Bilaeva

As of yesterday, I'm no longer a Gospel Principles teacher, I'm now our ward's Family History Committee Chairperson. Yep, I'm the bosslady in charge of family history. I think it's a good fit. We have a new ward goal (one name cleared per member - not too hard), and our new Elders Quorum president Jeff Mulcock is keen to work with me to get his lads properly involved in family history. We have some newly baptised members who need to get started and plenty of others who I plan to recruit, if for no other reason I'm curious to learn about their family background. The previous chairperson was my roommate Kelly, so it'll be an easy handover!!

My Charles Patterson death certificate yielded some extremely useful clues. It gives his place of burial as Hancock, Wisconsin. There is only one cemetery in Hancock and a complete transcription is available on the internet. Charles is buried in plot B89 along with his wife Sarah Ann and two young children. I already had a date of death for the children from great-grandmother Lillian, but had no idea when Sarah Ann Davis had died. It's 1914, so I can request a death certificate from the state and hopefully find out who her people were. I was also able to match Charles to one of two possible 1850 census records I'd found some time ago. The return is from a county in Ohio, listed on the certificate as his birthplace, the age matches the certificate, and it lists the father's birthplace as Connecticut which also matches the certificate. You have copies of this census image - it's in the folder Brown-Patterson and it's called 1850 Census Charles Patterson possible, but I can't remember if it's 1 or 2. The cemetery record noted that Charles was veteran of the Civil War. There are only two Charles Pattersons who served in the Wisconsin regiments [go to this site and enter Patterson, Charles, Wisconsin in the search fields]and one of them is a Charles H. Patterson!!

Jonathan has declared his ambitions for the future. He wants to be a footballer and then a king, so he can "be in a pyramid". [The other night we watched a television programme about the building of Kufu's great pyramid tomb in Egypt.]

to do the following in this New Year:

- get meself proper educated
- stop discussing LDS dating: it is a tired and worn out subject to which I humbly admit I can contribute nothing that hasn't already been said
- decide once and for all whether or not to let my hair grow out, again
- do eastern Ohio
- spend less money at restaurants and more time reading

We had a happy Bovee Christmas here in Luton! Jonathan didn't wake up til 8 o'clock (did Lucy drug him?). I got TWO stockings this year. Mum found a lovely bag in Past Times and just couldn't resist filling it up with goodies along with my usual angel stocking. We spent much of the day opening presents: we don't like to rush, else you miss seeing what everyone else has got. That's my favourite thing about Christmas is seeing what the rest of my family have come up with as gifts for each other. Often they're very clever, and with all of us travelling to different places there's usually some exotic and beautiful presents from distant lands. This year it was Germany, Lativa, Lapland, Hungary and Hawaii. Before presents we watched The Nativity, after all, a bit of religion at Christmas never hurt anyone. I am so happy to be able to spend a whole month with my family. We had a few squabbles the first few days, which is only natural, but by today (and even better by the real today!) we've adjusted to crowded quarters and remember why we've all come so far to be together. Oh, and on Boxing Day Jonathan and I used all his new Brio to build the greatest railway ever imagined.

Happy Christmas to you all!