Wakela Runen's World

I know that this tip works for all of the UK.  I have not tried it with any US people since I don't have very many in my list.  We have all had those instances where we see on the census records the family, but we don't know the wife's maiden name.  And without it, we can hit some serious stumbling blocks as to tracing those lines back further.   Well, I have discovered a way to find this information out quickly and for free!  Yes, you read that right.  FOR FREE! I will use an example of one that I had just done.  This way you can see how it works.  Then run (don't walk) to your family tree and try it for yourself... I had located Harry Balderson on the 1901 England census with wife Jessie and daughter Annie.  Now I had no clue what Jessie's maiden name was.  So I needed to look it up.  I opened up my browser to http://www.findmypast.co.uk .  You will need an account to search, but you don't have to subscribe to it for what I am going to show you. On the top

  Disclaimer: I received this book free from Twigtale in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive any form of compensation. Review When I was little, my parents had bought a set of books called the Read About Me series.  Each book had my name, pet’s name, friends’ names, and family members’ names.   I loved those books because each one was personalized with information about me.  Even though I had those books almost 40 years ago, I can still remember some of the stories from them. When my kids were small, there really wasn’t anything like that.  Now that my niece has a daughter, I came across Twigtale !  I was so ecstatic to find these books.  Each one has pictures that you have taken yourself and are interspersed in the story.  So not only is there information that you provide to them about the child, but actual pictures of the child as well.  These are definitely books that you will want to keep around.  When I got the opportunity to do a review, I talked to my niece

Disclaimer: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive any form of compensation. This book played into two of my favorite things.  First being genealogy and the second being the spirit realm. Those who know anything about various religions and spiritualities know that ancestor worship is nothing new.  In fact, in Ancient Japan they honored their ancestors with shrines and rituals.  This book teaches how to get in contact with your ancestors and how you can help to heal the family by healing them. There are a number of practices that can be used to help start the healing process.  And as one who has studied my own genealogy, I can attest that my family needs a lot of healing of past hurts.  An example would be that my grandmother (Ann Flynn) never knew her dad because he left Scotland and came to America shortly after she was born.  He only sent money back a few times for the family.  Then he was never heard from again.  We aren’t ev

Description In this visionary memoir, based on a groundbreaking New York Times Magazine story, award-winning journalist Katy Butler ponders her parents’ desires for “Good Deaths” and the forces within medicine that stood in the way. Katy Butler was living thousands of miles from her vigorous and self-reliant parents when the call came: a crippling stroke had left her proud seventy-nine-year-old father unable to fasten a belt or complete a sentence. Tragedy at first drew the family closer: her mother devoted herself to caregiving, and Butler joined the twenty-four million Americans helping shepherd parents through their final declines. Then doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker, keeping his heart going but doing nothing to prevent his six-year slide into dementia, near-blindness, and misery. When he told his exhausted wife, “I’m living too long,” mother and daughter were forced to confront a series of wrenching moral questions. When does death stop being a curse and become

  Book Description   At thirty-six , Hope McKenna-Smith is no stranger to bad news. She lost her mother to cancer, her husband left her for a twenty-two year old, and her bank account is nearly depleted. Her own dreams of becoming a lawyer long gone, she’s running a failing family bakery on Cape Cod and raising a troubled preteen. Now, Hope’s beloved French-born grandmother Mamie, who wowed the Cape with her fabulous pastries for more than fifty years, is drifting away into a haze of Alzheimer’s. But in a rare moment of clarity, Mamie realizes that unless she tells Hope about the past, the secrets she has held on to for so many years will soon be lost forever. Tantalizingly, she reveals mysterious snippets of a tragic history in Paris. And then, arming her with a scrawled list of names, she sends Hope to France to uncover a seventy-year-old mystery. Hope’s emotional journey takes her through the bakeries of Paris and three religious traditions, all guided by Mamie’s fairy tal

Ok, I am hoping that someone may be able to help me out here.  I have been searching high and low for information on my mom’s maternal grandfather for years.  I finally had a HUGE break through last night.  However, I can’t read the name of the town that he has listed as his birthplace.  So I am hoping that maybe there will be someone who comes across this blog and can understand the name of the town in Ireland. The first word of course is Ireland.  It’s the second word there that I can not read.  It looks sort of like Brunscairsie?  Or something possibly along those lines.  I have been searching the internet to try locating the name. Any help will be greatly greatly appreciated!

