HMC Family Association

If you want to figure out how many direct ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and so on) you have, you can start adding

“(one generation back) 2 parents + (two generations back) 4 grandparents + (three generations back) 8 great-grandparents + ….”

OR, you can use the shortcut 2n+1 – 2, which means:

“add 1 to the number of generations back you want to go; raise 2 to that power; and subtract 2.”

For example, if you want to go back as far as your great-great-grandparents:

* the number of generations back is 4, so n=4.
* Adding 1 makes 4+1=5;
* raising 2 to that power means 25 = 2×2×2×2×2 = 32;
* and subtracting 2 makes 32 – 2 = 30.
* So up to 30 people since your great-great-grand-parents are responsible for you being here. (The number is smaller if any pairs of parents had common ancestors.)

How many direct ancestors do you have going back 8 generations? When you figure it out, send your answer to newsletter@ hmcfamily.com.

* Baseball, horseshoes & more. Hear stories in the Storytelling Area. See a model covered wagon.

* Auction If you would like to make things to donate to the Children’s Raffle, here are ideas. If you try to make something and it doesn’t work, don’t worry. Just think about the fun you had working on it with your family.

* Fun, Old? Foods Ask your grandparents, parents, aunts or uncles if they have recipes they enjoyed when they were children.Try making the recipes with them. If they’re good and easy to make, copy the recipes onto cards with your best printing and draw a picture of the food. Just before the reunion, make the recipe, package a little in plastic bags, attach the recipe, and bring them to the picnic to put on the kids raffle table.

* Homemade Toys Ask the adults in your family if they played with homemade toys when they were young. If so, ask them to show you how to make them. If they’re easy and inexpensive to make, make one or more to bring to the reunion for the raffle. You could include directions so the kids who buy them can make them too.

For the young’ns from Gavin Kerr

Take on the challenges and make the decisions your ancestors did, on your computer! This is an old game. If it’s been awhile or you’ve never played it, you can get the original version for free as well as specifics on how to load and play it by clicking HERE .

Download Applewin from this page (or go to http://applewin.berlios.de/ to download 1.14.0(beta) of Apple Emulator for Windows).

Note: These files are “zipped” so if you don’t already have it on your computer, go HERE to  download free software to “unzip” your downloads. (Zip files are compressed so the download takes less time. It also assures you get complete files.)

Then open the jeff.greenfld.net link on the same page and scroll down to Oregon Trail-FOUND! Click on Oregon Trail and download that file(2 disks). Once down-loaded, click on disk 1. It will automatically open the Apple Emulator for Windows and you can start playing.

Note: When you reach the point of switching to the ‘2nd floppy disk’ – click on the master drive 2 the one under 1 and then go to your virtual floppies and double click on the 2nd disk. It will then go in drive two. After that click on the drive that has a 1/2 on it and then press space bar. There you go.

If you want the latest version for your PC go to http://www.learning company.com/ or, you can Google ‘Oregon Trail game’ to find the updated version for sale.

For the computer savvy users out there:

* The Apple II emulator can be found at http://jeff.greenfld.net/zips/applewin.zip
* The Apple II Oregon Trail Game at http://jeff.greenfld.net/zips/otrail.zip