Corpse Flower in bloom NOW at US Botanical Garden - Live Stream

Started streaming on Aug 20, 2017

Three corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) plants, also known as the stinky plant or titan arum, are on display at the United States Botanic Garden Conservatory in Washington, DC. Once fully open, each corpse flower bloom may remain in bloom for 24 to 48 hours, and then collapse quickly. Learn more at www.USBG.gov/CorpseFlower

Monumentally bad timing

One of my family's long term brick walls is John Tucker. He was born in South Carolina in 1798 - which we know because of his responses to US census questions and an inscription on his tombstone. He appears in Bibb County, Alabama in 1830 when he purchased land there and by 1834 he was in Perry County, Alabama, where he stayed for the rest of his life.

We've never been able to find out exactly where in South Carolina he was from. On various census he listed that his father was born in Maryland and his mother in Virginia - this has not helped locate him at all.

With the advent of DNA and an active project on Tucker Family DNA, I'd been hoping that one of my male Tucker cousins would allow themselves to test for Y-DNA to see if that would provide some clues. Two of my cousins visited my Mom last month and my sister talked the older one into being tested. She was notified last week that the results were in.

Yesterday she gave me access to the account that held the tests and we looked at the results as to where it showed our ancestors to have lived. Then I tried to upload a GED file so that the family tree could be compared along with the DNA to other people on the FamilyTreeDNA.com site. It has failed numerous times.

This morning I called their customer support - no one there. The center is in Houston. I just hope all their people are safe - and that their servers are not also located in Houston.

I guess our brick wall that has been waiting for over two hundred years will have to wait a while longer.

Confounds the Science - the Parody Project

Cable guy problems

"Waterside" listed as occupation in England during the 1820s

When I look up that term now it seems to be a stevedore - but the man in question would have been 60-70 years old and it seems unlikely that he would have been one.

The location is an agricultural area of Lincolnshire, specifically Billinghay or Sleaford. The only things I could see being shipped would be grains or meat. In the city directory where I found this occupation listing it seems to be under the heading of "Maltster" and a later listing shows someone with the same name as proprietor of an inn or tavern named the Barter's Arms.

A letter written by his son in 1832 indicates that the father and most of the family are ailing from typhus. It was in response to a letter from my great great grandmother (his daughter who had married unsuitably and who moved to New York state in 1828) after her husband and one child had died, his mill burned down and she was left with six young children and no resources. The letter does discuss plowing and the price of oats which fits with the farming referred to in the following:

Family lore is that "Greatgrandfather Key had six sons and four daughters. He and each of his sons stood at least 6 feet in their stockings. At meals they drank home brewed ale and each one had a sterling silver tankard (a cup with two handles). Grandmother said her father wore knee breeches, black silk stockings and had shoes with silver buckles; and she never knew him to do a day’s work in her life. He was a farmer on a large scale with many tenants. His sons worked." (From a letter written by my grandmother's cousin.)

This is why Florida Democrats are losers