by

Family History Class #1 Outline

I have received a number of requests for an outline of sorts for what is being taught in the new FamilySearch classes.  Mostly overseas, here is a quick summary of the first lesson. 

The first class deals with the basics of the program and what its strengths and capacity is.  Most of the individuals who are attending the classes already have signed in a played with the program to a certain degree.  I still walk them through the registration process.  Once we enter the program, the first thing we touch on is claiming submissions to Pedigree Resource File, Ancestral File, IGI submissions, and other various submissions.  I have them search an individual they have submitted in the past, find the contributors, find the one that is them, click on it, and click on the link to declare the legacy as their own.  For the most part, this will claim all submissions the person has submitted.  I have heard of being required to find other submissions done under a maiden name or under another address.

Next, I take them through the program generally.  I look up an individual and give them an overview of the pedigree view and then of each of the tabs down the left side of the program.  We work through the summary page discussing how to make certain information dominant over other information.  We discuss the notes at the bottom, the sources button, and the combined records button.  We don’t spend much time on the first page since much of the manipulation possible here is done more on the Details tab (the tabs are available there too).  But I do point them out.  I point out that if information has been made dominant then we can click on the individual who made it dominant and can e-mail them with suggestions, questions, or complaints.

On the details page we discuss the information listed and available.  How sparingly we use the dispute option except for blatantly wrong information.  If it is that off, perhaps we should check to see if we have a merged individual who should not have been merged (on the summary page for unlinking).  On the details page I show them how to make a dispute and how to remove it.  I show them how to add a source and how to remove it.

I show them the LDS Ordinances tab.  I point out what the ordinances needed, ordinances in process, and ordinances completed buttons look like.  I show them how to reserve ordinances and explain that only the oldest ordinances for a person show.  We don’t spend much time on the map or timeline tabs since they don’t have much value for genealogy and the maps is often wrong (It doesn’t always pull the dominant information, or assumes information sometimes).

We walk through the Parents and Siblings tab along with the Spouses and Children tab.  I show them where how they can merge siblings who are the same individuals.  I show them how to merge parents and spouses.  I emphasize the fact that very, very rarely should we dispute an individual.  Rather we should dispute the relationship to the mother, the father, or both.  But if we dispute the person, even if linked into the wrong family, we are disputing the person in all families in which they fall.  Only dispute the relationship, not the individual.

While working through the whole above scenario, I answer the wide variety of questions people pose.  How to merge a couple when the same individuals are listed as male and female (an example of my own is a Pleasant Bayes, some list him as a girl, but he is a male).

I had to interrupt my writing to eat dinner.  Amanda made some amazing Jambalaya and steamed broccoli.  It was very, very tasty.

Anyhow, I will have to write more another time.  I finished my first memo today, but now I should be reading Contracts.  I should sleep well tonight!  Hopefully no nightmares with the mix of jambalaya and contracts!

by

Family History Haunting

Life continues to go well for Amanda and me.  Another week has flown by with little more than a blink.  It is alarming how quickly they seem to be going.  There are a couple of notes to make besides that of school and work.

I received an e-mail this morning letting me know we now have well over a foot of snow at the homestead in Idaho!  How exciting is that?  We are still in the 80’s here.

Amanda and I have organized a Halloween Party on the 25th of October.  We are pretty excited to have a little get together of about 25-30 here at our home.  We are really looking forward to it.  We are even going to get our sewer half of our plumbing done before then so we have our main bathroom’s sink and toilet available.  Baby steps!  Hopefully they won’t look behind the shower curtain to see the missing bathtub and rotten floor.  One of the guys at school has joked about coming as Mom.  It will be the 10th anniversary.

I went to another little auction yesterday up in Guthrie.  If you wouldn’t believe it, I found another couple of steals.  I came home with some Shakespeare volumes (from 1881!) and about 150 other books for $2.50.  Some of the other books included a Hemingway set of 3, a Dickens set of 4, and 1930’s Treasure Island, and other random interesting books.  Looking online, I could make over $100 for my $2.50.  However, most of the volumes I could sell I wanted for my own collection.  We kept about 20.  The other 100+ will be going to the thrift store.  I did find a little hall table for $2.50.  We will have to sand it down and clean it up, but Amanda has already declared she loves it.  I walked away with a bow saw, a water cooler, and other little random things.  It was worth it.  Holt, from school also went, and he picked up some great deals too.

