Cluless No More!

I have an inside track to all genealogical mysteries. I can get clues in a moment! Want to know how? OK, I'll tell you. But first a story.

I love Kerry at Cluewagon. Her blog keeps me moving and she brings ups stuff I need to know about as a newbie. Heck, she is a good read for anyone. So I took some time I really don't have to read an old blog post about a genealogy psychic. Read it here:
http://www.cluewagon.com/2010/09/confession-i-hired-a-genealogy-psychic/
It's a two-parter and you really do need to read the whole thing... it's good stuff.

Was reading the comments to her post and someone mentioned a link to the I Ching online! Here's the link:
http://www.ichingonline.net/

So why not give it a try? The Ching has entertained many of us during our college years so it might work now for burning questions springing from our genealogy work.

I plugged in the question as follows: "where to look for more NN records?" If you remember, or OK so maybe you don't, I've been working on my ancestor Nehemiah Newans and he's about driving me nuts. He disappears after the Revolutionary War from about 1783 (the end of the war) to around 1790 when he is found in the 1790 US Census in Northumberland PA. And I don't know where to look, thus the I Ching question.

Here's what the Ching said and it sounds about right:

Cast Hexagram:
56 - Fifty-SixLu / The Wanderer

Fire on the Mountain, catastrophic to man, a passing annoyance to the Mountain:
The Superior Person waits for wisdom and clarity before exacting Justice, then lets no protest sway him.
Find satisfaction in small gains.
To move constantly forward is good fortune to a Wanderer.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

You are a stranger to this situation.
It is your attraction to the exotic that has led you here, but you will move on to a new vista when this one has lost its mystique.
Because much of this environment is foreign to you, you must exercise only the best judgement.
You don't know the custom here, and it's too easy to cross a line you don't know is there.
Because you are the foreigner in this setting, you have no history to acquit you.
Watch, listen, study, contemplate, then step lightly but decisively on.

As best I can determine Northumberland seems to be the place where Nehemiah Newans got his life together. My guess is that he met his second wife there, had a second son there, and became after all what he'd wanted to become when he was young and living with his family in England: a stone mason.


From Northumberland he moves up to the Fingerl Lakes region of New York and settles in the town of Canandaigue. So the Ching sort of nails it. But the Ching always nails it... if you read it just right:)


Oh, by the way, that bold type above is something strange going on right now with Blogger and I can't undo it. Or maybe it's the magic of the Ching! Yikes!!