Saturday, August 20, 2011

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Using the I Ching for Genealogy

Live, from Blogger, it's Saturday Night!  Time for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  Today's assignment:

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.

The question I asked relates to a few blog entries ago, that is, my search for Samuel Henston Rhoads.  I found his marriage license, as I posted in my blog.  But I wonder, what to I need to search in order to find why he dropped out of the family picture?

So my question to the I Ching is:  What records to I need to consult to find out what happened to Samuel Henston Rhoads?

And the answer:


Cast Hexagram:


40 - Forty

Hsieh / Liberation


A Thunderous Cloudburst shatters the oppressive humidity:
The Superior Person knows the release in forgiveness, pardoning the faults of others and dealing gently with those who sin against him.

It pays to accept things as they are for now.
If there is nothing else to be gained, a return brings good fortune.
If there is something yet to be gained, act on it at once.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:


The relief you experience here is not your own personal pardon, but the release of others from your rigid expectations.
Like a hot air balloon, you will rise to new heights as you cast the heavy sandbags of resentments and restrictions away from you.
Feel the lightness of being that results from forgiving others and accepting them as they are.
Free yourself of the endless vigil of policing the behavior of others.
See them for who they are, not what they can or can't do for you.

Well, okay -- I can go for a cloudburst shattering the humidity, since I live in one of the most humid states in the country -- Florida.  That I'll go for.

The rest of the answer is a bit more nebulous.  That second line about forgiving those who sin against one is interesting.  I have been wondering if I need to look in court (criminal) or prison records.  That may be some sort of "message" -- if I ran my genealogy that way, which I don't.  But I will look for such records anyway, along with tax records, property records, other court (civil) records, death records and whatever else I can think of as possible leads.

As for Randy's suggestion of using the "Trigram Symbols" tab in the explanation window for a custom search, that was a complete strikeout.  Ah, well.  It's an interesting game, but for me, nothing more than that.

And a bit of genealogy fun with some humor.
  

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