Saturday Night Genealogy Fun --Your (or Your Ancestor's) Personal History Timeline

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1)  Taneya Koonce wrote a Happy Birthday post about her own life in Quick Tip: Create Your Personal History Timeline - The Birthday Edition 🥳.  What a great birthday idea.

2)  This week, write your own Personal History Timeline - every 5 or 10 years, or the most important events.  If you don't want to do yours, write a History Timeline for one of your ancestors

3)  Share your Personal Timeline in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

Thank you Taneya for the idea!

Here's mine:

I choose to do my own Personal Timeline because I know it pretty well, and I've shared almost all of it in my 19 years writing this blog.

1943 (Age 0):  I'm here, the first child of Frederick Walton and Betty Virginia (Carringer) Seaver.  I was born in Paradise Valley Sanitarium in National City, and my first home was in Chula Vista. I recall nothing!

1948 (Age 5):  We just moved into 2119 30th Street in San Diego near Gram and Gramp.  I am a big brother now, Stan is age 2.  I started Kindergarten in September at Brooklyn School - my teacher is Miss Cleator - she has white hair and is really old but nice!

1953 (Age 10):  I'm in fifth grade with Mr. de la Torre - I love arithmetic!  We walk 8 blocks to school. I'm on the school Safety Patrol.  I collect baseball cards (5 cents a pack with bubble gum!). I listen to the Padres games on radio every night. My best friends are Gordon and Steve.  I play baseball and football games at Grape Street Park with my brother and friends.  We have a TV! My grandparents live in Point Loma now, and have a chimney.  I can hardly wait for Christmas there!  I need glasses.

1958 (Age 15):  I'm still pretty small - only 5 feet tall and 100 pounds.  I'm really shy too.  I have another brother now, Scott, who is age 3.  I'm in 10th grade at San Diego High School and take English, Latin, Trigonometry, History, Biology and Gym.  I love rock and roll music - Elvis, Everlies, Buddy Holly, Mathis, Platters, Big Bopper, oh my.  I ride the bus to school, and ride my bike all over San Diego exploring on the weekends, and love libraries.

1963 (Age 20):  Now I'm almost fully grown - 5'10" and 135 pounds.  I still live at home.  I worked this summer for the San Diego Chargers.  I'm a junior at San Diego State University majoring in aerospace engineering.  My courses are Mechanical Design, Electric Circuits, Materials, Advanced Math for Engineers, and American Government and Politics.  I ride the bus to and from college. I still love music and compile my own Top 40 survey each week.  I started DXing (listening for faraway AM stations).  I helped my father coach his Little League team.

1968 (age 25):  I'm working at Rohr Corporation as an aerospace engineer using FORTRAN programs to simulate flight.  I just moved to my own apartment in Pacific Beach with my friend John.  We go bowling, to Charger games, and drinking in bars trying to meet girls.  I took several vacations this year to DX conventions in Hollywood and Boston, and I visited my father's Massachusetts family while in Boston. I have my first real girl friend - we met at a DX meeting in Sacramento.  I attended a Boundary Layer class at UC Davis in the summer time, and visited my cousin Marcia in San Francisco. I coached my own Little League team.   I also met a school teacher named Linda.

1973 (age 30):   I married Linda in 1970 (she is really pretty, smart, loving, and an excellent cook - I'm now up to 175 pounds) and we bought a home in Chula Vista.  We take care of our home, go out to eat on weekends, go to church on Sunday, and vacationed in San Francisco.  I still work at Rohr and am working on thrust reverser development.  I still coach my Little League team and we were champions.

1978 (age 35):  Big changes at home.  We have two little girls now, Lori is 4 and Tami is 2.  We moved to a larger home with a big backyard in Chula Vista.  We vacationed for a week at a church camp near Redlands and are in a young adult group at church. I was promoted to a Group Engineer position at Rohr, and traveled to England for work at Rolls Royce in Derby.  Linda tagged along and we did sightseeing while church friends watched the girls.  My grandparents died, and my parents moved to their home in Point Loma. I'm still DXing and doing radio wave propagation research in my spare time.  

1983 (age 40):  The girls are now 9 and 7 and attending school.  Linda keeps the house running and takes the girls to school and activities.  We went to the church camp and to Hawaii in the summer time.  We love Disneyland!  My father died in May, and we visit my mother every weekend to help her.  For work, I traveled to Derby in England, LeHavre and Paris in France, and Cincinnati.  I attended an aerospace conference in Virginia.  I became a church elder and Linda became a deacon.

1988 (age 45):  The girls are now 14 and 12, and doing well in school.  The girls played softball - Lori is a pitcher and Tami is a catcher - and we attended several Padres games. Linda started teaching elementary school again.  We took a family cruise out of Miami to the western Caribbean.  I chaired an Associate Pastor nominating committee at church. I was promoted to be Chief of Aerodynamics in 1984, and have a staff of 8 aircraft engineers, and we support all of the company's commercial aircraft customers - Boeing, Airbus, Douglas, Pratt & Whitney, General Electric, and more.  I attended an Executive Program for Engineers at UCSD.  I started doing genealogy research.

