So, despite the name change and estrangement from my family, I do continue to do research into my family's origin.

I am building a fairly extensive website on our families.

Today, I got mail from the Ellis Island organization. They have put a new search mechanism together.

Well, my Great -great grandfather (dad's dad's dad) has always been elusive. To this day, I'm not sure how he got into the country. But I tried again to find his wife.

Today I found something.

Line 2 of the Manifest of the Pretoria (Please note this is a big jpeg)

fiannaharpar has been helping me read the horrible hand writing. shimmeringjemmy really helped by fixing the contrast on the graphic.

So... if anyone wants to take a stab at helping us read this... I'd be more than happy.
Of most interest are columns 2, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 16

Comments concerning the details are in the comments section. Feel free to try to interpret before looking at the comments so as to not be influenced on initial interpretation. :)

Tags: friends, genealogy, research
Current Mood: pleased

In engineering as in many other jobs you are sometimes given a project you really love to work on. It's the thing you like doing and this unto itself is a good thing (tm). However, this project usually is delivered with 2-5 other projects that you hate. Furthermore, these projects are far more important and (of course) need to be finished by last week.

My happiness is that I've just finished all but one of the 'icky' projects and may now go back to working on my baby. I can't really talk about it in this open forum....yet. But I'll reserve bragging rights for later :)

All in all, life has been okay. I'm still happy with my cleaning efforts. A friend came by the house and gave me the requisite, "Am I in the right place?" This was sufficient to make me happy. I'm also finally getting a chance to tear into old packed boxes from my first Calif move. I found all my old genealogy stuff and am hoping to get in touch with my local relative before she gets too old.

Things are still a mess with my natural family. At latest count my maternal side of the family is positive that my father died in August, my paternal side is positive that he is doing fine. Personally, I don't have the energy to even bother with it anymore.

So this was just a quick breather while I prepare to dive into my pet project for the rest of today. Wish me luck I'm on a tight time frame :)

-me

Tags: cleaning, family, genealogy, work
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Brother of Mine (ABWH)