My Tangent - My Rear Window

Early Morning,

Of late I’m beginning to feel like Jimmy Stewart of his character L. B. "Jeff" Jeffries in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. It’s the compartmentalization that I’ve transgressed to; my genealogy and my quilt designs. There are many stories going on, developing, and even though I am a participant, I am sitting across the courtyard just peering in.

Each of my searches and treks in my genealogy work has taken on a life of its own. My Transcription Project in the search for the origins and ancestry of my ggg-grandfather James Smith has become an ultimate fixation. Each new, albeit old, document allows itself to unwind, presenting facts and figures of days gone by. Each tangent entices me to follow its trail to seek its subtle answer.

Tonight I discovered four new July ancestors...

Hallelujah to the introduction of my five-times great grandparents and two of their offspring, a gggg-granduncle and a gggg-grandaunt. I also uncovered the marriage registration of my great-great-great-great grandparents July, which of course, now satisfies a number of the questions which have confused my search and progression back in time. Check back for the details.

Another window is the email question I received a couple of weeks ago. The question is a pondering as to whether my Uncle Jim Robertson may have been the birth father of a ardent ancestor searcher. I can’t answer this question as yet but the trek and opening into the mystery of this realm certainly has got my mind racing. In such a search, question after question has to be asked... and who knows what we may discover, just around the corner. Does the Y-DNA have the answer?

As each piece of each puzzle unfolds, I sit and observe as Jimmy Stewart,as the disabled Jeff, stares out of his apartment window, puzzling at the stories befitting each and every of his distant neighbors. The fabric of the lives of my ancestors become living stories as does each of the quilt projects that we take on. The courtyard of the stories continue.

After this weekend two quilts, OP Angel and the Isle of The Misfits Toys will be delivered to their new homes. Christmas gifts of warmth and cheer.

The design and reflection of the North Carolina waves lapping the shores are the workings of a new bargello creation on the dining room table. The choice of fabrics are now taking their places. The coupled hearts electronically delivered.

Another new composition, the Bai Jia Bei, a gift of 100 Wishes begins to formulate as a trail of red thread weaves its way into the life of a child and family. And the pieces of OP Ornament drape in strips on the long-arm waiting their piecing to completion.

I am that Jeff Jeffries, the Jimmy Stewart. And I am the participant.

Regards, stay tuned, and enjoy.

Jim