Anyone On Facebook?

[Beekissed]

Exactly. When I first got a FB account I was getting 40 friend requests a week, mostly from people I had went to school with but hadn't talked to or with for 20 yrs. I had lived in the same town as many of these people for nine years and they didn't look me up or even talk to me when they saw me out in the public, but suddenly they wanted to "friend" me?

I figured out pretty quickly that they just wanted to see how I had aged, as they kept asking for pictures of me. Shallow...meaningless....time wasting FB. I posted a message to old school chums that I had aged poorly, was overly fat and unattractive, that I had seen all their pics and they were definitely looking better than I was at this age, so they could rest easy. Never got another friend request from any old school mates after that.

I agree with you about the rewiring of the brains...just look at some of the comments under that vid where it's posted on YT. Incredibly offensive towards the fella in the vid and towards people who feel the same.

The other day I was posting on my own forum about finally getting to show my grandgirl the playhouse I had been building for her and someone said not to forget to video her first reaction to it. You kiddin???? I was too busy watching her face in real time to bother with a video camera!!! You can't get those moments back, not even with a video...it's just not the same as real life.

 

[PennyJo]

that is so true.. I do not very often go on FB much with Mom in the
nursing home all I do go and tell my cousins how she is I have 3,4,5
cousins I do not know I have there phone numbers now so may give up FB
for good

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I got Facebook to keep up with DD. She takes a lot of pictures and fun to see. She has a cell phone and I don't so she can text me from Facebook. I will ask her when she is getting off work and can she get this or that at the store. She will just out of the blue during the day ask how i am and what we are doing. DS just got Facebook too. I am the same with the land line phone. I have mostly church friends on my friend list and talking about ancestry, I joined ancestry.com last winter and my cousin found me. Our dads are brothers. He has traced our family back to Robert the Bruce. I joined several crocheting groups that have free patterns, a couple of gardening things. I read fast and scroll. I have not unfollowed or unfriended anybody, but my best friend has a couple of kids that post some things I hide and if it was from a website I do not like then I hide all from them. I have lived through all the political stuff so far. We do not have television, so we watch old movies and right now I have a page open to a crochet pattern I am working on with a video, and Facebook texting with my friend in Kansas who should be in bed right now and came here to see what is going on.

 

[digitS']

This talk of cousins reminds me of what one of my cousins did to share with the family. She posted old pictures on Shutterfly. Scans of old documents are there, too. That was nice.

I'm not sure about any chat features. We can all post on threads relative to photos or albums. Shutterfly notifies us when that is done. Direct Messaging is through Shutterfly's email service.

I have two families of Mormons amongst my cousins. That is a help with ancestry. The connection with aunts and uncles is a through a generation that has passed. The cousins, nearly all are elderly people. Some are in their eighties.

The cousin who set up the photo site did a good job connecting nearly all of us. There were 9 aunts and uncles in that family so there are/were lots of cousins. There have been some old stories and some mysteries sorted out. When those interested had done that, conversation fell away, unfortunately.

I have a question about one uncle. I don't think it will prompt more than one or two responses so I'll just DM the administrator cousin. That uncle's children have never posted and I have no contact information. I haven't seen anyone of the three in 40+ years and their father died about 25 years ago. Connections ... are they important enough to maintain? I guess I won't know if I don't reach out and try.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Most of my first cousins are in their 80s. The one that found me is 70. I found a first cousin female who is 80 plus and she had pictures of herself and husband back from vacation and I was amazed how good she looked. Her mother died in her 80s and had a lot of health problems and our grandmother in 80s and health problems. I started tracing people from tombstone information also. You can leave a message, picture and flowers on the site. It is called Find A Grave. I I posted a picture of my grandfather I never knew who died in 1918, flowers and a message, and a few other relatives who are long gone. I have more in common with my dead relatives than the live cousins I am finding.

 

[digitS']

I have used Find a Grave.

That was how I learned that the auntie who raised my grandfather was married to a Confederate Civil War veteran. It confirmed that his brother had the given name of Choctaw.

On the other side of my family, my grandmother was a twin. After her sister died at age six, in the same year as another sister had died, the family packed up and moved West, homesteading here. The sisters left behind in Missouri have matching tombstones.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

What a name, Choctaw! I have a lot of Civil War relatives too. Any idea why the sisters died in the same year. I was always told my grandfather died of emphysema, which he did have, but he died in 1918 and wonder if he got the flu that year.

 

[digitS']

In 1918 ... the "Spanish" flu. An additional cost of WW1

I have no idea about the sisters. The twin, my grandmother said that "she didn't seem to want to live." I think that was just a six year old trying to make sense of why she lost her sister.

Her mother wrote a letter about her life during her final years but she only mentioned the loss. Much of that letter was relating the difficulties experienced after her father died, when she was a child.

She "married a man of her own choosing," in time. It makes me wonder how often 19th century marriages were arrangements rather than the decisions of the bride and groom. The letter was probably written just after enactment of the amendment on women voting.

Steve

 

[so lucky]

Steve, where in Missouri were the sisters buried?
It amazes me to see the number of infant and small child graves in the old cemeteries around here.
And I have seen graveyards where there are more than one child death in the family the same year. No doubt the flu or other contagious disease.

 

[digitS']

They were in what almost became a town, @so lucky .

Near Jamesport ... in northwest Missouri

The young couple first lived in Joplin, after marrying in 1879. My grandmother was born 10 years later.

Steve