Today was a busy day.  We didn’t set our clocks for getting up so we missed the first 15 minutes of church.  We missed Amanda being sustained on the Enrichment Committee.  We also missed the Sacrament.  I am feeling a bit inactive since we have now missed it for two weeks.  Apostasy setting in!  I made up for it after church.  I went with the missionaries and we tried to find about 15 lost sheep for more than 3 hours.  We were able to locate some good information.  I was happy to report about 15 individuals to the Elder’s Quorum President with address updates for at least 8 of them.  Most of them are not in our ward so they will have to be sent elsewhere.

I haven’t told anyone, but I have been asked to teach some of the family history classes for the new FamilySearch.  My first class was on Friday night.  There were about 50 people there.  I was slightly deceived on what I was teaching.  I thought I was teaching a small number of family history consultants for the Oklahoma City Stake.  Nope.  I was teaching Family History Stake Directors for the entire Oklahoma City Temple District.  There were individuals there from Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma.  All over the temple district!  The class was apparently such a success they delayed my teaching the second class for a week.  Rather than teaching the second lesson this coming Friday, I am now re-teaching the first lesson with the entire Stake’s Membership invited.  Yikes!!  Meaning, we are setting up the cultural hall for the lessons!!  So much for keeping under the radar for callings in Oklahoma City.  Here I am teaching all who choose to attend from the entire stake.  Not to mention with the temple district’s consultants invited to come back for the second lesson and third lessons.  The funny part was my Bishopric told me they would let me coast a little since I am in law school.  They just wanted me to help with lost sheep and Home Teaching where needed.  Somehow I ended up with a class teaching a stake??  Oddly, it isn’t even a calling, I was just asked to teach the class.  This family history thing is haunting me!  It just won’t leave me alone!

Time to sign off.  I need to read a little bit for my torts class tomorrow.  Yeah for negligence.

by

The Ross Market

It has been a good bit of fun on the Ross Market this week.  High, low, all over the board.  Thought I would share a little bit.

We leveraged, Wall Street terminology, our investments in order to put a down payment onto our home this summer.  The stipulation in leveraging our assets is that we cannot have more than 50% of the value of our assets in the loan against our investments.  As I am sure we are all aware, the stock market dropped precipitously on Monday.  Luckily I have a great investment rep who called me Tuesday morning informing me I was having a margin call.  Which basically means I have to drop money into pay off some of the loan or they would sell off investments enough to bring the loan back within 50% or less.  Somehow I suddenly found myself in a similar category with all Wall Street.  Cough up money to put on our debt or start selling off.

This probably would not have normally been a problem.  Except when coupled with other events, it made for a difficult situation.  We lost use of all the bank cards for our regular bank in Burley, Idaho.  I previously mentioned that we had fraud coming from Venezuela on that account.  I did not mention we also lost use of a card for another account a week before.  Add that to the situation where we have been dumping money into paying off other debt.  So we were getting pretty close to not having any room to wiggle like I normally like to have.  Then of all things, one of Amanda’s student loans withdrew the October monthly payment twice for some odd reason.  Knowing the Department of Education is a highly sophisticated and intricate agency where money goes and is easily lost, I decided to just bite the extra withdrawal.

Tuesday rolls around and I am squeezed.  My investments money market is where I usually turn for emergencies but all those savings were sucked up into saving my investments from being sold off.  Those savings were not enough in the money market and I now had to move over several hundred dollars to keep my investments from being herded to auction.

No credit cards, no cash cards, and I am left with checks and the U.S. Postal Service!  Wednesday sent checks from bank to bank trying to keep every account I have in black standing.  At one point, I found another check bounced for a reason we have yet to determine and I ended having to borrow $2 from a buddy at school to cover the possible charge for the bounced check.  Holy hannah!

Here we are arriving to Monday tomorrow.  I am happy to report all bank accounts remain in black.  The U.S. Postal Service worked like I needed it and money transferred easily enough.  Sadly, the money I transferred on Friday was not enough to keep the margin call at bay against a sliding stock market and I contributed to a sliding Wall Street on Friday.  I have decided that since they have liquidated a huge portion of my assets, we might as well pay off the entire debt against the investments and reinvest what is left over.

While I have not any real wealth since my debts are higher than my assets, I have seen what assets I do have shrink considerably this past two weeks.  Think about it.  I have a loan against investments sitting at 50%.  If they sell off investments in order to pay the loan, they have to sell around 225% of what they are paying off in the debt.  When you sell off investments, it lowers the bar for what 50% is.  Therefore, to sell off enough to pay the debt down and to keep the debt below 50% of the investments value is a chore.  Then we can see why banks that have leveraged their assets not only lose value, but lose tremendous amounts of money to liquidate and pay off debt.  Their problem is compounded by the fact that when they start such a scenario the investors get a whiff and start selling stock and the bank loses even more assets.  It is a downward spiral that ends in death for the bank.  Luckily, I did not have to worry about investors lowering what I could sell my assets for (beyond what the stock market already did).

Hence, I start a new week definitely less in debt.  However, at a tremendous cost of doing so.  I guess the only real cost is what it costs to sell the investments, and reinvest what is left.  Oh, and what the stock market did in the meantime.  May I be lucky enough to buy with the price lower than what I sold it for rather than higher.

Let me assure you, we are still solvent.  That is not the issue.  Amanda is paid again this week and the influx will certainly breath life into the Ross banking network.  We will live to see another day.  The real question is, Why can’t I get in on the bail out too?  After all, I have just endured what most of them are!

by

Fraud and Honesty

I thought I would take a quick moment to ventilate a little frustration.  Amanda and I have once again been the victims of fraud.  Luckily it is on the same credit card (different number) with a bank that is easy to work with.  I have to admit, I really like Zions Bank and how well they have treated me for some 15 years now.  On that same note, I feel somewhat justified to see Wachovia suffer an ignominious death.  The way they treated us with a little account makes me glad they are out of business.  While I don’t hold much more esteem for CitiGroup, I am happy to see the bird of a similar feather buy the same type of business.

Anyhow, back to the fraud.  Amanda went to do a little food shopping for us this night and found our card rejected her.  We pulled up our account on the internet and found we had purchased several hundreds of dollars of goods in the Philippines.  Well, that is where we assume Las Pinas, PL is.  (Upon wondering, in searching that location on GoogleMaps, it brings up Venezuela.)  I find myself a bit more surprised at Venezuela than the Philippines.  Hmmm, why would I think that?  Venezuela, the country telling us to get a new Constitution over the past few days.  The guy organizing nuclear business with Russia as a neighbor to the United States.  What ever happened to the Monroe Doctrine?  Nobody messes with our hemisphere.  Oh wait, that probably went out the window when we started messing with their hemisphere (the other side of the Monroe Doctrine).  Ironic I joined the J. Reuben Clark law society, one of the men credited with undoing the Monroe Doctrine.

What is coming of the world?  What happened to people living their religion?  What happened to honesty?  It seems strange that a person would take the private information of another for gain.  It almost seems as if there is no cheque for greed anymore in the world.  What is best, we claim it is good to gain on the behalf of another.  Look at Wall Street, years of greed and not playing for the long run have given them one last hurrah trying to continue to make a buck on behalf of the tax payer.  I very much hope they don’t get it.  What if we fall into recession again, or even depression?  Perhaps we will learn to be frugal and industrious once again.  Perhaps we will learn debt is not a solution or viable long term option.  Perhaps we can hope we would see beyond the moment into this continual cycle.  But then, human nature continues.

Now, asking all those questions.  Haven’t we great reason to rejoice?  There are great reasons to rejoice.  Those who are prepared need not fear.  Those who have heeded the counsel of the scriptures and the prophets of ages past and present find themselves once again vindicated.  At least for the moment.  There is always a silver lining.  The world will go on despite poverty, sadness, and loss.  We have eternity and that makes anything now worth it.

Wow, talk about abstract tonight.  Darn fraud.  For some reason Mo Udall comes to mind, “The people have spoken; The bastards.”  We see the cumulative effect of millions of people living in debt, conglomerated into businesses and government, finally receiving some of the due.  Sadly, those who will hurt the worst are probably the poorest.  While we are not poor by any means, in fact, I consider ourselves quite rich, we are finding our finances attacked by some dishonest person in the world.  My only thought comes from the scriptures, “God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.”  (D&C 64:11).  (Look at that citation!  Finally I am feeling some more confidence in my grammar and punctuation.  What a great benefit to law school!)

by

Auctions

Today was the day I wish was every day!  Our neighbors trust had an estate auction.  Several of the guys from law school brought their wives and we made a day of it!  We came out with a boatload of goodies.  All for the price of about $200, a heavy-duty display desk, very antique camel-back trunk, 6 foot oval mirror, 10 foot fiberglass ladder, levels, saws, 10 extendable aluminum ladder, railroad typewriter desk, tool box, drills, crow bars, wrenches, a small bookshelf, and several box loads of junk.  In the lots we purchased, we came out with lanterns, books, serving trays, bread maker, rotisserie, lamps, harmonicas, pipes, gold plated tableware, and plenty more.  After what we got, we still have about 6 boxes to take to the thrift store!

We had lunch here at the house with our buddies.  A couple brought their wives and children.  One couple even purchased a sofa, washer, dryer, hutch, lamps, and more!  Another couple walked away with a sewing machine and its table for $2.50!!  I think we all enjoyed ourselves.

Anyhow, on an interesting note, our neighbor across the street put a old recliner out on the curb.  I mean like a 70’s recliner where the fuzz on the recliner upholstery was worn off.  What is more, it has been sitting out there for a week.  I saw this old man pull up in a little Ford Ranger looking at it.  He looked like he was very interested in it.  I walked over to help him since it appeared he wanted it and was struggling with it.  It was light enough I could pick it up to put it in the back of his truck.  He mentioned that he was a Katrina survivor.  He said the old folks home he lived in down in New Orleans was completely destroyed.  He came up during the storm to stay with family.  Well, they are kicking him out this month after living with them for 3 years.  He said he was getting an apartment and didn’t really have enough left over to furnish it.  Hence why he was looking for reject furniture.  I told him I had a whole bunch of stuff I was going to take to the thrift store he was welcome to.  He came over and picked out salt and pepper shakers, cooking utensils, frying pans, and more for his new home.  I was glad I could help out!  I told him I had a desk he was welcome to if he wanted it.  I showed him the new desk I picked up today and he said he was interested.  Since his truck was full he wanted to know if he could pick it up tomorrow.  He asked what I wanted for it.  I threw out a number that was twice what I paid for it (I paid $15).  He seemed interested and said if he decided on it he would come back tomorrow.  I feel bad for getting twice what it is worth if he does come back.  I think I will just offer it to him for what I got it.  There is a good deed for the day.  I gave a poor old man something more.  Tomorrow I hope I can help furnish his apartment a little more.  Perhaps I will just give it to him.  I don’t think he would agree to that though.  We will see.

Time to close out.  Church comes bright and early (8:30!!).

by

Dad Retired!

I thought I would try out this new e-mail address for updating our joint blog.  Amanda is somewhat offended that our joint blog has not had an entry from me.  She was contemplating removing the “Paul and” part from the blog.  I guess I will start updating both of them from here on out.

While I am wasting a perfectly good couple of minutes during study time, I thought I would write a little bit.

The big news I received today is my Dad retired yesterday!!  Typical AgExpress in being shortsighted brought up another issue that was the last straw.  He replied to the e-mail and stated he was leaving the keys, the cell phone, and was taking the rest of his life off from work.  I am interested to see what AgExpress thought.  We probably won’t really know.  My own experience with AgExpress and the ‘sacred cows’ as we referred to the condescending, disagreeable secretaries is consistent.  Dad in working at the temple just couldn’t maintain having such a disagreeable work environment.  Good for him!

Back to studying.  We are working on bilateral and unilateral contracts.  Which is odd since this doctrine isn’t really used anymore.  They feel we need to know the history of our present condition, which makes sense.

by

Birthday Week

On Saturday we planted three new trees in front of the house.  I have great hopes for them and their rising high in the next three years.  It will be interesting to see what our home looks like when and if we move away from it after law school.  We went and purchased them, along with an ax and other tools, from a birthday gift card.  Thank you!  I have been slowly whittling away at the stump in the front with my new ax.  I also removed all the above ground roots behind the garage.  There is one or two I missed, but I will get them.

We went out to eat at Outback Steakhouse Friday night.  They did not cook either of our steaks well enough and we had to send them back.  Accordingly they only made us pay for one of the steaks for our trouble.  Of course, it was the more expensive!  I did not mind too much.  It was really good once I got the steak back and it was not rare still.  Amanda is not a big seafood or fish fan so I try to eat up.  I enjoyed shrimp and mussels with my meal.  Interestingly, the waiter asked if we were from Utah because I used a Zions Card.  He had been to Utah and seen the banks everywhere.  I was offended at the Utah notion but he recovered quickly.

The rest of the week brought other gifts, cards, money, and wishes.  Thank you to everyone!!

I continue through school.  No complaints.  I see there are a number around who are getting a little stressed.  For the most part I think everyone puts on a brave face.  I don’t feel like I am in full comprehension of the facts.  However, I don’t tend to get anxious.  I hear there are a few who are pretty stressed.

I have been watching the news and am a bit disappointed in our good government.  As we remembered the Constitution’s Birthday last week it appears the Capitol District didn’t have much of a remembrance celebration.  They are off working out a bail out for an estimated $700,000,000,000.  That equates to more than $2,000 per person.  Forget the whole per person, I am talking per living citizen of this country!  So much for refund checks.  They are going to take them back with tremendous interest!  How about we put our house in order?  How about we take care of our collective debt before we begin helping others out with their debt?  Who will help us out of our debt?  China?  In reading last night I stumbled on the following scripture, “For the Lord thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend to many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.”  (Deut 15:6).  Does that mean if we borrow over many nations we shall not reign?  Does that mean we shall not be blessed?  In what way?

It certainly seems like time we paid our dues, debts, and other obligations.  I feel so strongly about the whole bail out thing I want to swear.  This seems ridiculous!  Outrageous!  Okay, Wall Street may fail.  So the argument I will get taxed either way.  I would rather take my chances than to help a bunch of whiners who live in the corner office.  They should have been prepared.  They should have not gone into debt.  They should have been wiser.  Why do we have to bail them out?  Rather than shutting down the Fed, they will probably just create another department.  The Department of Finance.  Socialism, here we come!

Well, back to reading torts.  The one class I feel like I am actually getting.  Maybe that should say something to me.

by

Jennie Ann Bremer Britzman

I know you are all clamoring for an update.  Here are a few interesting items.In some solemn news Aunt Jennie passed away on Sunday.  I don’t know why she was referred to as Aunt Jennie.  She was my Grandma Ross’ first cousin.  Jennie Ann Bremer was born in Ogden on 18 October 1916.  She was born to Frederick William Bremer and Jantje (Jane) Van Leeuwen.  Jantje was my Great Grandmother’s (Berendena ‘Dena’ Van Leeuwen.  Her family moved to Bellflower (Long Beach) California about 1925.  Jennie married Harry Heiser in 1933.  He was from Delaware originally.  Harry was a career Navy man — 21 years as a machinist, Chief Petty Officer, Purple Heart from Pearl Harbor.  They were divorced after only a year or two.  Jennie made it sound like the times were hard and the stress made him unbearable.  She then married William Doughtie in 1938 in LA, I believe he was an actor.  This too was a short marriage.  In 1953 she married Robert Floyd Britzman.  They had two children, only one of which lived to adulthood.  Richard was living and taking care of Jennie the past few years.  Robert died in 1967.  I am not entirely sure what Robert did but he left Jennie with a nice endowment for the remainder of her life.  She remarried Harold Ross (my Grandpa’s brother) about 1976 but that marriage very quickly ended.  It was annulled it was so quick.  There is a whole story to go along with that but I won’t pursue it here.  Jennie traveled extensively throughout the world.  She had stories from Rome to the Great Wall of China.  She lived to the ripe age of 91.  I often visited Jennie in her house in Washington Terrace.  We would take lunch down at a little hole in the wall mexican restaurant on 24th Street.  The last time I saw Jennie was the 23rd of February when we went to lunch with Betty Donaldson after her endowment.  I will miss her and her laugh until we meet again.  I have placed Jennie’s three photos to the front of the Van Leeuwen Family Album.  The store her father ran in Southern California as well as pictures of her parents are right after.

Amanda and I attended ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ put on by the local Jewel Box Theatre here in Oklahoma City.  We were very pleased with the value for our money.  We both purchased tickets with our student passes and found it was a theater in the round.  For the most part it was very spartan in props other than what the actors carried on their person.  Regardless, they did very well.  The singers became noticeably weaker as the show went on.  It started out so energetically but ended a bit sluggish.  This was one of their last performances after a couple of weeks.  I remember well the days of trying to coax the voice to perform just a little more after weeks of performances.  It can be a tiresome schedule.  However, my experience was the closer you got to the end the more in the groove you found yourself.  Awkwardness gave to energy and excitement.  I am disappointed the night before their last show it seemed to end in such a way.  It is a church run theater in their 51st year.  It must be handed to them for their diligence and tenacity.

Last night we had dinner with Dan and Liesel Martin.  Of course their beautiful 11 month old daughter Linea joined us.  He made us a meal he had the first night of his mission in Pennsylvania.  Potatoes and chicken gravy on waffles!  It was very good.  I thought it would taste a bit like having it on bread or Yorkshire Puddings.  It did.  It is one of those meals that give you a happy tummy.  We played Cranium afterward.  We did not win but I did feel a little smarter after successfully answering a couple of the questions.

I received a message from Victor Wayment on Sunday.  I had sent him a picture from the day my Grandpa went to the draft board at Camp Douglas.  Victor was able to tell me the picture was taken on 16 Oct 1942.  How he knew that, I haven’t a clue.  He was able to name 5 of the 7 individuals in the photo.  One of the two Grandpa could not name he put a name with and even gave me the contact information for Kenneth Barrow.  One of the two he could not name was one Grandpa could not name.  That hole still remains.  However, he named one of the other individuals differently.  Who Grandpa thought was Jim Jardine Victor named as Glen Geilman.  It just happens that Glenn Geilmann married Evelyn Van Leeuwen, another first cousin of my Grandma Ross.  I called and visited with Glen and he certainly remembers going with Grandpa and Victor to Camp Floyd.  He also thought Jim Jardine was there.  Perhaps Jim is the unknown.  I haven’t a clue.  At any rate, I am also sending a picture to Glen as well and Kenneth Barrow.  Hopefully they can name the unknown and clarify Jim Jardine/Glen Geilman.

Lastly, today is my sister’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Andra Ross!!  She e-mailed me today telling me about moving into their new home in Rupert.  I guess they have done quite a bit of work on it and it is coming alone nicely.  As with any other project, there is plenty more to do.

Well, I have to sign off.  More homework to complete.  I want to be sure to make it to bed with plenty of time to be rested up for the Constitution’s Birthday tomorrow.  Happy Birthday!!  Oh, it happens to be my birthday as well.  Happy Birthday Paul Ross!!  Amanda and I are going out to eat on Friday night since law school isn’t very conducive to large, long dinners on a school night.  Thanks for the birthday cards!