Time traveling among my ancestors

WOW. NOW I understand why people get so caught up in researching their genealogies. Just a week or so ago I started looking at mine, because I have a couple relatives who have been telling me for years that it's interesting. I've already found a bunch of knights and a lot of castles! and 2 kings and 2 queens, omg, and most surprising to me a SAINT. That I did not expect, though I had hoped for hard-working honest people.

I am probably totally wrong, but I wonder looking at some obvious errors in judgment! (not by the saint!) in a few ancestors if that's at least a bit of the reason why I was warned against them by my respective parents, that it was some words of wisdom being handed down the generations: my dad and his dad warned against poorly designed or nonexistent wills, and an ancestor who was a shopowner in 1700s Boston had a bad will and it was contested so long that all the original inheritors died! Another ancestor, centuries earlier, helped against a king and oops lost his castles as a result, and I've always been warned to be very careful if/when one feels the moral/ethical necessity to rebel against authority.

I'm back to the 900s following one line and still have many other lines to pursue! Wouldn't it be fun if the documentation actually went back to when my Lifestyles in Ancient South Asia ends, 700?! I doubt it though, and most of my ancestors' documentation petered out long ago, even as early as the late 1800s.

Another wonder: the earliest ancestor whose documentation dies out was the one least loved of all I have heard of! He's said to have been a cruel man, and my great-grandmother left him though that was extremely frowned upon in those days. I was afraid to look at his ancestry but then thought Oh, I'd just worry he had a zillion criminals or something, and then there was NOTHING about him. Which may mean the very thing I was afraid of, but at least I don't know, which can be as in Ignorance is bliss.

But the brave great-grandmother's line is going on and on and is very interesting! Though isn't the royal line -- so far -- aren't all of us related to everybody else at some point? I did find where I share a very-great grandfather with George Washington!

a very-great grandfather's stained glass window; 

he was born in Wales, died in England 

a less-great grandmother who was a queen-consort of Sicily; 

she was not Italian, though, but French

I also got confirmation of ancestors who were Native Americans, and another brave very-ish-great grandmother who climbed a mountain carrying my also-very-ish-great grandmother and very few belongings to escape the slavery of the American South in the Civil War era! So far no ancestors "owned" humans, but of course my line is not perfect -- and of course I'm not responsible for that!

But it's a very interesting feeling -- not only is the history fascinating, but I have a weird awareness of how VERY many people are back there! plus how very connected every single person is...

PS Btw, I'm mostly using others' work so far of course since I'm just starting, though when I run across a primary document it is so very fun....And NOTE by far the best information I have found is TOTALLY FREE online -- I got very short free-trial memberships elsewhere and found extremely unreliable information that wasn't even presented in a decent way and whose websites kept crashing! I just start with a google search now and it's going ever so much more quickly and reliably...I take my own notes in MS Word, with a separate doc for each generation; I gave up on writing it down as a graphic family tree, I'd need paper far larger than my studies' floor area...

hahahahaha

As chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...

I know it's not meant to be funny, but it just keeps making me laugh: A "letter accompanied by a present" arrives for the king. The king "rises quickly and puts the present respectfully upon his head."
(I realize it's not funny because I've seen people do this touching-to-the-head respectful gesture. Also, this silly translation makes it sound like he balanced it on his head and walked around with it or something, whereas he probably just touched it to his head briefly. This is from a play from the 400s AD, Kalidasa's Malavikagnimitram.)

Current time travel apparatus location: Pondicherry, India

Some pleasant -- and filling -- time travel to TODAY in 1788

Continuing my journey via John Byng Viscount Torrington, this time from his A Trip into Sussex, 1788, of August 16 as I share this:

A long lane of ascent (whence we had fine views of the vale...) brought us into the old road at the village of Lamberhurst; where finding a desire of stop, and a strong wish for dinner, we put up at an excellent public house, the Checquers; and had instantly spread before us, in a clean sanded parlour, a cold fillet and a cold quarter....After the insolence and noise of our inn at Tunbridge, civility and quiet afforded additional pleasure. But judge of my surprise when...I had the bill to pay, our charge for the good dinner -- plus cheese, and my horse's hay and corn -- was only 3 shillings! This inspired us in our evening's way....

