Touching on My Ancestry

Another frigid day, but at least I am now able to access the interior of the backyard toolshed for some exercising. The door lock to the shed had been frozen; but better than a full day after a fairly thorough dosing of the lock's insides with WE-40 on Monday afternoon did the trick, for I discovered late yesterday afternoon that the key was finally able to unlock the door.

It was too dark by then to do any proper exercising, but around 10 a.m. today I did go out to the shed and finally resumed my toolshed exercising after at least a five-day layoff.

My wife has not had to work today, so I have limited blogging time. Also, this is a bath day; and that along with some further exercising that I wish to engage today also require time that I refuse to yield over to blogging.

Ere my younger brother left around 3:15 p.m. ─ he daily removes himself for the afternoon to get in some drinking away from home, and returns in the early or middle evening ─ I tuned in a movie that he got to watch maybe 15 minutes of. It was the genre of movie that he would otherwise have bitched at me for tuning in during our regular viewing time, and for which he would have thereafter sulked throughout its progression.

Well, I broke off from the movie once he left, and I will resume it at 8 p.m., or as soon as I become cognizant that he is arriving home ─ whichever occurs earliest. We shall see which of these scheduled resumptions hold sway, for it is only 3:57 p.m. as I type these words.

Since I have yet to watch the movie, I am not going to identify it. The movie was of course made available via certain apps that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box. Since I will finish watching it later today, I fully anticipate reporting on it to some degree in a post tomorrow.

I want now to speak something concerning my great-grandmother Sarah Anne née Bird. 

Only back in August did I obtain the last link proving something I had never known before, but which I had become aware of earlier this year. Actually, there were two rather huge discoveries.

The first major discovery was that despite tracing my paternal ancestrage potentially back to the 1500s in France, I can see absolutely no connection to anyone in Spain. I am 72 years old, and all of my life have believed that my ancestors came to North America from Spain, for this is what my father always maintained.

And so the possibility exists that there is no Spanish connection to my line whatsoever ─ it has always been French.

The second major discovery is that my great-grandmother's father's parents were the mixed blood ultimate descendants of 'Indian' or Native American ancestors.

Her father was Thomas bird, born February 9, 1843 in Manitoba. 

Thomas's father was also named Thomas Bird, born March 10, 1815 in Alberta; and his mother was Ellen Helen McDermott.

Thomas Bird senior was a son of the historical James Curtis Bird; and his mother was Elizabeth Montour, identified as being Swamp Cree. She was born around 1779 in Alberta.

Both of Elizabeth's parents were of Native American stock, for her mother was named something like Oo-Meria-How-ish, born around 1775; and her father ... oh, this is consuming too much time.

If anyone has any interest in this genealogy, contact me. I may eventually blog in more detail about it, but I just do not have the time now ─ it is already 4:45 p.m., and I have yet to exercise or bathe.