Sorry I disappeared, guys and gals.

So where have I been for the last two weeks?  Well it wasn't reading fanfiction so no rec posts.  No, I've been doing genealogical research for a family whose grandfather gave a different name on every single document in his entire life (1897-1969).  Every single document.  And it's not like they're completely random - they're all legitimate variations on, broadly speaking, the same name (but plenty different enough to baffle search engines and the casual searcher) so that takes talent.  He didn't repeat even once.  And that's with the surname staying the same (not that that was much help since it's a common one).  Creative fellow, I guess.  His family says he may have been super suspicious of the government so that could explain it.  Good grief it was hard to track him down though (which was probably his intent).  But I did it.  I now have a stack of printouts of census records and draft cards and death and burial records and his parents marriage records that I'm not sure the post office will accept crammed into a single 9x13 envelope. 

Also, Ancestry.com is evil.  I happen to think that stuff members post as public should be, you know, public.  But no.  They want you to buy a membership (which is expensive and apparently very difficult to cancel).  On top of that, you can't save copies of documents to your own tree while you're a paid member and then access them later when you cancel the membership - that would have been nice to know back when I had a membership.  And before you suggest a free trial - you have to give them a credit card and then they automatically charge it when the trial is up and, as I already said, site reviews report that its very difficult to cancel your membership, especially during the free trial period.  So yeah, I ended up doing a lot of searching on Ancestry and then having to google and familysearch for the same documents again.  What a pain.  But done now, I hope. 

So now I have to find some good fics.  It's a shame fancake has been slow lately.  It might take some time to come up with a new rec, but at least I'm back on it now so new recs should hopefully appear soon.



P.S.  Also, I have finished transcribing all 400 pages of the Lafeyette Squadron's flight log book (in French).  Because after a long day of squinting at census records I apparently wanted nothing more than to squint at the handwriting of a man who can't spell atterrir right, doesn't cross a single t when it falls at the end of a word, and likes to write three lines to the rule.  But on the plus side, my French is way better than it was when I started.  I can say "my machine gun jammed" and I now know half a dozen words for bullet, an unflattering name for Germans, that barrage balloons were called Drachens and zeppelins were called saucisses (sausages), plus I learned that the allied militaries first painted red crosses on the roofs of hospitals, ambulances, and hospital trains in August of 1917, and all sorts of other interesting if mostly useless facts.  Also, I learned several very unpleasant ways to die flying.  ... That came out sounding way more sarcastic than it did in my head.  It was actually really interesting reading and I wish there had been a bit more detail.  I might have to look into whether any of the pilots wrote memoirs of this time - I'd really like to read something like that.