshee gave me a book on drawing and some art supplies because I told him at our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally how much I have always wanted to be able to draw. That is something that I’d really love to apply myself to, just to see if I could ever create more than lopsided stick people.

Something else I have always thought would be interesting to learn more about is genealogy. One of my cousin’ has done a lot of research on my mother’s side of the family, but I really don’t know a lot about my Dad’s side. My parents, grandparents, and all of my uncles and aunts that I ever knew have long since passed away. I am the youngest of my parents’ eight offspring, and the only one still alive. So except for some remembered family stories from long ago, I really don’t have a starting point. Or at least I didn’t think I did. 

At our recent Gypsy Gathering rally in Casa Grande, Judy Bayless put on an excellent seminar called The RVing Genealogist. I got busy and was not able to sit in on the seminar, but everyone who attended it gave Judy rave reviews.

As it turns out, Judy and her husband Walt are parked right in front of us here at Tra-Tel RV Park in Tucson, and last night they took Terry and I out to a wonderful Mexican dinner. Back at their Holiday Rambler motorhome, Judy fired up her computer, and logged into www.ancestry.com.

With just the sketchy information I could give her, she was able to pull up the 1930 and 1920 U.S. Census and locate information on my parents as young newlyweds living on a farm in Michigan, on my Dad’s parents, his brothers and sisters, and even my great grandmother! How cool is that?

Genealogy and RVing go hand in hand, and we have met many fulltimers who research their family trees as they travel. Judy has promised to come to our rally next year and present her seminar again, and you can bet I’ll be sitting right in the front row!  

Thought For The Day – There is no education like adversity.