Thursday, July 28, 2022

Genealogy

Before coming to Carillon, I took a course in Genealogy at Brookhaven College in Dallas. Since we, the residents of Carillon, are probably the oldest of our respective clans, this may be the only way your descendants will know the information you remember.


There is an old saying I remember from a motivational speaker: “Your life would make a best selling autobiography, if you only had a good ghostwriter”.  So, start with yourself and record the answers.  Once you do that, you can start asking others in your family.  The list of 100 questions can be found here: https://familyhistorydaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/100-Family-History-Interview-Questions-List.pdf,  This information is truly irreplaceable.  Once lost, it, most likely, will be lost forever.


For instance, I remember visiting my grandfather Maddox’s ranch near Gordon, Texas.   I am sure it was great fun to tell my brother and me to chase down a chicken,  Let me tell you, that chicken was absolutely safe.  Each of you has similar stories to share about their childhoods, that your children, grandchildren are completely unaware.  (This reminds me that I need to answer these questions too.)


Actually, my interest in genealogy goes back to my Uncle Charlie Holloway.  He had traced my mother’s side of the family back to the sureties of the Magna Charta.  Of the 25 sureties, he had found direct relationships to 17 of them.  Now this hardly makes me a better person, but it did stimulate my interest in history.  Maybe you can do some with your children.


Now, how I chose to record these relationships.  The Latter Day Saints (Mormons) maintain a free website for documenting your relationships.  The website is www.familysearch.org, but you must register to make use of it.  Unfortunately, there is no way I can talk you through how to make use of it.  At Brookhaven, we had a room with about 20 computers, so each student had access to both follow the instructor, and enter the information as we went.  Some other useful sites making use of the FamilySearch website are:


A guide and training for using FamilySearch - https://thefhguide.com


Relative finder, to find famous relatives of yours:  https://www.relativefinder.org/


To create Genealogy Wall Charts - https://treeseek.com


The really interesting thing I found is that I, on my father’s side, was related to Emperor Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas. I cannot show you this anymore, because FamilySearch is maintained by volunteers.  Someone, several years ago, changed the wife of Sir John Hughes, from Jane Powhatan, to someone else.  Oh well, easy come, easy go.  So be modest in your claims 





So, have fun tracing and recording your ancestors.  Put your questions in the comments area of this blog and I can try and get back to you.

Friday, July 8, 2022

Some tricks about our new TV System

There is a lack of information for our new TV Cable system.  I hope some of this helps.


On your remote, the lower right-hand button controls the Closed Caption.  Toggle it on and off as you wish.


It is my understanding that the closed caption will not work on your recordings.  We are waiting for a software update to fix that.


The television schedule appears in two places.  Channel 3 shows what is on and upcoming for the next 3 hours or so.  I have heard reports that some TVs cut part of the channel number off.  I thought mine did too, but I don't see that today when I checked.

On the remote, on the upper left hand side, is a button that says "GUIDE".  This will pull the guide from the Scentrics site.  Pressing the right arrow button, you can go further in the time-line.  The only restriction I have seen is that there is about a 10 second pause when it has to load in the next group of hours.  For the more advanced user, this is the way you can set something up to record on the Digital Recorder.

There are two excellent online sources to find what is coming up next.


TV Guide has searchable listings.  The setup for this is to setup what service you are using.  Do this by going to the website and listings, choose your provider by first, putting in the zip code, then choosing the available service (Carillon Senior Living Lubbock).  At this point, you can save your settings by creating a login to their system.

Another service I found is On TV Tonight.  Again, some set-up is required.  An easy way to do this is using the white boxes below the "New Users - Set Up My Guide".  

The first box (unmarked) is for the zipcode.  Then second box if for the provider - Carillon Senior Living Lubbock Standard Cable.  As with the TV Guide choices, there are two Carillon Senior Living choices, so be sure to choose the right one.

Both the TV Guide and On TV Tonight have apps for the smart phone.  Check on your apps store if you want to download them.

My hope is between some of these choices, you will find what you want.

Also, if you have ideas for news articles, or questions about all these smart devices, I will try and answer them.