1993 (age 50):  Lori is attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and Tami is a senior at Hilltop High School and is taking her sixth year of Russian.  She spent six weeks in Belgium as a foreign exchange student.  We vacationed in England for three weeks sightseeing and doing genealogy research.  We also visited my aunts in Florida and South Carolina.  I was promoted to Chief of Aero/Thermo Sciences, traveled a bit to support company programs, and have a staff of 15 after significant cutbacks. I pursue genealogy research in evenings and on weekends and added all of my research into Personal Ancestral File software.  

1998 (age 55):  Lori graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in Human Development and worked at day care facilities in Oceanside.  Tami graduated from Azusa Pacific University and was married in August 1997 to James, and they live in the Los Angeles area.  She went on several summer mission trips to Russia.  I became a Staff Engineer in 1997 at Goodrich (formerly Rohr, same location and programs) working on selected projects, and spent three weeks in Derby on a thrust reverser test program.  Linda is still teaching and shops for angels in Southern California on outings with church friends.  We have season tickets to the Padres and they were in the World Series, but lost before we could use the World Series tickets.  My research continued at repositories and online, and joined several societies.

2003 (age 60):  We lost my mother in January 2002 and Linda's father in June 2002.  Linda retired from teaching in February 2002, and Randy retired from Goodrich in November 2002.  Lori was married in September 2000 to Michael and they live in a cabin in the redwoods near Santa Cruz.  They had Lucas this year - our first grandchild.  Tami and James bought a home in Victorville, got Masters degrees, and she works as a high school teacher and he works as a computer technician.  They have Walter, a fantastic basset hound.  Linda is a Deacon again at church, has a sharing and caring ministry, and enjoys meeting and corresponding with friends. My genealogy research continues and I became the Treasurer of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society. We have Padres season tickets and go to 20 games and watch the games on TV.

2008 (age 65):  Now there are four grandchildren and we love being with them and their parents.  Lori and Michael had Logan, and Tami and James have Lauren and Audrey.  We get to babysit them often, and visit them often in their homes (sometimes for a week at a time!).  We had a wonderful three-week cruise out of New York to the eastern Caribbean with genealogy folks.  We also went to several genealogy conferences.  Linda was the Moderator of the Deacons at church, and I was President of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society, and spoke on genealogy topics in Southern California.  I started writing the Genea-Musings blog in 2006 and haven't stopped since. We still have Padres season tickets and go to 20 games, and watch the other games on TV.

2013 (age 70):  The grandchildren are growing and thriving and we with visit them as often as we can.  They love coming to San Diego and going to the Padres games.  Tami and James moved to Huntington Beach.  Our big vacation this year was a two week genealogy cruise from San Diego to Florida through the Panama Canal.  We also attended several genealogy conferences.  I was the CVGS Newsletter Editor and Research Chair, taught Beginning Computer Genealogy at a senior adult center, and made presentations on the cruise and to California societies. Linda and the girls hosted a 70th birthday party at the church for me with a '50s theme.  

2018 (age 75):  Our fifth grandchild, Charlie, was born in 2014 to Tami and James.  We still see all of the grandkids as often as we can, either here in San Diego or at their homes, but they have busy lives with school and activities.  Linda was diagnosed with Alzheimers in 2016, and no longer drives, but she still enjoys swimming at the YMCA, going out with friends, going to Padres games, and watching TV.  We went to two genealogy conferences, and I made presentations and classes at California societies.  We still have Padres season tickets and go to 20 games, and watch the other games on TV.

2023 (age 80):  Our life has drastically changed.  We survived COVID.  Linda fell and broke her hip in June 2021, had a repair operation, and is bed and wheelchair bound at a Skilled Nursing and Memory Care facility.  I had heart problems after Linda's fall, and had a bypass operation in May 2022. I try to visit Linda every day at her facility.  I am still the CVGS Newsletter Editor and Research Chair. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary (3.5 years late due to COVID) and my 80th birthday in October at our church hall with an Elvis impersonator entertaining 80 of our friends and family.  This was the first time Linda had seen most of our church friends since her fall.  We gave up our Padres season tickets after Linda's fall, but I still go when the grandkids come to town to visit and watch the games on TV.  The daughters and their families are very busy with school, work and activities, and we don't see them as often.  Lori and Tami have supported us tremendously over these last years as our needs grew.

Well - that's my life saga in 5-year word snapshots.  I have photos over the past 25 years, but have shared many in my Wordless Wednesday posts. This post is already too long - there are more paragraphs to write if you are older than Taneya.  I just hope I make it to 2028 to write another paragraph.

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