To my horror, I noticed yesterday that all the photos in this blog....ALL...were missing. Gone! I fretted over this development for 24 hours. As I was trying to recall what might have happened to cause this, I went back to the most recent photo I had posted on the blog. It was still visible in my photo folder and was named "Picasa". Only by a stroke of luck was it named that. I had created a collage for the photo in the photo editing program "Picasa" so when I uploaded it to my hard drive it kept that name. And then when I read the name, I remembered my ancient Picasa albums and remembered that I had changed the privacy setting on them too, just a few days ago. And since my Picasa photos are automatically transferred into Google+, I realized that by changing the privacy setting to "Private" I removed them from visibility in my blog! With one click they were back and I was relieved!
NOW...to the point of this story. I had considered deleting my G+ account, but hadn't done it yet. I'm learning that I just need to quit changing things! This morning I saw this post in the DearMyrtle Community at Google+.
In my RootsMagic database I have this family group, colored red because they are my direct ancestors on my mother's father's line.
I went to the site Debbie had posted and I searched for digital collections in McHenry County, Illinois. I found this paragraph about Henry McMillan:
Henry McMillan, one of the native sons of McHenry County, and a successful farmer of Nunda Township, was born on the old McMillan farm, in Nunda Township, just east of the one he now owns, March 21, 1882. His father, Andrew T. McMillan, was also born in Nunda Town ship, a son of Samuel McMillan. Samuel McMillan was born in the state of New York, where he was married to Jane Ann Wilson, and in 1836 they came to Illinois, settling in Nunda Township, and entering 160 acres of land. There they both died. Andrew T. McMillan was reared in Nunda Township, where he was married to Marian A. Wicker, a native of Vermont, a daughter of Benjamin Wicker. They had the following children: Emma, Charles and Benny, deceased; Henry, Frank Ray; and Earl. Andrew T. Mc Millan was a farmer and owned eighty acres of land, on which Henry McMillan now lives, and sixty-eight acres across the road which was the homestead. He was a Republican, but not active in politics. His death occurred when he was sixty-eight years old. Henry McMillan attended the district schools and learned to be a practical farmer under his father's instruction. On July 2, 1903, Mr. McMillan was married to Bessie C. Hoffman, who died May 29, 1916, leaving her family desolate, for hers was a noble, Christian character, and she was beloved by them and the whole neighborhood. Mr. and Mrs. McMillan had the following children: Eva and Neva, twins; Mark; Glenn; Vera and Nellie, all of whom are at home. Mr. McMillan belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America, and his wife belonged to the Royal Neighbors.
Source: http://libsysdigi.library.illinois.edu/oca/Books2008-06/historyofmchenry/historyofmchenry02chic/historyofmchenry02chic_djvu.txt
So here's my point. Since I had NOT closed my Google+ account this week as I had considered, and since I have my account set to be notified of posts to the DearMYRTLE Genealogy Community in my Gmail, I saw the recent posting of Debbie Mieszala that DearMyrt shared. I was able to learn of a great new resource for my McHenry County, Illinois ancestors and I found new information on my cousin Henry McMillan. I find old obituaries quite interesting in the way they're written too. "Henry McMillan learned to be a practical farmer under his father's instruction." We don't find that kind of description about our relatives in documents that only tell us dates and places!
1 comment:
Dearest Becky - like my grandmother used to say - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Congratulations on some great finds!
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