...From Flimwell continues a ridge...commanding rich prospects, and adorn'd by neat cottages and genteel houses....In this row...stood our inn the Queens Head, of nice aspect; nor did it deceive us, for everything was neat and comfortable. Our baggage had been brought here from Tunbridge by a footman....After tea, and after purchasing at an elegant shop a pocket comb and shoe strings, we walk'd half a mile to the green [where they watched cricket and toured a church]. It was near dusk when we return'd....In this inn has been lately built a new large room for quarterly assemblies; and, at the back of it, a neat and pleasant bowling-green...about which we walked with our conversable landlord. We supp'd on mutton chops and apple tart; and I drank somwhat more than enough of port wine to dispell a snuffling acquired by the damp [inn] room in the morning [in Tunbridge]. 

Snippets of Chapter 6

To give you a better idea of my Lifestyles in Early South Asia: A Sourcebook for Time Travelers:

Snippet from Chapter 47

To give you a better idea of my Lifestyles in Early South Asia: A Sourcebook for Time Travelers; from a unique chapter in Volume III:

Snippet of Chapter 7

To give you a better idea of my Lifestyles in Early South Asia: A Sourcebook for Time Travelers; from the beginning of its Volume II:

Another post from Ms. Complainer

As chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...during one of the particularly difficult parts...

"I didn't whine," I said with a sniff. "I merely was voicing my disapproval of [my source's] personality, mentality, morality, and lifestyle."
 -- by the wonderful Robert Goldsborough in his Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe: Fade to Black
...Of course one shouldn't judge by one's own culture, mores, etc., and there's plenty to complain about my own culture and ethics [note from 2018: especially nowadays of my country!]. However, I can't help being disgusted by a man who preys on women -- though at the same time I truly do value what I learn about ancient lifestyles from such sources, and I hope I do a good job of using them with as much respect as I can muster in my actual writings.
As I've spent most of my morning doing all I possibly can to avoid this disgusting source, though, I think I'll do my monthly-day-off today! I totally agree with something else I read today: "Today I just need to surround myself with some beauty." From the wonderful [but now defunct] littleemmaenglishhome blog.

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore aka Bengaluru, India

A good toothpaste ad

Noted while I researched my Lifestyles of Early South Asia book...

From the 400s! "His pearl necklace glowed under the light reflected by his teeth." Haha.
(from Kalidasa's Raghuvamsham 5.52)

SUCH a handy Sanskrit word

You've probably had it on the tip of your tongue any number of times.

nabhitva = the state or condition of being a belly button

Snippets of Chapter 1

To give you a better idea of my Lifestyles in Early South Asia: A Sourcebook for Time Travelers:

 

Travels in India

Various travels in 2010...

pictures from Hampi:

We visited several places in India on this trip, though all fell later than my period. The one site we were going to go within my period involved 6 hours of very dangerous driving on a 1-lane but 2-direction tiny road, so we skipped it, hoping someday to get a plane ride closer to it....

We saw abandoned temples, some from the 1200s, in Belur and Halebid (though we prefer the better preservation and daily-life scenes in Somnathpur).

We also saw Hampi (1300s-1500s), which I liked; it's an incredibly huge site of abandoned stone buildings in ruins from invaders. However, to get there and back involved an overnight train ride, and though we had the very best they had (in a tiny compartment with an actual door and beds with cushions and air conditioning, one of only three such compartments on the entire very long train!), I am apparently a complete wimp and could not put up with the billowing dirt, smell of cigarette smoke from outside, urine-filled unisex bathroom with staring men standing outside, and especially the urine-soaked wet cushions and blankets. The hotel was the worst of the trip too, but they do their best and are clean enough. It also had a wonderful monkey population, as you can see. Overall, the Hampi trip was fascinating like all of India, but also like all of India you only seem to be able to either bask in amazing luxury at affordable prices or be bombarded with nauseating trauma!

We also toured Srirangapatna and saw Tipu Sultan's 1700s summer palace and fort and what remained of his normal home.

We toured 1900s palaces in Mysore. Here's a photo of part of a 1900s suite to which we were very surprised and thrilled to be upgraded to at Metropole hotel in Mysore (highly recommended even if you don't get upgraded); foreign guests of the maharaja were housed here! Though with different furniture in those days. The door you see leads to a nice verandah.