Book Description   Despite her name, Keats Sedlak is the sanest person in her large, nutty family of brilliant eccentrics. Her parents, both brainy academics, are barely capable of looking after themselves, let alone anyone else, and her two uber-intelligent siblings live on their own planets. At least she can count on one person in her life, her devoted boyfriend Tom. Down-to-earth and loving, he's the one thing that's kept Keats grounded for the last decade. But when Keats's mother makes a surprise announcement, the entire family is sent into a tailspin. For the first time, Keats can't pick up the pieces by herself. Now she must reevaluate everything she's ever assumed about herself and her family-and make the biggest decision of her life. Book Review   This was an interesting book, but I am not so sure if I actually liked it.  Keats’s family was quite annoying.  I guess it’s just that most of the time people read to escape realities and this was too

Sorry for going dark for so long.  My computer died and I am just now finally back up and limping along. It may take me a few days to get through all of the emails that I have to get through.  I did lose quite a number of emails and other things though. Unfortunately, I lost my calendar and spreadsheet of all my reviews.  I know that I missed doing some reviews while I was down.  And I am pretty sure that I have some reviews due very soon.  I know I specifically have one due for today which I will be typing out in a few minutes. As for Ben, he was transferred back to the local hospital at Christmas time.  He is unable to walk.  He is unable to see clearly.  He can see outlines of things, but everything is one big blur.  And worst of all, he has trouble thinking clearly and remembering anything.  He went from being extremely smart (reading a few grades above his own) to not even being able to name colors.  It is so heart breaking to see this.  Now the hospital is saying that the

I just really wanted to thank everyone for all their prayers for Ben.  They have helped A LOT! The doctors still have no clue what caused his seizures.  And they can’t figure out why they are stopping either. They have had him awake for almost a week now.  He is seizure free at this point.  They are weaning him off of the rest of his medicines. We did have some rough points there at first.  He was literally going through detox.  It was scary and sad to watch one so little go through the same symptoms that junkies go through when coming off of their “fixes”.  However, with lots of prayers and love, he has made it through this. We still have a long road ahead of us.  Since he has been laying in bed for almost 3 months, his muscles have atrophied.  They said he will need tons of therapy to get him back on his feet again. Even though he only attended 1 day of the first grade, he was the tallest kid in the classroom.  Now he will have to repeat the first grade again because he m

Thank you everyone for all the prayers that you have been sending Ben’s way. He had the surgery.  However, he is still having seizures and they are now showing up in a different part of his brain.  The doctors are unsure how or why this is happening.  So they are keeping him still in a coma. They said that until he is able to stop seizing they need to do this for his own health.  It’s not like small little seizures every now and then.  They are huge long ones that are uncontrollable.  The other day he had a seizure for over 3 hours long.  They aren’t even sure at this point how he is going to be when they do wake him up.  They aren’t sure what kind of damage this has done to his brain.  There is a chance that he will have to learn to talk and walk again.  It’s just so disheartening to think that even though modern medicine is so advanced, there are things that they just have no clue about. So as it stands, we are just in a holding pattern with him.  This coming Friday is hi

If you are looking for a fun way to dress up cupcakes, then you have to check out Cupcake Cuties .  They are so easy to use.  First off, bake your cupcakes as you normally would.  You can even use ones you buy at the grocery store if you don’t bake. Then you place one of the wraps around the base of the cupcake.  You ice your cupcake as directed.  Then you use whatever other decorations come with the kit.  There are kits for every occasion.  If you are hosting a baby shower, there are some really cute ones for that.  So whatever party you are throwing, you can always find the right way to dress up your cupcakes. We received the Happy Birthday ones to be used at Steve & Eddie Wayne’s birthday party.  Not only did the kids love them, but the adults as well.  Everyone was definitely enchanted by our cute cupcakes.   In conjunction with the Wakela's World Disclosure Statement , I received a product in order to enable my review. No other compensation has been received.

