Barking up a Storm....

That's all I am up to these days - a good ole barking.... the doctor put me on so many new drugs, inhalers, and steroids, ughhh, on top of I have a nebulizer and have to have 4 breathing treatments a day.  So far, I have had 3 treatments today, started my new medicines, and I have been sitting here for an hour catching up on some tv shows I love, and I haven't barked once...  The doctor promised me that in 48 hours I will feel 90-100% better.  I'd say I'm at 40% right at this moment, and I'm afraid to move or do anything in the event I go back to 0%....

Right now we're having a really fantastic thunder and lightening storm....

Last night I made the mistake of watching the UK's version of "Who Do You Think You Are" with Brendan O'Carroll (Mrs. Brown) and he researched the murder/assassination of his grandfather... it broke my heart - his grandfather was assassinated because he would not force his two sons to surrender - so the murderous Auxillary thugs came to his house and shot him dead - an old man who ran a hardware store in Dublin and was not a member of the IRA and who could not in his heart turn his children in knowing they'd be executed... his life for theirs....  Then I watched Julie Walters who traced her family back to Ireland as well and found out that her family had stood up to the tyrannical landlord, an aristocrat from England known for his arrogance, his attrocious behavior and actions as a landlord, etc., who stole from and starved out his tenants... they risked imprisonment and punishment, including her grandmother - I read about these women who were always made out to be meek and tolerant - just cleaning house and popping out babies- and the truth is they were tough as nails and forces to be reckonned with!

When I started working on my own geneology, I had been told by a few relatives I'd have lots of Irish and Scottish relatives. But, no, that's not the case.... my family came over on both my paternal and maternal side during the Mayflower days, Pre-Revolutionary times. (There is an Irish wife here and there) There were the English that came over and settled in New York and were very political and influential, educated families with bloodlines to the Lancasters, and there were the scholarly and educated Germans that came over and settled in the South because at the time in Germany they were persecuted for their political and religious beliefs, as well as, they were promised lands so fertile for farming that their families would never be without - and so, my Lutheran German ancestors made the move over, fighting in battles, such as The Battle of Kings Mountain, and settling into North Carolina where there are monuments and statues of my ancestors throughout the counties they lived in and prospered.  There were those that we thought were German, that turned out to be Dutch... the spelling of the name being changed over the years through transfers of deeds and agreements as they moved from the East coast on a wagon train to Indiana.  The names are spelled differently which would differentiate whether German or Dutch, but they are pronounced exactly the same... so it ended up our Dutch ancestors were always thought to be German due to mispellings... My great grandfather was supposed to have been from a Scottish family, nobody knew, or could answer about the heritage - they are Welsh! It amazes me that my ancestors came over on diseased ridden ships, low on food, no potable water, people dying from horrible diseases from the living conditions in close quarters on those ships, and yet my family made those trips and didn't die, didn't get sick, and even made the trip back and forth to bring over wives and children they left behind... 

The only sad part of it all is that I cannot share any of this with my great grandmother - I know that she would have taken such an interest, she'd have been in disbelief to know about the family she was born into... I really wish I could have found all this out during her lifetime.  Sometimes I think the drive I had to do all the genealogical work and solving mysteries was for her, and her alone.