About My Site

Hello visitor! If you're a returning visitor - welcome back! This site is a redesign of one I had a few years back. Hackers got into the that one and I had to recreate from scratch. I also used to have a separate site for http://www.braniffs.ws - although I haven't done much in the way …

Tracing Canadian Vanderport

Back about 15 years ago when my maternal grandmother was clearing out photo albums, prepping for her move into a senior's care centre, she pulled out a photo of a man and handed it to my aunt. My aunt, her daughter, passed it along to me along with the note that he was grandma's biological …

Hosmer genealogy FB group

Earlier this week I was contacted by a previously unknown Hosmer cousin. It turns out she's from my 3rd great-grandfather John Hosmer's first marriage to Sarah Maliss Green. After exchanging a bit of info on FB Messenger, I decided to create a new FB group that will allow us and other cousins interested in the …

Website plans

I'm slowly working on design changes for my genealogy database website. Progress is slow due to the facts that I've been busy building a website for a client, plus my gardening & yard work. I did inherit some of my parents, grandparents, great GPS talent for gardening. I'd say my thumb is semi-green as I'm …

Estacaille submission to 23andMe DNA

I took advantage of the recent Fathers Day sale at 23andMe.com to order another DNA kit, to give it a spin. I just submitted it this week my mail, and will post an update here and on my Facebook group once I see the results. I did order the ancestry & health reports kit, out …

More DNA tests

Two weeks ago, my parents DNA tests results were finally active on Ancestry. I find it takes about 6 weeks from the time it's mailed before results are available. Anyway, I spent part of my Sunday evening logging into their accounts, printing the reports and connecting their profiles to the tree I have built of …

Family connections: July 12-25

A bit of family news this past week or so. I received in the mail earlier this month a nice letter from a Hosmer cousin, Sharon. We hadn't corresponded before, but I have exchanged letters in the past with her mom who due to health issues no longer writes. I've written back by snail mail …

Lost family discovered by DNA

A few months prior to my adopted brother's death, I had purchased a DNA kit for him as an early birthday gift. He got to see the results of that kit just a month prior to the accident that contributed to his death. Fortunately in 1997 he had written to the BC Ministry of Social …

The growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I'm reading today an article in AFP about the latest measurements of the Pacific garbage patch between Hawaii and California https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/pacific-plastic-dump-far-larger-feared-study-doc-12z3po3 Let me think about where all this garbage is coming from... no big secret it's from messy humans... probably some of it will still be remnants of the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.  …

Updated database online

Yep! I finally did it! I've had to move my blog off my domain due to my hosting plan no longer being able to handle a WordPress installation.  I was willing to upgrade to at least the basic WordPress hosting package, but my host kept pushing for an upgrade to dedicated VPS - that was …

Lucy Maud Montgomery – bio

In honor of International Women's Day on March 8th, the website - Canadian Encyclopedia - is featuring an "Heritage Minute" on Simpson cousin, author Lucy Maud Montgomery.  How many of you have read one of her books? Great-aunt Bernie (nee Estacaille) was a fan of the Anne of Green Gables books, and was even re-reading …