Product Review   Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter, Birthdays, and many other occasions allow us to show our love by getting that special someone just the right card.  I can spend hours at the store browsing cards to find just the right one.  And even then you wish it were just a little more. Well, I found out about Snapily and all I can say is WOW!  They have a ton of card templates to choose from.  You upload your favorite photos.  You choose what sentiments you want printed on the card.  It is 100% going to be you in that card. The card I designed is for my cousin & his wife in Canada.  It is a picture of his dad in the most relaxed setting possible.  By looking at the picture, you would think he didn’t have a care in the world.  This has always been their favorite picture.    Here is a video that Snapily provided.  Sponsored by Tomoson.com One great thing is that they not only have cards, but other items that can be personalized as well.  If you have a tee

One of my passions is genealogy.  I absolutely love working on the family tree.  I have met some very interesting people while working on my tree. I found some cousins on my mom’s side that I never knew before.  Some are in Canada (where my mom is from) and some are in Great Britain (where my grandparents are from). We have had some mysteries in our family tree.  One of which is nearly solved.  I had already written about Louisa Needs and her loves to rival Erica Kane back on Nov 19 , Nov 30 , and Dec 6 .  I have found out a few more things since then.  First off, there were rumors that Louisa had kicked her daughter Mary Elizabeth out because she was unwed and pregnant.  The story goes that Liz had moved to Windsor after being kicked out.  Her brother Alex returned from WW2 upset to find out that she was kicked out.  He then moves to Windsor to help her out.  So she names her son after him. This is so false that it is unbelievable.  First off, we now have a copy of Liz’s marri

Growing up, our next door neighbor was Ms. Frances L.  I always called her Ms. Frances.  She was my mom’s best friend. My mom told me of a time where I was going to run away.  I packed my bag and I was heading out the door.  Of course, I wasn’t going to go far.  I was just heading next door to Ms. Frances house.  My dad used to love playing pranks on her.  I remember one time when she was having a pool built in her back yard.  She was over hanging out by our pool with me and my mom.  The pool builders told her that her phone was ringing in the house.  She said to not worry about it because whoever it is can just call back later (this was way before answering machines).  The phone just kept ringing and ringing.  The guys kept telling her that the phone wasn’t stopping.  That is must be important for that person to just sit there and let it continuously ring.  So she climbed the fence to get to her house.  It was much quicker then going through our house to get around to her house. 

Mother’s Day is coming up in less then a month on May 8th.  It brings back so many wonderful memories of my mom.  Plus my mom’s birthday is right after Mother’s Day on May 18th. One thing my mom taught me was that no matter what is thrown at you, you just have to keep going.  My mom had persevered through so much in her life. When she was only 12, her parents got divorced and moved to different sides of Canada.  Her sister and her dad stayed in Ontario.  While she went with her mom over to live in Alberta.  My mom only stayed with her mom for about a year more. At the tender age of 13, my mom got a job and moved out on her own.  She lived in a boarding house in Ontario.  Thankfully, the owners of the boarding house were really nice and they watched over her.  You have to understand, that back in the 1940s things were much different.  Child labor laws were completely different then they are now. My mom didn’t have anything past a seventh grade education due to the fact that you had to p

Book Description   Are you fascinated by the laws of reincarnation? Do you ever wonder who you were in your past lives or who those close to you were? Often the people who are close to you in this life were relatives in a former life. A brother/sister relationship in a previous life can lead to a failed marriage in this one. Would you like to know how much longer you have to live or whether a public or violent death can be avoided? These may seem like mysteries that can't be solved, but Joanna Marks gives the reader a step-by-step analysis of natal charts, or Wheels , that will answer these questions and many more. She explains how your nodes of the moon can give you hints as to your identity in past lives. In some cases, an early death can even be avoided by simply moving to a new location. Marks also shows you how to find your daughter- or son-in-law in your astrological sign. Diagrams of the various wheels are included, as well as an in-depth analysis of her own wheel

With April Fool’s Day fast approaching, what better way to prank your friends, family and coworkers then with the EvilTron from ThinkGeek . Shane from ThinkGeek was kind enough to send me one to try out on family.  Of course, the first person I decided to do this on would be my brother-in-law, Steve.  He thinks he is the practical joker of the family.  And we sometimes let him believe it too.  However, my sister Brenda and I are the ones that usually get him good.  My sister Debbie (his wife) just doesn’t even come close to measure up. First let me tell you about this little gem of a gag.  As you can see in the above picture (from ThinkGeek website) it is just slightly bigger then a quarter.  What you can’t tell from the picture is that the small metal disk on the back is a magnet.  So you can stick it just about anywhere.  The EvilTron makes five different sounds.  Then it also has a random mode.  The sounds are something creaking, something scratching, a gasping breath, a