Rosevibe

At least that’s the byline Geni.com uses.

I blame Nik for the argument I had with my gran this afternoon. He was the person who posted the geni link on twitter and so he’s the one who has to await the karma bite back *grin*

Basically it’s a site that allows you to create a ‘family’ tree, if you add the email address of the people you put on your tree then they are invited onto the site and can add or edit the tree (my aunt Val has already supplied a few dates I didn’t know and my cousin Ria has also tweaked it a little) You can of course edit this in the settings so that only you can do this but a) I’m lazy and B) it’s fun to make it a group project.
Now, the argument arose when I showed it to my gran and asked her for the details of her and grandads parents. She said I only needed to know grandads because I should only be doing the Stringers if it’s a family tree. My response was, but I have two parents who also had two parents and I want to know where that takes me.. Basically we agreed to disagree and then had a brilliant afternoon looking at old photo’s and I learned quite a few things about my gran and other members of the family I’d never known before.

For example, I didn’t know I had Italian relatives in Berwick, Pennsylvania called Canonico, or some second cousins who live in Canada (I’ve seen pictures but sadly gran couldn’t remember the names so if any of you remember a Patrick and Mary Dillon from Manchester visiting Ontario – let me know, I’d like to refresh her memory because the lapse drove her nuts) I also found out that in or around 1945 my gran was the Rose queen at the Gorton Stanly Grove youth club – if I can find the picture for that she’d be made up for ever!

It also seems that I’m not the only Stringer to have spent plenty of time in the local paper as a kid, my dad and his brothers were not only in the local paper but the story and picture also appeared in the Daily Mail because my uncle Mike set fire to the living room just before they emigrated to Australia sometime around 1959 (I have to find that picture, i’m so going to be doing some microfiche checking at the library for that!)

They moved to Australia because my granddad and his dad were both electricians and had work at an airbase over there, the full details of the story escape me (there was a lot to take in today) but basically I should head to the manchester science and industry museum because there is a picture there of a whatever it is that they worked on and my gran and her kids were granted rare permission to visit and walk the launch pad by the base commander/ colonel (whatever the title is) I think it was Woomera they moved to she said something about white sands or red/ blue sands..? (Kelly, you may know if that sounds right, I kinda lost track after a while) but this is a tale I shall definitely be getting her to retell during a visit to the museum in question – visuals always help.

Lets just say, my gran should write a book, she is entertaining, intelligent (despite her belief to the contrary) and has lived a pretty amazing life.

If you have grandparents still living I’d definitely recommend going for a visit very soon and requesting a look at old photo’s, you’ll probably be quite surprised at some of the things you find out.