C is for Church Records

For every birth, marriage and death record, there may also be a baptism, marriage and burial record to be found in church registers. Many of these types of records throughout the world have been photographed and stored on microfilm by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and are available free to the public at FamilySearch.org. [FamilySearch.org is my favorite genealogy database as well as the site where I store my own family tree, so you may see it referred to periodically in this series.] If you don’t find your location’s records here, you could write directly to the parish or church in the area and ask for any information in their registers  (a small donation helps!) If you don’t know the religious affiliation of your ancestor, you may have to try several denominations before finding the correct one. If you do find your ancestor’s parish, you could be in luck and be able to trace the whole family’s life through the baptisms, marriages and burials of its members.

Family Vignette: C is for Cooking!

So, what does a pressure cooker and spaghetti have in common? Turns out, nothing! At least back in the 1950s when my mom (yes, another Annie story…) was a new homemaker and didn’t have access to the internet and sites such Miss Vickie’s Pressure Cooker Recipes. She was looking for a quick means of getting dinner on the table for her soon-to-be-home-hungry hubby, and thought, “Why not cook the spaghetti in the pressure cooker to speed things up?” Why indeed?

Not satisfied with the speedy cook time, as soon as she saw the steam coming out of the pressure regulator, Annie removed it from the vent pipe to “cool it down faster.” The built-up pressure inside forced the pasta out through the vent at such velocity that it stuck to the ceiling! My dad came home to stalactite pasta hanging from the ceiling and several hours of work to scrape it all off and repaint.

Part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge