Our Other Weekend

While it seems as if Bear-drama consumed our weekend (only kinda sorta), it was also Mr. Bama's Birthday.  We decided to go low key, unlike last year, and just have a nice dinner at our local fave Italian restaurant.  Mr. Bama was showered with gifts (a basket Louisiana fave food stuffs from my rents, a 6 pack of beer of Mr. Bama's choice from Bear, just to name a few)

the happy birthday boy w/ his Louisiana bounty.

My gift to Mr. Bama was 6 months to Ancestry.com.  He's always had an idea where his family came from (Arkansas), but nothing too deep past maybe the late 1800s.  I also thought that I'd be able to mooch off of his subscription and find my family on my mom's dad's side of the tree - the one no one ever talks about because of a big family blow up in the 40s, name changes, etc.  Some really touchy stuff apparently.

So off we went finding our families.  Turns out when you talk about American, you mean my husband.  He traces 3 of the 4 main branches of his family ALL the way back to Colonial America (theres a relative from the1630's in there!).  Pretty amazing.  Even more amazing is that at least 2 of them were from Virginia - so no more comments from him about Virginia not being a southern state, since that would mean he's not a southern boy (and for him thats the equivalent of  telling a child there is no Santa).  The one branch that doesn't go back to the 1700 only goes back to the 1830s.  Darn.

So then I start trying to find my family.... and that quickly ended in the late 1890s.  In all. four. branches.  Apparently I'm so much of a mutt that no one I'm related to lived in America pre the 1870s.  Whats even worse, is that the names were soo butchered when they came over that its impossible to tell who is who.  So while my husband can trace his entire family back to the infanthood of our country, mine is just one giant dead-end.  Guess I should have purchased the "Global' ancestry package, at least I know 100% for sure that I'm an Italian, German, English, Scottish mutt whose families came over from the old country at sometime in the late 19th century, which I knew before my Ancestry.com adventure.  Awesome.

On another note: Today yours truly did a guest post over on the brank spankin' new Trashy Diva Blog.  I'll be posting about every other week, so take a peek and tell me what you think!