) ( ) Good Morning Family! .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . \| |// ...and we even have decaf, | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! \ / ------ Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. Touching the soul of the family ... 3. Spring has struck the family! 4. The Continuum 5. Kuzins Korner TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur ancestors or any of the 81+ variant spellings we research that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. If you haven't visited the homesite of this list yet, you are encouraged to do so. Our home is Bower Community, located at <http://bowercommunity.com>. There, we currently have two sites: The Bower Family Homestead [a.k.a., the Homestead] is our primary homesite and the gathering place for much of our information. It waits to join us all in welcoming you into the family at <http://bowercommunity.com/homestead>. Smaller is our sister site, the Bower Cottage, which houses most of our projects including an online GEDCOM fed by quite a few cousins from our research groups. Find the Cottage is at <http://bowercommunity.com/cottage>. TOUCHING OF THE SOUL OF THE FAMILY Did everyone notice the suggestion posted by one of our own yesterday? Did everyone read it as closely as me? In it she said she was posting only to us because she "feel[s] so comfortable here knowing that no one will jump on me about it." Whether you caught it or not, that statement said a LOT about us as a family. We are a family you know ... and we stand together as one. SPRING HAS STRUCK THE FAMILY! :) Cousins, I don't know about you, but the draw of the warm weather has pulled me away from my computer. I'm spending a great deal of time laying-in a garden and just enjoying being outside again. But, I've missed you all terribly and wasn't about to let yet another Sunday go by without spending this special time with you. I think, from the number of messages that have gone through in the past couple weeks, that you're also enjoying this "come alive" time again (well, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyway). Our cousins in Australia and New Zealand are beginning to settle in for their hibernating period, winter. We've had quite a few people unsubscribing ~ something that normally happens when spring hits. Then those same cousins return to us in the fall. Having seen this happen the last couple years ... When you're out walking cemeteries, visiting research facilities away from your town or state, please extract not only your lines, but ALL our 'B' Consortium names (Bauer, Baur, Bower, Bowers) and their variant spellings. We have cousins with us who are Bowersmith, Bourse and Booher. You'll find all the variant spellings at the Homestead on the variants page just off the main hallway. THE CONTINUUM I am very pleased to annound that Vicky Bowers-Gielau has agreed to host one portion of the Canada Continuum site ~ British Columbia. If she feels she can handle the entire country, she'll let me know. However, if there is someone who would like to host the rest of Canada's provinces or, like Vicky, just take one ... that would be terrific! Thanks, Vicky! Lucky me! ... I now have a helper on my New York site. Jodi has put in quite a few hours wandering suring the Web for New York sites where we'll find Bower/Bauer, etc. data. She has saved me a great deal of time and I can only appreciate tremendously the load she has taken from me. She has made the updating of my Continuum site a LOT quicker and easier. Thanks so much, Jodi! :) We currently have Australia, California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin represented ... and now, British Columbia. We'd love to have you join us, build an online Continuum site, and aid in our efforts to get all those (for instance) Iowa Bower[s]/Bauer/Baur family sites that are already online linked from one site rather than having to use a generalized search engine like Netscape, HotBot or InfoSeek to search them out. Sites in this project parallel those of the GenWeb but center only on the 'B' Consortium names and their variant spellings. Continuum sites can be as simple as state/country information and links to material in your chosen region or, if the host elects, can add raw material to his/her site. Continuum hosts join a private email list set aside specifically for this project to discuss design ideas, project problems, and pass along helps to each other regarding the Continuum. In this way, there is always immediate help. To create a site, you'll have to learn at least _some_ HTML (the coding language to put pages online) if you don't already know it. With the exception of three elements, your creativity is your own. If you think you might be interested in being a Continuum site host, please contact me at <ladyaudris@earthlink.net>. KUZINS KORNER Vicky Bowers-Gielau <vichary@home.com> is living on the edge of her nerves right now. The doctors found a lump in her breast that is growing. She is scheduled for surgery on May 1st, currently for a biopsy. I'm sure she would appreciate your prayers and hearing words of support from all of you right now. I have begun working on my next book, (my mom's) so you'll probably hear even less from me than normal for a while. My mother will be 81 this year and this is something I just can't put off any more. I desperately want to get her book published so I can hand it to her. I know you're all very patient with me when I get behind here, but I'll work diligently to keep everything pretty much up-to-date. I expect to go to the publisher in March, next year (if not sooner.) Family ... it's what we're all about. After being away from you these last few weeks, this has been such a pleasure for me to spend this time with you. I hope your upcoming week is filled with health, fun, productivity, and above all, filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'