Saturday, August 20, 2011

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Genealogy Research through I Ching

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Dear genea-philes -- it's Saturday Night -- time for more Genealogy Fun !!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  The writer of the Nuts from the Family Tree blog wrote about her question for the I Ching ( Book of Changes) guru in Cluless No More.  I thoguht that this might be a fun thing to do on Saturday night.

2)  Go to http://IChingOnline.net and ask a question relating to your genealogy research.  You can "throw the coins virtually" or "throw the coins by hand."  You have to click the "throw" button six times, then click on "Read."

3)  Report the question you asked and the answer you received, in the form of the Cast Hexagram (which explains the situation you are now in, or what has gone before), to your readers.  

4)  Does the answer make any sense to you?  How do you interpret the answer?

4)  Write your own blog post about this, or post a comment on Facebook or Google Plus, or write a comment on this blog post.

Here's mine:

My question was:  Will I ever find the parents of William Knapp?

My Cast Hexagram:


The Cast Hexagram I received was number 30 - Igniting.  There are two parts to this Cast Hexagram.  The first is:

Fire sparks more Flames:
The Superior Person holds an inner Fire that ignites passion in every heart it touches, until all the world is enlightened and aflame.

With so searing a flame, success will not be denied you.
Take care to be as peaceful and nurturing as the cow in the meadow; you are strong enough to be gentle.

The second is the situation analysis:

A Promethean flame is delivering light and heat to the situation at hand.
This radiance will cause such an alchemical transformation of circumstances that the changes will seem magical, miraculous.
Yet they are only shifts of perspective and attitude that bring clarity.
The passions kindled by this fire must be harnessed and used judiciously, or they threaten to consume your hopes and dreams.


Hmmm.  That's scary - my passions threaten to consume my hopes and dreams.  Does that mean I should halt my research on this person in order to continue with my hopes and dreams?  Of what - long life, good health, finding Thomas Newton's parents? 

The home page directions say to go to the Trigram Symbols tab on the I Ching results page, click on "Custom Search" and the site will do a Google search on your question.  Here's my result:


The second and fourth ads say "We Found William Knapp."  That wasn't the question.  The question was "Will I ever find the parents of William Knapp?"  I know where William Knapp is. The search results found many mentions of William Knapp in the online genealogy world, and many in the current world.  None of them answer my question.  Dumb game?  Or a dumb question? Maybe I didn't play it right.

Maybe you'll have better luck.

6 comments:

GenieBeth said...

Are you Knapps related to these Knapps? I just remember taking this photo.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Knap&GSiman=1&GScid=252278&GRid=70440526&

Sheri Fenley said...

Hey Seaver - I got to play along this week. You can find my post here -

http://sherifenley.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-ching-you-ching-we-all-ching-for_20.html

Jean said...

Randy, thanks for a really different SNGF adventure! Here is My Throw

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

Wow, as I was reading this, it seemed like it had very positive things to say about your finding your ancestor, especially if you think of fire as being your answer. It says to go slowly and carefully, instead of rushing through it, and that maybe you have the answer already. But once you break through, you are going to get a lot more information.

Sara said...

Ha-ha. It's really fun analyzing the the phrase and the question itself.When I tried it, It's a mess big-time. I could say you're having fun also answering and doing it. grins*

Stefanie said...

Its seems the family tree is the main trace were have been originated. Who are your ancestors and what are heir history.