A Graduation Gift

When I graduated from high school, my grandmother promised to take me on a trip to Ireland. Her mother, Mary Ellen Brennan, immigrated from Ireland to the US as a young woman. Her father, Martin Hannigan, was also 100% Irish, as both his parents immigrated here from Ireland. My grandmother had traveled there with her brother many years before, but she wanted to take me to see how beautiful it was.

We spent two weeks touring. I was 18 years old, whiny, and insisted on eating burgers and fries at every juncture because the fancier food the tour was providing was not to my liking. Somehow, she did not kill me before we returned home. In exchange, I didn't kill her when she began insisting she had never been given the claims form she would need to get back through US Customs (which I had seen them give her five minutes before).

These are a few of the snapshots from our trip:

Fake beer in the fake pub. My grandma's in the middle.

Surly teen face

Us with the two great tour guides. For the record, I told her that shirt was see-through!

Thank you, Mommom!

Family Recipe Friday: Friendship Cake

My grandmother is always telling me about this pound cake she bakes. She bakes it for parties, holidays, and friends. I vaguely remember eating this cake as a kid, and recently I asked my grandmother if she would share her recipe with me. She was really excited that I asked, and told me she would write it out for me and send it.

Since I live in California and my family lives in Pennsylvania, I had to wait for the info to come in the mail. A few weeks later I received a giant box from her. She sent me the recipe, the pan I had to make it in, some of the ingredients, measuring spoons, and some other little gifts. I had planned to make the cake over the holidays when I was off from work, but unfortunately I was under the weather.

This past weekend, I decided to make the cake. My girlfriend had a good time laughing at my total lack of knowledge about baking (sugar is supposed to go in the wet ingredients? Why??).

Probably the first time I've ever used this mixer.

I think it turned out pretty well.

A little powdered sugar and the cake looks quite pretty.

We wrapped up the cake so we could each take half to work to share with our coworkers.

I am cheating a little bit in this post because... I'm not going to share the recipe. My grandmother asked me not to share it with anyone, and I promised. This pound cake is a family secret!

Finally... the state of PA comes through!

Of my eight great grandparents, I have five that I know a decent amount of information on (birth dates, general history, parents' names). One is an Irish immigrant who lied about her age and who has proven quite challenging to map out. The other two were even more troublesome.

He looks nothing like Chuck Norris.

This particular pair are the parents of my paternal grandfather, William Norris McConnell (in spite of the fact that I know what he looked like, I envision him as similar to Chuck Norris, just based on the name!). My baby book, which was completed by my mother with information provided by my biological father, lists William's parents as Myrtle Parks and Charles Walter McConnell.  A preliminary search of census records on Ancestry didn't illuminate things any further. There were some families that seemed they could be mine, but none of them quite fit all the information I had. I began to wonder if the names in the baby book were even correct.

Pennsylvania's Vital Records Department will provide you a copy of a certified birth certificate for a reasonable fee, so it seemed the best course of action was to obtain my grandfather's birth certificate. When I filled out my request way back in October (10/25 to be exact), I was quite excited. My first vital record request! The vital records website informed me that:

Typical processing time for certified copies of birth certificates with a date of birth of 1967 to the present is ten to fifteen business days (from the date the check is cashed) which does not include delivery time. For certified copies of birth with a date of birth of prior to 1967, please allow an additional ten to fifteen days for processing time, excluding delivery time.

Birth Certificate - 1925

Okay. That sounded reasonable. I sent in my money. My check was cashed on 11/13/12. I began counting down the days, eagerly anticipating the genealogical gold mine sure to arrive at any day. And I waited. And waited. It was like that scene in Twilight (yes, I've seen it, so sue me!) where Bella stares waifishly out her bedroom window while the seasons pass around her. But this was no teenage vampire romance gone wrong; this was serious business!

Well, it only took an extra three weeks (slow clap for the state of Pennsylvania), but the birth certificate has arrived!

One assumes they put the giant "DECEASED" on there to dash one's hopes of identity fraud. A little unsightly. I do have confirmation on their names now (Park, not Parks), and their ages should allow me to narrow things down somewhat. I guess, to be honest, I was hoping their names were wrong in the baby book, since I haven't had any luck so far with these names.

C'est la vie. Now I know, and I'll get back on the hunt.

Goals for the upcoming week!

I have a friend who loves to make lists. She has so many lists that she has a master list of her lists. I'm going to take a page out of her book and start some lists of my own this week. I'm floundering a bit lately, looking at my tree and picking a person, searching for information, occasionally adding citations... I need to get organized. So, with this in mind, this will be my 'To Do' list for the upcoming week:

1. Review maternal grandfather's information in FTM, create list of blanks I need him to fill in.

2. Review Great Grandmom Sellers's entry, add/reformat citations for all facts.

3. Send a follow-up email regarding the records from the Church Home for Children, where my great grandmother was raised.

4. Call the Radisson, formerly the Warwick Hotel, to inquire about the existence of employment records (Frederick Gledhill, second great grandfather).

5. Review Great Grandfather Gledhill's entry, add/reformat citations for all facts.

6. Review maternal grandmother's information in FTM, create list of blanks I need her to fill in.

7. Call maternal grandfather on Friday to discuss questions.

8. Make list of records to be ordered, prioritized.

9. Research cemeteries in my area, find one to adopt.

10. Add sources to completed blog entries.

This should keep me relatively busy! Good thing I'm off from work on Friday.