Regal Kitty

Here is my big baby (Casper) sitting on the basement steps a day after his bath. I did bathe him, but none of the others. We think that he was possibly hit by a car at one time, because he will sit with his back leg at an awkward angle from time to time. He seems very sensitive to his back legs, too. He doesn't get to wash the hair on the tail end of his back often. It was sticking up in tufts, so that is why I gave him a bath. Along with that and he takes to sleeping on my bed when I am working at my desk.

He has a front fang missing, and his brother (Jasper) has a piece of his tongue missing. They must have had a rough life in the beginning. Jasper has a hard time drinking water. He is very finicky about the bowl and it has taken almost four years, but he is finally getting over being so nervous.

So, I consider it my job to make life a dream for them now. By the way, I did not name any of our pets, except for the bird. When my daughter suggested Perry, I said Peru. That is also where I get my nickname for this blog. We used to call her Peruby.

This family tree stuff has me addicted. Except almost all of my searches in Google end up being inserted by my brother. I will get a hit on a family name and when I connect there from Google it was written by my brother. He has spent years on this and his research on the Internet has been excessive also. The only chance I have is possibly stumbling upon a new post or actually physically going to Virginia or Maryland or England, Scotland, Wales or Austria. He has some lines back to 1500's in England. It is fascinating, but at the same time so confusing.

I cannot believe that one family with a father's name of Jonas named their sons Jonas, Jonathan, James, Jesse, John and Jacob. And, they in turn after having children repeated the names. And the women did it too.

The really bizarre discovery (my brother found this years ago) was my paternal grandmother was born in the town that my immediate family ended up living in. We had no idea when we moved there in the sixties that was where she was born and lived until she was seven. That is probably why she never mentioned that town, because she probably didn't remember much of it. And since there was a Family, Ohio and an East Family, Ohio we were confused for a couple of years until we narrowed it down to the county and township.

To complicate matters, documents were recorded on paper in the early days and many times fire damaged records with no hope of recovery or duplicate copies. Sometimes the trail ends cold at what was once a hot, raging fire. This is probably why we record birth dates, death dates and names by chisling them in stone.

So she was born in 1876 in East Family, Ohio. She moved with her family to Extended, West Virginia sometime before she turned seven. It is believed that she and her Mother were living with my great great grandparents at the time. There is a record of her uncle being born when she was seven years old in Extended, West Virginia (this makes me assume that the family had moved there).

She married in 1898 in Extended WV and my father was born in Extended, WV. My father married and moved with my Mom to Ohio in 1940 (looking for work) and after twenty-three years ended up in East Family, Ohio. I find that remarkable. So my Mom is buried in the same cemetery as my great great great (paternal) grandfather. Whew. And his last name is on the gravestone as Ryan. He came from Maryland. We don't know why he moved from Maryland to Ohio sometime between 1800 and 1826. And, in Maryland it is possible that his name was spelled Ryan, Ryon, Rine, or Rhine. Go figure.