Genealogy discovery

I am a committed amateur genealogist, like many of you.  I maintain and research my various trees daily.  It's a huge pleasure and a way to focus my mind.  I also find it to be a creative process.  

Some times I find amazing things, relationships to historical figures for example.  Today I found something disturbing and had to make a decision.  I was investigating the family of the American adventurer Merriweather Lewis (1774-1809), who is my 4th cousin, 6 times removed.  I am interested in that Lewis family because it was prolific and accomplished.  I also would like to find a family relationship, if there is one, to a Lewis woman who married a famous frontiersman.  I'm thinking she doesn't really belong in THIS Lewis family, because this Lewis family was "hoity toity" and she was not.  Anyway, I was looking around with time and abandon, as only a retired person can do.  

I discovered that Merriwether Lewis had two cousins (both 1st cousins, one generation removed) who were infamous murderers of an enslaved person named George.  Isham Lewis (d. 1815) and Lilburne Lewis (d. 1812) were actually nephews of Thomas Jefferson, their mother Lucy Jefferson Lewis being Jefferson's sister.  

I was horrified to be even distantly related to these monsters, so I deleted them from my tree.  Then I thought about it, really hard.  Why should they not be marked forever as racists and murderers? So I put the truth back in. Now if anyone clicks on them it says:  Isham Lewis , murderer of Slave George, and the same description for Lilburne Lewis.  

The truth can be horrifying, but it should never be ignored.  

My day today

I had the best nap this afternoon! We spent the late morning walking through the woods on the Oakland Preserve boardwalk looking for interesting flora and fauna. It's a beautiful day, warm but not hot or humid. Cloudy enough for good photo moments here and there. When we returned home, I spent some time at the computer cropping the photos I took. When I was done I could hardly keep my eyes open. I joined our 20 pound cat, Murray, on the bed where he did his best to keep me awake.  

Finally he calmed down and I fell asleep. I had a fun dream about a genealogy search wherein I found a 19th century settler I had been looking for (in the dream, not in real life). Name, dates of birth and death, etc., but when I woke up I forgot the particulars.  

There are a couple of sandhill cranes that have a nest around the holding pond that still has some understory, at the end of our development. The other day we heard they had a baby. On our way home today we stopped and sure enough, there they were. That baby sure is adorable.  

Garden sale

Today is the annual garden sale, downtown in my little town. The streets are closed and filled with vendors, food trucks, and happy people. It is a well attended and much anticipated event. 

Like this year, it always seems to be hot and sunny. In my mind it is too hot and sunny to be milling about with a close crowd of people pulling small wagons behind. 

We always buy something, but for some reason the plants we have purchased at this large community sale have never flourished. In fact, they usually die. Why? I don't know. We have lots of plants purchased over the last 11 years from local nurseries that are doing great, but we usually put them in the ground in February or March. Maybe the plant sale plants would transplant better if they stage the sale at the beginning of March, when it is a bit cooler?  It has been in the high 80s, even 90 degrees F the other day. I probably have a wrong-headed northern gardening mentality, but it seems too hot to plant.  

This sale used to be fun, and we looked forward to it every year. My husband wants to go later today, but I am dreading it. So much effort for so little return. 

Am I depressed because of the political situation, or am I just getting old?  I wonder.  

UPDATE:  I just got back from the sale.  It was fun after all.  Biked down there and back, and now I feel like I'm on top of the world.  

Here's a gorgeous shrimp plant we bought the first year 
we went to the sale. It died off within a few months.
That's when I realized I didn't know what the hell 
I was doing, gardening down here.