Family tree

I may have mentioned a while back that my family did some tests via the Genographic Project to trace our ancestral origins.  They looked at my maternal ancestry, and we also had them trace the ancestry of my father's paternal DNA.  (On order is a kit to have my dad do his mother's side, which may help us to figure out which of our ancestors was Cherokee - or at the very least will help us eliminate one option.)

I took the (free) option of transferring our results over into FamilyTreeDNA also, which has turned out to be an incredible thing.  

Based on my father's DNA results, we were able to identify a few distant cousins in the system.  I have been talking to one of the women with whom I share great-great-great-grandparents (I'll call this great(3)-grandparents).  It turns out that she has been an absolutely AMAZING source of research.  She's shared some published information about various ancestors and - what Laura and I agree is absolutely the neatest document - a transcript of a letter to our great(4)-grandfather Peter from his son Jacob (a prominent Lutheran minister) discussing the former's conversion to Baptism.  (The conversion was very successful, to Jacob's sorrow, and that line of the family remained Baptist for generations... I believe up until my father left the fold, although I am not sure about the spiritual leanings of my paternal grandfather either.)    

Our correspondence today - email, primarily - contains nothing like this level of detail or historical value, which makes me kind of sad.  On the one hand, our future generations may never even have genealogical mysteries to solve as everything will be already tracked and available online...   but, then, without the challenges and mysteries to get them excited, I wonder how much they will really care?  

First attempt at a holiday mantel

We don't feel safe putting up a tree because of our two energetic cats, so I decided to try a mantel instead.

I got some apothecary jars (50% off at Sears) and brought down a curly framed mirror from upstairs. With these items, it seemed to be going in an old-fashioned direction, so I collected all the vintage and vintage-look ornaments (including some that belonged to my grandparents). Looking for things to fill the jars, I found whole walnuts, pods for the coffee maker (LOL!) and some stick candy... and then I thought, oh, nutcracker "sweets"!

So the little nutcracker ornament was joined by two big guys and we ended up with this (so far). It may not look like a decorator (or someone with a clue ;)) put it together, but it makes me smile!

(As always, click to "biggify" the image.)

Tea for 2x2

Yesterday the four of us scavenger hunters went to a holiday tea party at Gore Place, the 19th century home of one of Massachusetts' early governors. (And before you ask, yes, I asked, and they were only distantly related to Al Gore.)

While we were waiting to be seated (there was a children's tea with Santa immediately prior), they funneled us into the gift shop. (Oh clever, clever people!) I found traditional Christmas crackers on sale, and immediately thought they would be a perfect addition to the box I am sending out to my family. What fun for the kids!

We were then ushered in for tea. We were struck by the very grand, high ceilings but noticed that the lines of the room and ceiling lacked the architectural ornamentation that you might expect to see in an old European mansion: all the detail was in the elaborate French wallpaper! The paper in that first room was stripe in salmony pink (with grapes and leaves) and teal (with either corn stalks or acanthus). Imagine a whole room filled with this going from chair rail all the way up over 15 feet the ceiling! As Tim Gunn would say, "that's a lot of look!" You can see it in the background of several photos here. Lovely, eh? Of course, by candle light in the evening it would have been a lot more subtle. ;)

Tea soon arrived (perfectly brewed English breakfast-style tea), followed by blueberry scones with clotted cream, an array of finger sandwiches, and miniature frangipane tarts, lemon squares, raspberry thumbprint cookies, pumpkin bread, and other little bites of yum. I don't know what 19th century ladies and gentlemen would have eaten at an afternoon tea, but this menu did seem designed for modern tastes and obviously with modern resources. (It would have taken some good magic to get fresh berries in December back then.)

Well, old or new, the tea was delicious. In fact, our 'menfolk' agreed that the scones were the best they had ever tasted, and Sara successfully petitioned her father (with much urging from the peanut gallery, ahem) to procure an additional scone from another table. ;)

After tea, several costumed tour guides led us through the rest of the house, introducing each room and its furnishings and purpose, and presenting Jane Austen quotes of interest. Lovely! I was left, as always, with a sense of just how very much has changed since then - so much we take for granted that they could not even imagine - and yet, how much still endures...

Shifty Nifflers

We used our latest free scavenger hunt card this weekend to do the "Wizard School" (e.g., Harry Potter) themed scavenger hunt at the Museum of Fine Arts.

DH had not read the books, so he took charge of the navigation, which was invaluable (especially since some of us don't really have a sense of direction!).  After he got us to the correct room, we'd read the clue, then would translate the creatures and character names for him.  Then we all just had to figure out where they were in the works of art!

For the most part, we managed to do that pretty well, although there were a few questions that were perplexing or just plain unclear.   Happily we ended up with extra time so we could revisit those stumpers.

One of them involved counting the instances of a particular facial feature on some Japanese demons pictured on an accessory smaller than the palm of your hand.  This was above our line of sight, so the guys dutifully boosted (hauled?) the girls up so we could get a closer look.  Oof!  A magnifying glass sure would have come in handy!  But after conferring, we reached consensus on a number, and came out of that room feeling better about our answer.

Another one was a "which one of these items is NOT depicted somewhere in the room" question, which required all our eyeballs to scan everything in the room over and over.  Ultimately, we could not find two of the things exactly as described, but deciding that, although a type of animal and receptacle were slightly different than in the description, we had to regard them as close enough given that we couldn't even find the approximation of the other thing.

(I am being kind of general and vague here so I don't ruin the hunt for others if they happen to sign up!)

Finally there was a massive carved fireplace that supposedly had a particular mythical creature in its vicinity.  We spent forever staring at it, and just could not find this particular beast, although there were plenty of others (including lots of mashup monsters).  The question specifically asked the construction material of said beastie, so we just went with the material that appeared in the greatest quantity.  ;)

That was because we needed to start heading back to the entrance so we wouldn't be late - museums are big!  We debated team names on the way back and settled on with DH's variant of my suggestion: the Shifty, Nifty Nifflers.  

We ended up winning - and the guys thought that they heard that we won best team name also (although I wasn't sure.  I did hear the hunt host mention the name, but wasn't sure what she had said about it).  The people who came in second were two cute little kids with their parents, so we figured that, since we'd won before (plus the kids were small and had done really a great job), it'd be nice to share.  So we passed the prizes down to them.   :)

It was a fun afternoon.  (And I think we will probably go back - to linger over the art, this time, instead of the questions - to check out the new wing of the museum soon :))  

Happy Tolly days

We took kitty pics this afternoon so we could include photos when we send holiday cards to our vets, animal rescue orgs, etc. 

Tolly posed like a champ!