Bilaeva

Seriously... http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/oct/25/fivebest-cemetery-tours

I was supposed to be spending today clawing my way up the side of a pyramid. But the gods and the elements had other ideas, and our hotel in Mexico City had a fire at the beginning of the week. No hotel ... no holiday. Everything was cancelled and here I sit, still in New York City, still haven't had a holiday yet this year.

Dad says we'll go to Oaxaca next year instead, so I still get a trip to Mexico and we don't have to dodge muggers, kidnappers and assasins. Ok, fair enough.

I still need a holiday though!

NEVER eat cookies for breakfast!

My roommate Libby called out to everyone in the apartment yesterday asking for some Bandaids for a cut finger. I rushed to her aid, reminding her that I always have a huge stash of Bandaids.

"It's one of the top three (not quite sure why I said that) things I always have!"

"What are the other two?" she asked. "Attitude and travel plans?!"

And she's right.

I would love to take Jonathan on a little trip next February, just the two of us. And I would like to do some family history research in Ireland. Jonathan has shown a lot of interest in family history (don't tell him yet, but I'm grooming him to be the next Bovee genealogist) so I thought a trip to Ireland might be the perfect thing. I had County Mayo in mind, but thought I should probably do a bit of research ahead of time to make sure we had a good enough reason to go!

My great-great grandmother Ellen Mulherin, later Ellen Ducie, (the lady on the right with the rather interesting hairdo)

came from Mayo and thanks to some records newly made available online, I was able to find her exact date (5 April 1867) and place (Coolcronan, North Mayo) of birth. I knew from her obituary that Ellen had a least one brother, and with a little further digging I discovered that in fact she had two brothers, Thomas and James, and three sisters, Anne, Elizabeth and Bridget (there's always a Bridget!).

We already knew the names of Ellen's parents, Ellen McDonnell and Patrick Mulherin. I found a record of their marriage, also in Coolcronan, which supplied me with the names of both Ellen's grandfathers, Martin McDonnell and Thady (short for something?) Mulherin, my fourth great grandfathers and Jonathan and Andrew's (can I just tell you how exciting it is to write Jonathan and Andrew) fifth great grandfathers. Most of my research now involves extended families, so it's quite a special moment when I discover the name of a direct ancestor.

So now Jonathan and I have somewhere to go. We don't come from wealthy families, so there's no ancestral pile to visit. There's probably no physical legacy of these chaps, but, as with my dead of winter expedition to Wisconsin last December, it's just nice to be somewhere where our family was. And of course we'll cruise around a bit and do some serious 9-year-old stuff as well. Does anyone know what 9-year-olds like to do? Auntie's a bit out of the loop I'm afraid.

Everyone, this is Andrew.

Andrew Anthony King was born around 2pm England time. I don't yet have his weight, but I hear he is long-legged and destined to sprout spectacularly.

My little sister is now the mother of three sons!

I just bought my fourth international plane ticket in 10 days!