description

My own life and my opinions are shared at When I was 69.

REMEMBER: In North America, the month of September 1752 was exceptionally short, skipping 11 days, when the Gregorian Calendar was adapted from the old Julian one, which didn't have leap year days.

Saturday, August 9, 2025

Families through history

 Housing forms of Indigenous North Americans




A house in Texas at the turn of the last century

A jacal in San Benito, Texas circa 1905


a Delaware-Lenape Tribe longhouse outside


a Delaware-Lenape Tribe longhouse inside


by Carl Mydans around 1936 for the Farm Security Administration





Annie Oakley


by Dorothea Lange, May 1942 Woodland, California.
 Families of Japanese ancestry with their baggage at railroad station awaiting the arrival of special train which will take them to the Merced Assembly center, 125 miles away.


American documentary photographer and photojournalist, Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), photographed in 1965 by American photographer, Ansel Adams (1902-1984).

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Today's quote:


Emily Dickenson

The bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially.

The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play.
Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
Wherefore, O summer's day?

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For this week's Sepia Saturday 


Host Alan Burnett says this:
It's a sad state of affairs when you are so old you become a Sepia Saturday prompt. Nevertheless, that is me in the centre of the picture - not the one with the long ears, but the little cute chap taking his first ride on a seaside donkey. I don't look too thrilled at the prospect, and, if truth be told, neither does the donkey. However, like the brave little soldier I was, I posed for the photograph in the knowledge that it would come in useful over three quarters of a century later as a Sepia Saturday prompt. Find in it what you will - cute little chaps, donkeys with big ears, seaside sands ... or whatever. Whatever old photograph of your own it brings to mind, share it on or around Saturday 9th August 2025 and add a link to the list below. And here is a reminder of what is to come for the rest of the month.

 

Launched in 2009, Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind (they don't have to be sepia) become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, all we ask is that your sign up to the weekly Linky List, that you try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and that you have fun.

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I always had great love of horses, ponies...but very seldom had any experience of them. A photo was taken of me as a little tot on one. A trail ride as a teen through a park once. Lots of horse adventure books growing up however, and once TV westerns came along, I was smitten. The 60s were certainly full of cowboys for entertainment.

The old photo of cowgirl me and my little sister:

I was 3-1/2 and Mary was 4 months  old.



Thursday, August 7, 2025

Roger of Sicily -sources

Text available here:

https://archive.org/details/hubert-houben-roger-ii-of-sicily-a-ruler-between-east-and-west-2002/page/n15/mode/2up?view=theater (originally in German 1907) 200

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Roger_II_of_Sicily/Duwowbx1vuQC?hl=en&gbpv=1 (1997)

seems a duplicate


Alchemy of Clay's articles:

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/normandy-and-sicily-for-rogers-roots.html

And:

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/sir-roger-de-hauteville.html

And:

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/roger-ii-king-of-sicily.html

and...

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/from-sicily-to-england.html

and

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/those-normans-in-italy.html

and

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/sir-john-fitz-roger-13867-4-oct-1441.html

and

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/06/our-rogers-ancestress-dame-elizabeth-de.html



New source about Roger II of Sicily

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Roger_II_of_Sicily/Duwowbx1vuQC?hl=en&gbpv=1

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Roger, King of Sicily and others

Looking at the earliest records of the Rogers family tree, I find oh so many errors. Dates where a husband was born after the woman he supposedly married had died, etc!

This is a historic video of rulers of Europe from 200 bc to 2017 current era. 


I was particularly interested in the King of Sicily, Roger I. He's supposedly an ancestor of ours.

But my family tree has the dates all wrong, according to the time-line here. 

After the fall of Rome, for many years (centuries) various Arabic/Moor names were heads of Sicily. (see very bottom on map)

Then in 1072, Roger I is the King of Sicily (and other areas also perhaps)

I've captured several more years after that, as kingdoms of Sicily changed.
Roger I of Sicily, Roger Borsa southern Italy

Simon of Sicily, Roger Borsa some of southern Italy.

Roger II, Sicily, Roger Borsa of southern Italy.
Roger II

Roger II


Guillaume I

Guillaume II


No more "Rogers'" but Tancred I.

Someone in my ancestry has linked these Sicilian kings with the English Rogers. Interesting stuff.