A Sobering Visit

It was a sober day in NYC eight years ago when we visited the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and saw Stephen Kevin Tompsett's name on the Memorial and his photo in the Museum display. 

Stephen, an Australian victim, was my 3rd cousin. Robert and I both shed a tear or two during the visit as we heard the stories of victims and survivors of this tragedy.

Stephen's plaque

More storage?

Storage is cheap.

I have nearly all of my data and photos saved on a 4TB Seagate portable hard drive. I back these up to 2x2TB drives, the docs go on one and the photos on the other. As these drives are getting old and may fail some day soon and it's a pain to save to two different places I invested in a 4TB Western Digital My Passport Drive while in Hawaii.  This was on special at Best Buy at around $US129, about 2/3 of its cost in Australia, I priced it here at $AU249.99 (about $USD182). I chose a different colour for this new drive so that it was easy to distinguish from the old one.

I usually spoil myself with some tech surprise when I go to the US  because, even though our Aussie dollar is weak against the greenback, there are still savings to be made.

I'm now in the process of tidying up the files on my old Seagate Drive to my new one. I will keep one drive by my computer and the other in another location that I can access regularly for backups.

Behind the white fence...

....in a cemetery in New Orleans I saw this statue which our tour guide told us was the grave of  Jeanne Jugan Foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

When I was a lot younger I used to pass the imposing buildings at Randwick that belonged to The Little Sisters of the Poor. I was therefore quite interested when I saw this "grave".

As is the case with many things in genealogy it pays to check on one's sources.I found a couple of sources that indicated that Jeanne was buried in France. An entry on FindaGrave included a photo of her grave,

The moral of this tale is always check your sources and be wary of tour guides' stories.

SNGF - Not bad for a Foreigner

I don't often take part in Randy Seaver's "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun" activity becaause my weekends are usually filled with activities with my living family.

Randy's challenge this week is (in part):

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to:

1)  What states in the USA and what provinces in Canada have you visited or lived in?  

2)  Either list, or make a map of them (at the http://www.defocus.net/visitedstates/us-canada.html website) and indicate the following:

*  red for states/provinces where you've not spent much time or seen very much.
*  amber for states/provinces  where you've at least slept and seen some sights.
*  blue for states/provinces  you've spent a lot of time in or seen a fair amount of.
*  green for states/provinces  you've spent a great deal of time in on multiple visits.

GeniAus' North America Travel Map

I have ignored parts 3 and 4 of Randy's challenge as my ancestors came from other countries.

I think I have done pretty well for an Aussie. The map is useful to us as Mr GeniAus and I  are planning a road trip after Rootstech 2016. I just wonder which white parts will be warm enough for touring in February!