) ( ) 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. The 'B' Consortium 3. Frustration If you've been with the family for at least three weeks, you'll probably want to skip the following paragraphÂ… 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/Baur/Bro[u]wer 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]/Bau[e]r/Bro[u]wer lines or any of the 81+ variant spellings 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. The Bower Family Homestead [a.k.a., the Homestead] is our homesite and the gathering place for much of our information. It waits to join us all in welcoming you into the family at <http://www.crosswinds.net/~bowerhomestead>, or you can use our shortcut URL of <http://embark.to/homestead>." We also have a newly opened sister site, the Bower Cottage, that we've begun to fill. There are currently only a few names there, but give us time... :) The Cottage is at <http://www.crosswinds.net/~bowercottage>, or you can use the shortcut URL of <http://embark.to/bowercottage>. THE 'B' CONSORTIUM The votes are in. I heard from so many of you last week that, without a doubt, the majority of you are happy with our combined name of 'B' Consortium. Thank you all for taking the time to respond. I won't go any further on this subject because, as I told you all last week, it's part of a plan to be unveiled at a future date. [I love secret surprises! Don't you? heh heh heh :) ] FRUSTRATION Cousins, there are days when I throw my hands up and wonder what in the world I'm doing this genealogy for! I have so many other things I could be doing, especially spending time with my family, but here I sit in my study pondering one ancestor's parents or another grandmother's maiden name. Why do we drive ourselves crazy like this? What makes us so self-determined to find a death date that we'll spend hours and hours pouring over barely legible microfilm or a mountain of microfiche we just KNOW will have the answer, and then doesn't. This is frustrated obsession, for tomorrow (or the next day) we'll be right back at it again! We just can't seem to put the ancestors away and leave them there! We KNOW we should be living our lives for the present, yet many, many of us are so stuck in the past that we don't seem to realize just how mired we really are. But frustration ... that niggling, "My luck! They just HAD to have a fire THEN!" or "I've searched the entire east coast, they HAVE to be there someplace!" ... the guarantees that we will all slowly lose our sanity! :) And why do we do this to ourselves and yes, even to our families? It's love; pure and simple love. A love of family coupled with a burning desire to find just that one grandmother, that one ancestral line ... "I'll stop when I find all my immigrants," or "I'll stop after ..." till the "when's" and "after's" have become years and years. I admit it. I'm as guilty as the next person! Cousins, let's see if we can cut some of that frustration and some of those years off our research! I began with a twinkle of an idea [the First Immigrants thread] that has the opportunity to mushroom into something spectacular for all of us. We need to work that thread till we just can't find anything new to add. Additionally, we need MORE ideas to creatively approach our problems and get ourselves past these walls and frustration! I'm already tossing two more ideas around in my head, one blossoming simply because of something a cousin said in an e-mail. But, I get ahead of myself with that, so will not dwell on it at this time. My point of telling you this without elaborating is that YOU also have ideas! Why not pose it/them to the family and let's see if we can make it/them work? We're all in this together, cousins. We need to talk to each other, discuss the data we already know about. We are a combined family of over 500 cousins. I KNOW there must be at least four people among us who are directly inline to each other, but if we get so frustrated with the "list" because our ancestors aren't showing up, then we need to ask ourselves, "When was the last time _I_ posted? How many new cousins might be on board that don't even know who I'm looking for?" You new cousins who haven't posted are probably wondering if you're one of the four people with cousins here who have been WAITING for you to find us! Have you posted yet? Your chances of being one of the four are equally as good as the rest of ours. Obviously, our frustration can be cut down (and so can those years) if we'd just get our data out where everyone can see it. Your volumes of material from days, weeks, months, years - even decades of research is meaningless if you can't tie it up with the answers you've been seeking. Talk to us, cousins. Please let us know what you know. Add more information to the First Immigrants data that has been posted the last two weeks. Help us find more immigrants to add to the thread. Help us find the children of those ancestors, and the subsequent generations of children until cousins can start connecting. Do you have ideas you think we could employ? ... please pass them on to us. If you're nervous about posing an idea to the entire family, you can send it to me and we can talk about it together. Then you or I can pass it to everyone and see what happens. Working together as a family, sharing and helping each other ... Love of family, past and present ... it's what we're all about. My coffee cup is empty for yet another Sunday. I so enjoyed this time with you, and I thank you for sharing it with me. I wish you all a week filled with health, productivity, fun, and above all ... filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'