If there’s any certainty in genealogy and family history, it’s that people will make mistakes. People often make “mistakes” about the year they were born. But when someone makes a mistake about the day they were born, all sorts of havoc can ensue. Such was the case of two of my ancestors, brothers Daniel and Isaac Leonard.

For as long as I could remember, I firmly believed my great-great-grandfather’s birthday was June 24th, 1930. That’s what it said in a county history, three obituaries, and his death certificate.

Update: The hacker attacking this site is persistent and as a result, I have taken the Leonard Database offline until the security hole can be located. I’m not much of a code jockey, so this might take a while. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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Some damned hacker got into the site today and started sending off phishing messages pretending to be some British bank. I doubt that any of you are affected as this kind of scam is usually targeted outside of the domain it’s using to send the phony emails.

A new year already? Wait, where did the old one go? I had lots of unfinished business in 2009, so I guess it’s time to get organized. As a matter of fact, organization is tops on my to-do list for this year.

I’m forever getting distracted as I go about my genealogical business, often duplicating, complicating, or worse of all, neglecting genealogical sources. And that “pending” folder in my file cabinet?… is about to become a drawer unto itself. I had a research plan at one time and I know I should focus on one family group at a time, but sometimes a shiny object whizzes by…

Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t go back to quill pen and ink. Life would be a lot simpler, wouldn’t it? There must be a monk somewhere who’s interested in family history?

I won’t bore you with the details, but I decided to upgrade the Leonard Database this week. The good news is… we’ve gone from 1726 family members… to 2816. There were 669 families yesterday. Today there are 1017. There were 495 different surnames. Now there are 780.

Indulge me, if you will, while I mourn the loss of my very best friend and thank whichever ancestor decided it was a good idea to domesticate wolves.

Chase Leonard was born 1 Jun 1998 under a rundown porch outside of Portland, Oregon. Her parents were of pit bull and labrador extraction, her mother being a bitch and her father a bastard. Chase was rescued from these sordid conditions at the age of six weeks and adopted by Julie and Richard Leonard of Seattle, Washington, where she lived until her death on Thursday.