LOL, Daisy! What a good idea (the bribing, I mean...)! Thank you all for your thoughtful posts. Honestly, though I get irritated about feeling thwarted sometimes, I really value his opinion. Especially when he saves me from making mistakes. Like yesterday, for example. I "eyeballed" the bunk beds, which so many of you know from experience is ALWAYS a mistake. DH went to see them later, with a tape measure... and the bottom bed would have blocked off half of DS's little room. I hate it when he's right, but at the same time, I would have really hated hauling all that furniture home and setting it up, only to find that it either doesn't really fit or takes the whole room over... Hence the title of this post. Feeling very embarrassed for having taken up bandwidth on this... hope the discussion was interesting, at least. And BTDT moms who posted about being glad that they had cheapo pine bunkbeds the kids could, ahem, "personalize" -- thank you for your insights, very useful. TO the other warnings: thanks, you guys, I know you're right, and I know the disadvantages of bunkbeds, and am not looking forward to making that top bunk at all. But right now the kids adore each other and DS2 would actually sleep better at night knowing his wonderful big brother could protect him from the monsters. Sigh. Back to looking! Have a good Friday, all...

DH's aunt was Frances Geary, Mrs. John Richard Geary. She was very close freinds with Adele Hankey. We still keep in contact with Adele once in a while. Frances was born Frances Gertrude C. 21 Aug. 1916. Married John Richard Geary 22 Sept. 1945. Died 29 November 2001. There are many pictures we assume were of friends and their families and LOTS of newspaper clippings, some whole pages, maybe whole papers. Frances was probably born in either Walnut, KS or St. Paul, MN. I don't currently have that info. Some of the names I listed above are in the pictures I have, but to our knowlege. per her sister, they are not related to us. Tami

Thank you all for the many responses! I was out all yesterday, but didn’t make it to the library. I thought I'd get there today, but the weather is keeping me home. Adellabedella, they had children, and I was able to track the two sons. But the other five were all girls. Thanks so much for the Chronicling America link. I used that a lot years ago, but had lost the bookmark in a computer change. I love that site, even if I’m not looking for anything specific. Those newspapers have numerous references to my grandparents, opera singers who performed all over the country. Rusty, it’s true that the Ellis Island site starts a year later than what I was looking for, but it’s a great site and I’m glad to know about it—thanks! I discovered FamilySearch recently, which is where I found the Census reports. I remember years ago not many of these were available. Lindsey, I'm always interested in the knowledge you share. I had no clue about Italian and German names. Seniorgal, our local Historical Society has a nice genealogy section, but all my family came from NYC. I'm sure the city has excellent resources, but it's a little vast. (That must be an oxymoron.) lol I haven't lived there in years. As some of you know, I’m a volunteer gravestone photographer for FindAGrave. Yesterday I happened upon FAG memorial pages for two of my children’s ancestors, and asked that management of the pages be transferred to me. I was happy to send the links to my kids and granddaughter. It’s funny that my 26-year-old granddaughter has a strong interest in family history that I thought she wouldn’t develop until much later. Thanks again!

I have gone back to the early 1600's for my family but it took years of searching the internet without using any paid sites but with help from others who did. Two of the family names i was searching for any info on were my English Booth, Chase and Hulley or Hooleys. Any tme I typed anything into the search bar with Booth or Chase surname the results were people who had info on or wanted to say they were related to John Wilkes Booth or people who were related to the Chase's of New York and the search for the Chase fortune. Neither of those were my Chase's or Booth's. I didn't have access to any paid sites at the time. I posted on a geneaolagy message board asking someone to help me find info on my Booth family. Because I knew my Grandfather's brother was adopted by a Booth Aunt after his mother died after giving birth to him someone was able to find all my Booths from the census. Wonderful, that brick wall fell. I think he got the family back to the late 1600's. I also posted once on a message board years ago I was looking for info on my Grandfather's English family. I received a message back and the person said we were looking for one of the same people. She said her 80 year old Mother was my Dad's cousin and she remembered him coming to England during WW2 when he was in the Navy and on leave while the shipped docked in Liverpool went to visit their family and he brought citrus fruit, candy and other food that had been rationed. They they called me on the telephone. My 3rd cousin was also doing our family tree and with our combined info we have gotten pretty far. I sent all kinds of old family pictures to her Mom and she was just thrlled and she was thrilled again when I gave her all the Booth info. Sadly Mary died but I still keep in touch with her daughter. I posted one of my recent finds on my Grandfather's family on the Anglophile thread. My Dad's Mom's Chase family was really hard to find without going to paid sites. I didn't even know where they came from except somewhere in Lancashire. My Dad's Mom and her sisters and her parents eventually all emigrated to Canada so I don't think anyone is left over in the UK that I know of. A family member gave me some books of old postcards that belonged to my Grandfather thinking I might like them. What a genealogical gold mine. I found out my Dad's Mom and her family were from Bury and Rochdale in Lancashire. I also found out my Grandfather emigrated to the US first before he ended up in Canada. He landed on Ellis Island so I went to that site and found his ship listing. I never knew that. I laughed when the ship listing said he was going to visit his Uncle J.W. Booth in New Jersey, but thankfully not that JW Booth. I was at the library one day having access to the library Ancestry and I typed in my Chase Great Grandfather's name and this Chase family tree appeared and it listed my Dad's Mom and her parents and sisters. Another brick wall solved. I have been trying to contact the owner of the tree on Ancestry but she hasn't answered my messages so I don't know if she is alive or not. I was just thrilled to find that. I haven't been back to the library to print up that family tree. I think one of the Chase members that ended up in Ireland way back might have been from France - possibly Huguenots that had to leave France. I still have more checking to do on that side. My Mom's Scottish family was difficult to find any info as well because of no access to paid sites. I couldn't find any info for years. My cousin called me and said our Mother's cousin Jimmy passed away so I went online to the funeral home in Michigan which was owned by my Grandfather's brother's family to send my condolences and to say who I was and that I had been wanting to talk to him about our family history. A few weeks later I had be using the libraries Ancestry access at home and I came across a family tree with pictures. I was pretty sure one of the pictures was my Scottish Grandfather but the info listed with the picture was wrong. I kept looking at that picture and knew I had seen it before in a frame at my Grandparents but the info just didn't match. I finally contacted the owner and told them I think you have the wrong picture or the info was wrong on Andrew. That same day I found that family tree I heard the I heard the mailman put something in my mailbox so I went to get the mail It was a large white envelope with a lot of US stamps and postmarked Florida. I opened it up and to my surprise it was the family tree I was just looking at on Ancestry. What a coincidence. I think I stirred up the family ghosts that brought this to me. My 3rd cousin who I never knew about and was the funeral home owner saw my condolences on Jimmy's online obit. So he sent me his family and my Mom's family tree to me. It was huge. I found out my Great Grandmother's family name was Berry or Barry and she was from Ireland as were most of my Grandfather's family. I think my Great Grandfather's family was originally Scottish but ended up in Ireland somehow. I think they were sheep poachers haha. Here we were all thinking we were totally English and Scottish and now I find we have more Irish in us than either of those. Now I have 2 new cousins living close to me in Michigan I didn't know about and we are now connected on FB and the family resemblance to my Aunt Elsie is remarkable. I haven't been able to find much on my Mom's Grandparent's from Scotland, the Paul's and my Great Grandmother her maiden name was McLauglan. Sorry this has been so long, I am just fascinated by genealogy and finding those little bits of info on family members from the past.