h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Weedkiller, even. I can't type today.

I'm in a bad mood. I'm getting a bit tired of people saying 'all the information's on Facebook' and then not doing anything to give me any information when I point out that I'm not on Facebook. So I'm grumpy. Maybe I should go and do something offline instead.

Facebook is evil. I use it for playing a game. But then I don't really like people anyway and I don't really want to be in touch etc. Or maybe it's the season.

I don't like people much either, and I feel I have enough contact with them as it is. The rest of the family's the same, so this must be genetic. (And the season doesn't matter; I'm like this all the time.)

There's always some season.

Whatever the season, I shall just have to weather it.

I have to break up some more concrete today. With any luck I won't hurt myself. Please wish me luck...

And how did it go?

I didn't hurt myself, and I now have a garden covered in broken concrete. One of my colleagues will help me remove it all, one day, so he says. I wonder when this will happen. In the meantime, it looks like a scale model of Gaza out there.

Exciting! I had a most stressful day spent of shoeshopping. It was a success though.

Have you ever come across a website geni.com? It's getting more and more popular here.

I've never heard of geni.com before. It does look interesting, especially if it is genuinely private...

I bought a suit yesterday, the first suit I've had since 1973. I must be an adult after all.

A suit? Sounds almost scary. And now? Are you going to wear it?

As about privacy, I have a profile there, go and search my name and you'll see how much is public.

I can't find any way to search for you on there.

Anyway. The Suit. At the end of the month I have to go to a formal dinner with my boss and lots of other people like that. I have no choice but to wear a suit, which is rather sad really.

Ah! A Formal Dinner. I see.

As for geni, you have to create a profile first, then you can search and all that. I must admit I haven't really checked all those privacy settings. So it's the default settings. People who are not in my family, can see only my direct family members. They cannot see who is my third cousin thrice removed (I will never get hold on that one).

It wants me to start entering my family's names and it doesn't show me anything else at all... How much detail do I have to put in before I get to set privacy settings?

Never mind, I've answered that question. And I've found my way to your profile before getting distracted by possibilities.

This is too odd. I've looked for my surname (of course) and I've found a lot of people with that name in Tallinn. But it's my *father's* name, and he wasn't even slightly Estonian.

Oh look, I've just spent an hour fooling about on that site. I can see where I'll be spending more time...

It's a good fun, I have found relatives I've never ever heard of, mostly because one of them is very much into genealogy. So I know a lot more than I did before.
We have this huge project here where they scanned tons of old church records and some people are very busy tracing relatives there. It's a huge work, methinks. And I am glad someone is doing it.

I'm very happy for someone else to do all the hard w*rk.

Sooner or later I'll have to decide how far to take things. I mean, there's uncertainty about who my grandfather was and there are a few other details on Dad's side that just aren't available, and I'm quite sure Mum wouldn't like the thought of me putting any sort of information online (so I won't tell her)...

I guess if you know your grandfather's place and date of birth, you may find something from the church books as well.

I don't know the full name of the man who's most likely to have been my grandfather. There were other candidates too... My grandmother didn't give anyone all the details, not even Mum. So I'd never be able to fill in that part of the chart.

But this is neither here nor there. I just closed my account out of pure annoyance. They weren't supposed to take my money just yet, but they did, so I closed my account. I am still interested in the site, though. I might come back one day. (I know, if I'm interested I should have stayed, but sometimes logic isn't part of the situation.)

There's also the issue that Mum really wouldn't be happy to have her details online. It's a bit hard to do a family tree without her details so I should probably wait until I can convince her that it's OK...

I still haven't signed up for the paid account.

Church records can be found here, but those are only up to the year 1926.
As about your mother, I have seen people using only initials or first name or just 'father' in some occasion, I think that's because some have very high privacy standards and some not.

Meanwhile, we're moving into winter here, yesterday it was snowing for few hours, today there's no trace of it but it's still cold, windy and not nice. I am supposed to be w*rking right now.