Mom’s Chicken and Dumplings
My brother Shane asked me for this after I posted this pic of my bowl of Chicken and Dumplings:

Mom’s Chicken and Dumplings
1 Stewed Chicken
1 1/2 cup self-rising flour
Pot with chicken broth (reserve1/2 cup hot broth)
Debone the chicken, put aside.
Bring broth to a boil. Take 1/2 cup broth and put in 1 1/2 cups of self-rising flour and mix with a spoon very quickly. Drop spoonfuls, one at a time, into the boiling broth; cook until done about 20 minutes, covered. Be careful not to boil over.
After the dumplings are done, add chicken, Mouth watering good.
MY NOTE: I just realized why my dumplings always came out too heavy and doughy. Its the flour! I was always using normal flour and she has here self-rising flour. I’m going to try again doing it her way. I also add veggies, like celery or carrots or whatever I’m in the mood for.
Beth’s Note: I was using Bisquick but it basically melts into the broth. Not good.
My Note: I remember mom using Bisquick also, I think she did that when she didn’t have a lot of time.
Hit the Road Capt. Jack
Image via WikipediaAre you going to go out of town for the Labor Day weekend? This year, we’re getting four days off. We are going to be visiting with some family at least one of the days. So, its a great time to put my new mobile apps to use. I got an iPhone last Christmas (thank you dear hubby!) and its really made life easier. The “Around Me” app alone really saved us when we were in Texas this summer for my nephews wedding and couldn’t locate the hotel. After the third time around the block, I pulled out my phone, put in the name of the hotel and it showed us exactly what turns to make to get there. Really cool. Playing with “Around Me” some more, we found local museums and other hot spots. As an addicted genealogist, of course I had to pull up directions for the local libraries and cemeteries.
When we visited the Alamo, I pulled out my trusty “Reunion” app and looked up all the relatives that I needed to do research on and was able to put a personal history twist on the whole tour. Sorry PC users: Reunion is Macintosh software. The staff over at LeisterPro told me they has no intention of making Reunion available for Windows users. I can understand that. There are more lots of genealogy apps for PCs anyway, but Reunion is the king of genealogy software for Mac users.
The Reunion iPhone app works in conjunction with the Macintosh version. It allows you to keep your entire family at your fingertips. Or, if you prefer, you can save only the individuals you know you’ll be working on while out of town.
Since we are planning to visit my husband’s relatives, I decided to install the free “Ancestry” app. It came out in January but Ancestry and I have a love-hate relationship so I put it off until now. Sure enough, I had a bear of a time getting it to work. But, I have a hard time getting Ancestry.com to work on any device.
Ancestry likes my money, but whenever I try to sign on it doesn’t like my account information. Genealogists are very familiar with the question: “What do you mean I don’t exist?” Well, Ancestry, it seems, tries to re-enforce this age-old question every time I try to log in. I have to reset my password every time. I get a lot of password reset requests from the members of the Heycuz.net website, and I can totally identify with them due to the problems I have had with Ancestry. With all the money I’ve spent on Ancestry over the years, I expect them to say “Oh, here she comes again, cha-ching $$$$” and bend over backwards to open all the doors for me, but they still make me jump through hoops just to sign on.
Well, its working now and I’m excited to show Steve’s uncle some records that are easily viewable on the app. In fact, I can see them better on the app than I can on my Mac’s Firefox browser. Specifically, I am going to show him the Passenger ship records of his grandfather arriving in America and the census records that shows where he worked before he opened his restaurant.
Cell phone mobility has made a huge impact on our daily lives, but genealogists tend to take a while to integrate the new tools into their research arsenal.The whole reason I even got into genealogy was due to this fact. I was trying to convince my mother–who’d been doing genealogy her entire life–to get an email account. I figured I’d show her all the information that was available online and pulled up the old GenWeb site.
She gave me a name and I put it in and found a list of people doing research on that name. I posted a query and amazingly within minutes I had a response. It turned out to be my father’s uncle’s daughter-in-law, but that’s another story. My mother’s eyes lit up with all the information available on that one website alone. So, I figured I was successful and soon she’d be emailing me daily. It didn’t turn out that way immediately. Instead, she sent me boxes of her research and a small note:
Happy Hunting,
Love,
Mom”

Thanksgiving Traditions
Tyler Florence used to have a show on Food Network where he would help people who were trying to recover a long, lost recipe. People would ask for help on recapturing Grandma’s Beef Stew or some other childhood favorite. Taking information about the person’s ethnic heritage, foods available in the location that they lived, and other family history, he’d come into a person’s home with two recipes. One would be a proximity–or best guess–on how the person’s grandmother might have made the dish and then he’d give his own take on how he likes to prepare the dish. I couldn’t find the show listed on the Food Network, so I don’t think its still on the air. The closest I could find was something called “Rescue Chef.” Since it’s Thanksgiving week, I started thinking about “lost recipes” and other traditions that have gone by the wayside. My Aunt Jo always talked about her mother’s, (my Great Grandmother Anna Ruth Buchanan Sullivan’s) Ambrosia Salad. The recipe was so special that she even had a specific dish that it was put in. My Aunt Jo inherited the dish and when you entered her home, she’d point up to the top of her cabinets to the large ceramic bowl. I have never tasted my great grandmother’s Ambrosia Salad.

We’ve Moved, again
You may have noticed that something’s a bit different about Heycuz. We have moved to a new server. I had to do a little reshuffling of my finances and could no longer afford to keep 12 different servers but had to combine them to decrease the bills.
The down side is that I had such excellent support from the previous server. He held my hand when ever things went buggy, let me slide when the bills came due, and kept the bandwidth high enough to let me run amok. The upside is that the new server has more room to run amok and forces me to learn to trouble-shoot my own problems. Having more room is really a plus, because we no longer have to store our files off the site at places like Picassa or Mac’s iDisk.
Some changes:
Perhaps the first thing that you’ll notice when you log on is the community features have been expanded. You will notice the new features in the “My Stuff” menu that appears when you log in. The menu shows you at a glance the photos you’ve added, the articles you’ve added and your favorite ancestor’s if you’ve bookmarked any. I’ve added a Private Messaging System (a different kind of PMS) so we can leave each other notes which is much faster than emailing. The first time you log in it will tell you, you have a message (even if its a generic message saying Welcome to the PMS).
I’ve made it easier to share, bookmark, and search the photographs.
I’ve also uploaded all of the cemetery photographs. I haven’t linked them all, but I’ve been told by some cousins that they will help with that. If you’re interested in doing that, email me (or PMS me) and I’ll send you instructions on how to link individuals in the database to the photographs of their tombstones.
Upcoming features that I haven’t had time to do yet include inputting all the extractions into a searchable database.
Anyway, I hope you don’t run into too many bugs because of the move and I thank you all for the wonderful feedback and the corrections to the family tree.
Happy New Year!
It seems that about this time of year I’m stunned with the fact that another year has gone by. I take stock and wonder if I’ve done enough, or if there was something that I would have done differently, and attempt to set resolutions for the coming year.
This year begins the tenth anniversary of the Heycuz newsgroup, and as I peruse the 19,488 messages and counting, made by Heycuz members since December 2, 1998, I’m overwhelmed. It occurred to me that I can trace the major ups and downs of my personal life just reading our messages. It reminds me that we don’t have just an online newsgroup about genealogy but a huge extended family.
I’m so thankful that you’ve been a part of my life. I can be as emotional as the next gal, but when reading over the messages, I get unusually chocked up. One moment, I’ll be laughing about cousin Gale Ford’s experience with a bull in a cemetery and the next I’ll recall the grief we all felt when James Bradford admitted how difficult the holidays were for him since his beloved wife Kathy had passed. I can “hear” the excitement in our voices when reading the messages about our Heycuz reunion or the Harp cemetery trip and their unorthodox use of dousing rods.
Over the years, we’ve lost cousins and gained new ones. We’ve welcomed new grandchildren and babies. We’ve shared jokes and family stories. In addition, we’ve shared a lot of research. In case, you’re interested you can access the Heycuz archives online at Yahoo groups, if you’re a member of Heycuz. I also have saved a copy of every message on a CD. If you have Microsoft Access, or if you can handle a csv file, I can send you a copy of the archives.
Just to think it all started when a couple of us cousins wanted an easier way to share our research without having to remember to copy all the others in our emails. Still, it seems like there’s so much still to do.
And yet, I’m baffled on how to begin a list of resolutions for Heycuz: There’s brick walls we need to overcome, plans for another reunion, organizing photos and sources, and so much more. Here are some of my genealogy resolutions for the upcoming year:
Getting Organized: One year, I had a hard drive failure and ever since then I’ve become the backup queen. Unfortunately, now I have drawers and boxes of CDs, DVDs, clippings, census records, notes, deeds, etc. I’ve swung too far in the other direction. I need to put them into some manageable order so that I can find anything.
Go to the Family History Center: Ever since we moved, I have not yet been back to an LDS family history center, even though there’s supposedly one in our town. There are also other local resources I want to check out.
Make a schedule: It seems that I’m letting events of my life run me, when it should be the other way around. It feels like I’m jumping from one unplanned event to the next without rhyme or reason. I feel like I’m constantly just putting out fires. I need to set down and figure out a plan, a schedule, where I can actually say on such and such a day of the month, I’m going to work on something specific. For example, I will work on a specific brick wall in my family tree on the second and fourth Tuesdays for one hour minimum.
Anyway, I’d be very interested in hearing your goals for Heycuz. What direction would you like to see Heycuz go? Do you have any genealogy resolutions?
Finally, I want to wish a very happy new year to all of my cousins. May each of us find just what (whom) we’re looking for in 2009!
Your Cuz,
April
Merry Christmas Cousins!
They say that every seven seconds or so, the phrase ‘Merry Christmas” is posted on the internet. Well let me join in on the Chorus and wish all of you a very, merry Christmas!
Your cuz,
April
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Greetings and glad tidings ~
May this message find you well and thriving!
This season, we celebrate a lot of changes at heycuz.net.
Together, we have co-created a new wave of genealogy. Thank you for joining us on this amazing journey, for sharing your family stories, your research, your special moments, and your heart-breaking losses, for the honor of witnessing what happens when we collectively choose to preserve our family’s heritage.
In deep appreciation I offer this prayer to YOU *
May your brilliance be reflected in the eyes of all you meet.
May the blessings of Life be felt in thought, word and deed.
May you drink deeply from Wisdom’s cup.
May you see the gift in every challenge, the sacred in every step.
May laughter roll your belly as you delight in Creation’s mystery.
May you breathe freely, Love deeply, rejoice wildly and create
passionately.
May you be at peace, whether your bowl be empty or full.
May the Light of Love shine brightly upon your soul.
May you listen deeply within, faithfully heeding the guidance of Spirit.
May you wake to dream each day, remembering NOW is all there IS.
May you feel the energy of co-creation flowing through each hand.
May you remember to honor and give thanks for our Motherland!
May you experience the bliss of a well-lived day …
Forgiving ignorance; releasing regret, guilt or shame.
May you be sovereign, and to thine own Self be true.
May you remember each person makes a difference …
… and that person is YOU!
Many blessings always and all ways … Thank you From your Cuz, April
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