Happy news!

Congratulations to my friend Greta, who just got engaged last weekend while on vacation to Cape Cod! =)

NEHGS Internship

Northeastern's masters program has an internship requirement, similar to it's co-op program in its undergraduate school. I applied and was recently accepted to an internship at the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. I love every moment of it. I'm in Research Services, and each day help clients solve their genealogical "brick walls". The library's collection of resources is top notch, and I get different styles of cases all the time, which allows me to explore and utilize a wide variety of resources of different types (such as land records, probate, taxes, vital records, local histories, immigration, census, maps, atlases, newspapers, etc) or different locations (although NEHGS is largely focused on New England, it has one of the largest Canadian collections in America.. and of course, lots of Irish records for all those Boston Irish descendants!)

For a few years now, I've run a variety of town history and genealogy websites, as well as several family genealogy websites, and receive requests all the time for genealogy assistance and puzzles. In a way, it is very much detective work or puzzle solving: some of it is sheer luck, but mostly it is knowing where to look, what records to use, and understanding what positive as well as negative evidence means. And now that's what I get to do everyday. I'm learning so much, and it is wonderfully satisfying to solve those questions. And sometimes the answers just aren't there, as records were lost or not kept over time.. but more often than not, there is that "ta da!" moment that makes it all worthwhile.

The people there are friendly, smart and in true appreciative style, sometimes incredibly knowledgeable about the most obscure things! It's a good environment to work in and research in.. plus on my breaks I catch a few moments to work on those dratted Ramsdells, Buckleys, Mahons, et al...

A retrospective of jobs

I've had a variety of fun and unusual jobs.

Jobs I had during high school included tutoring flute and saxophone (ok, so I was paid in jazz CDs instead of money), working the barn crew at the Marshfield and East Middleboro fairs, and babysitting (ok, so sometimes that always fun!).

During college I worked at Sears for one summer (where I discovered that working for commission was not something I enjoyed.. but I did learn a lot about tractors, grills, lawn mowers, and exercise equipment!). I also worked for BUDS, which sent me to a variety of locations on campus: the Ivy Room (where I made a mean falafel), the Gate (where I got to take home tasty pizzas), the CIT cafe, and the Campus Market (my favorite place to work - the late night shift!). While those jobs helped me pay for books and bills, I certainly did not love them.

But I certainly had some wonderful jobs at Brown. I was a community assistant (known as an RA in most colleges) for the greatest dorm on campus, Slater Hall, which was one of the oldest (and smallest) buildings. I loved helping my residents and running community events, and really feeling like I was making a difference, whether it was in a silly way like bonding with your neighbors during a dorm Halloween party (everyone knows what a great team Mary and Halloween makes!) or in a more quiet way, through counseling a resident through a difficult situation. The following year I became a leader of community assistants in addition to being a community assistant - so I worked with and helped counsel the community assistants themselves.

I was a research assistant for a wonderful anthropology professor who travels to South Africa to study child development in some of the villages. Part of my work was to create large family trees that connected families across the villages, over many generations. I was fascinated and captivated by the lives of these people and children who I had never met.

Last year I worked through the John Hay library at the university's archives, where I worked with the Hall-Hoag Collections of Dissenting Propaganda. I loved both the process of archival methods as well as the potential for research held within the archives.

A love of research, archives, history, genealogy, libraries, working with people, teaching.. these certainly were some shared aspects across these varied jobs...

Graduation Party

Congratulations to Mom, Tim and Corey who all graduated over the past few weeks!!!




PJ falls in love with a little kitten...

A sampling of the Blauss family at the graduation party!

Lindsey's Bridal Shower

Lindsey's bridal shower at Papa Razzi's was lovely. Lindsey's family and friends from the Hanover area as well as some of Nick's family from Baltimore and their friends from college in Maryland all came. We got a peek at their wedding colors (purple and yellow!), had a delicious lunch and incredibly tasty chocolate mousse cake. Plus, I won a shower game (I guessed correctly how many questions Lindsey would answer correctly about Nick.. it was 17) and won a pretty set of stationary as my prize. Nick himself even made a guest appearance!

We look forward to the wedding =)

Turkeys, Turkeys, everywhere!

Recently we have been hearing gobbles in the distant, but at first dismissed it as strange construction noises (they have been installing new pipes under the main road all year long)

But today, who was hanging out beside the apartment? Our new turkey neighbors!




They seem to be living in the woods behind the apartment complex, where a little river runs through marshland. Maybe all the construction has caused them to wander.