The McGregor & Mills Families

Well here it is, another 5 months since I updated the website.  Time flies when you are having fun, and so it seems when you become a senior.  It's hard to find time to do genealogy, spring has been quite busy.

We had a dishwasher develop a major leak that traveled out about 2 meters between 2 layers of flooring, so we ripped up both layers, and installed new flooring & dishwasher.  I pinched a door seal installing the dishwasher, that lead to a small leak on the new flooring, but I found my error and got it fixed.  The new flooring lead to doing the base boards, that lead to painting the walls that lead to a certain amount of drywall work.  Oh, for the good ole days, when I was a supervisor in the military, and could simply tell someone else to do it.

Jo's puter has had a glitch in it since new (Gateway by Acer).  It would periodically freeze or crash, but with nothing to indicate a specific problem. Our niece ran her diagnostic programs and found nothing.  Well the problem finally started to happen more often, and it finally died completely.  This is a good thing as we had an extended warranty from Future Shop.  Took it into them, and they replaced the motherboard.  We got it home and got 8 hours of use before it crashed again, and was dead a few hours later.  Back to FS, where they replaced the power supply that has an intermittent failure.  Got the puter home for a few more hours of use... you guessed it, died again.

It's still at FS waiting a new motherboard.  The most annoying thing is that Ancestry.UK had a free access weekend to the 1911 Census records, that she could not access.  Naughty little gremlins.

The Blaw... Blaw... Blaw
Due to spam, I will no longer display the email eddress below... Look in the little tree above.
It's genealogy at mcgregor-mills dot ca
Genealogy has become very popular and places like Ancestry.ca/com seem to be working overtime to compile databases. Searching on the internet has produced an abundance of data.. I sometimes wish that there were 2-3-4 or 5 of me to keep up. One for data entry, as I am not a typist; another for research, and one to keep the website updated, digitize newspaper articles, etc., check & reply to email and so on.
I updated our tree on the Ancestry.ca site a few days ago, for those who can access it. The benefit in this is the "Auto Search" function that compares those in our tree with other trees that people have also uploaded, and with the database on Ancestry. This certainly aids in finding data and has produced a few new contacts.
Now for the mind numbing stuff I put at the bottom of the page:
If you are considering upgrading to Windows 7, you should be aware that "Family History Resource Viewer 4.0" from the Mormon Church, which is used to view several Census Collections, such as 1881 Canada, 1881 GB and 1880 US, does not work on Windows or Vista 64 bit machines. While most other companies are trying to sort out compatibility issues, there appears that none are in the immediate future for this program. I have a laptop with Windows XP sitting next to my desktop with a few non-compatible programs installed.
Are you interested in dabbling in genealogy... like to try out a free genealogy program, then click on the RootsMagic Essentials 4 link at the bottom of the page. Enjoy.
Now for the mind numbing stuff I put at the bottom of the page: The cleanup and housekeeping that needs to be done, is being done again. This has resulted from the merger of data from other genealogists that, although compatible, sometimes results in a lot of duplicate data, as we had both entered data differently and the program could not merge everything. This results in duplicates in names, events, notes, etc..... I hope you get the picture.
All women are listed with their "Maiden Name". Where a maiden name is not known for a married woman, I use "*" behind the husband's surname. You will notice many changes in the Surname List on this website. Where we do not know a Husband's Surname, I will use the wife's surname followed by "*". You will also see *Child*, *Mother*, etc. where a surname isn't known. ie: Mrs Smith's maiden name is not known, so we will display her as Smith*. While this does not follow any genealogy protocol, it does make working with so many names a bit easier.
Given names are shown as: Margaret "Jo-Anne" McGregor, where Jo-Anne is the "common" given name; and a (nickname) is shown as: David (Knobby) Mills.
We have several emails that require answers and I will get to them in due time. I hope you understand the magnitude of this project and my poor typing abilities.
While we welcome the contacts, we also have a need to know who we are communicating with. That is why we ask for names, addresses and phone numbers. Our asking for your name, address & phone number is no less than what I provide on the bottom of this page. If you have concerns and would like a phone call from us, we have unlimited (Canada & US) long-distance.
There is only "ONE" fact for individuals in genealogy software that is used to link 2 people together, that being the "Marriage Fact". The Marriage Fact has to cover marriages, common law relationships, and to show parents of a child even if no marriage ceremony has taken place. If a person is showing with more than one spouse, but no divorce, it likely indicates that one was common-law or no divorce record for a marriage is know by us.
Where a child has resulted from a relationship, the father, if known will be listed as a spouse to the mother, even though denial of a relationship existed. To be fair to the child, the mother & father have to be shown, and the marriage fact is the only way to do that. The software, although extremely flexible, does have limitations.
If you are wanting to submit info on your family, there is a "Family Group Sheet" on the below links, that will make it easier to see what info we are looking for and to fill in the blanks, as none of us has all the data at our fingertips. While we request dates and places for all of lifes major events, rest assured that we do not post any of this info on this website for living people.
We are looking for copies of old family photo's. If you have one and can identify those in the photo, we would like to have a copy. We can post photo's of family members who have passed. The database in our RootsMagic has well over 1000 photos, mostly of documents and records which do not show on the website.
Till next update..... Cheers Dave & Jo

S Rioghal Mo Dhream - Nil conscire sibi

18 Jan 2012 Notes;
It's been a wee bit of time since the last update in Aug 2011. We went on a cross country drive, leaving home 24 Aug and getting back 11 Oct. (49 days/15000+ kms). We visited with a lot of Family & Friends, and visited all provinces west of NB and the US States of Maine, Mich., Wisc., Minn., N. Dakota, Idaho & Washington. On our return trip, we picked up an English couple in Vancouver and drove them to Toronto, to his brothers home. The Mrs. is a friend of Jo's from her working days, and they had flown in from Manchester to meet-up with us.

I seem to have had a number of computer/electronic glitches dumped on me, which has had an impact on getting any genealogy done. On the trip, our old faithful "Travelin' Laptop" DIED. I wasn't prepared, had no backup with us, so only had limited email for the majority of the trip, and none of our genealogy. After we got home, we had a lot to do to prepare for winter; THEN in early December, my desktop C Drive DIED. We were backed up, but the desktop was covered by warranty and I spent a frustrating 27 days waiting for Future Shop to get & install a Hard Drive. I got it home and my internal backup drive and all of my flash drives didn't show, so back to Future Shop, with a bit of an attitude showing. The desktop is home and I have all of the important programs reinstalled. I still do not have any flash drives, (waiting parts).

Installing software is a fairly slow process, install one or two, wait a day and make sure there are no hiccups... do a couple more. Almost there.

On the trip, my cell phone worked with the Bluetooth in the vehicle radio; but a few days after we got home, neither mine or Jo's phone would connect to the bluetooth... Hey, blame the radio, right. Dealer was real good and ordered a new radio... damn phones still wouldn't work. I bought a new cell phone and it works great now. It appears that Hyundai & Samsung bluetooth have problems. The new LG phone works 100%, and I give credit to Hyundai for trying to get things working.

Then this week, both the B&W Laser printer; and the Colour Laser printer both started acting up. I think the B&W was a software glitch, but the colour had to be opened up and all internal contacts cleaned with rubbing alcohol. Both working now.

Hey Samsung, the score is 2 cell phones and 1 printer, and I'm keeping score.