Further back

Possibly the most significant item today is the fact that it is my tiny sister's (landmark) birthday. Happy Birthday, Jane; I hope you had a wonderful day down there on the beach in Portugal.

I was up soon after 07:00 and opened up the doors into the garden and the windows at the front of the house. The forecast was for a hot day, and I wanted to get a through draft to keep things as cool as possible.

We lingered over a long breakfast while reading the news and social media. It was while reading social media that I saw a comment about large pedigree charts for genealogists. This triggered a thought in the back of my mind and drove me upstairs to try and review what charts I could already generate either my existing tools. Starting with Ellie, as the further descendant I have, I fired up the tools. A pedigree chart running to 40-50 pages was generated. I started to review the way in which it had been formatted and noticed that on her paternal pedigree, I only had about 6 generations. I stopped playing with the charts and decided to have another look at the records to see if I could drive this branch of the tree further back. Several hours later, I had managed to drive her paternal line back to her 9th Great Grandfather, John, born in 1650.

We had a phonically. It was Zoe telling us that Ellie wasn't well. She had a sleepover at a friend's house last night but woke up with a temperature, feeling a bit dizzy, her ear hurt, and she was feeling naff. Calpol was given, and after a suitable delay, some Ibuprofen. She has spent the day on the sofa with her temperature yo-yoing as the Calpol takes effect or wears off. She has decided she wants to sleep with us tonight so that she doesn't have to get up early. Whether she goes to school or not, we will have to decide in the morning.