It has been so long I have posted anything I feel guilty, but I do believe that at least, in closing the year, I owe an explanation if not an apology to the people who have so constantly followed this blog. The explanation is this: I am not writing on the blog because shortly after posting the last post, a new project was born.  A project is something that absorbs all my attention, it is a passion that takes over my life, it is a full time dedication and there is usually no creative energy left over for anything else. For a long time I believed that I would have no other project than this blog, that my writing had dwindled to a post a week or less and that nothing major would ever again come out of my creativity. It may be that this is true, but I was grabbed, suddenly, without thinking. It was so unexpected that I can’t even remember how it happened. I think it was that I started to put together a family tree on Genealogy.com or something like that, because I am in a region where there are so many Domecqs. Then I pulled out a Pedigree Chart that a cousin had done on the maternal side of the family; a while later I began jotting down dates that corresponded to people in my family tree, and doing some research on internet; then I joined Ancestry.com and the info began pouring in.  I found a time line someone had done on their grandmother or something, and thought that would be interesting so I began one. Then, I decided that I wanted to expand the information on the time line to include the historical events that had taken place and might have influenced or interested the person of the time line… The project began to take shape, and the excitement grew. I found myself getting up at 6a.m. every morning and working till 8:30 or 9; sometimes I couldn’t stop. Suddenly, my grandmother’s time line had 50 pages and was still growing. I consulted with my cousin who had done the Pedigree Chart and we began sharing memories and finds on internet. By then I was hooked.The plan had begun to take shape in my head. The Research will have two branches: the female branch from my mother back, and the male branch following my father’s male ancestors. This means the “tree” will have an American-German-Jewish branch and a Spanish-French-Catholic branch. Once a project such as this begins, the information increases exponentially; it seems to literaly seep out of the computer pages or spring to life in books, albums, letters or other people’s memories. So far I have time-lines for my great-great grandmother, my great grandmother and my grandmother. I am about to begin with my mother.

      The next step is to begin with my father’s family. For that I am sitting on a gold mine. Already, I have contacted a Jean Pierre Domecq who has kindly sent me a fat folder filled with documents about the French Domecqs. I have visited the original hamlet where they lived and migrated from, and I have found their names on streets and war monuments throughout the region. Of course, I will have to go to Jerez where they migrated to when the did around the beginning of the 19th century. Just the thought of all that lies ahead makes me tremble with excitement and impatience.

      And then, of course, there is exactly what I am going to do with all this information. To tell the truth, I haven’t a clue. At the least, I will pull together a coherent account, with photographs, for my children; but I do not believe this will end there. There is a wealth of material and too many skeletons in the closet to be ignored. My writer’s what-ever-it-is is itching. There is a long way to go, but something of weight (kilos of it) will come of this, I am sure.

   In the meantime, all my creative activity is going into this, so I beg your pardon, you patience and you continued support (please check over the blogs and see if there is any you have missed or would like to re-read), until the time when whatever is gestating sees its natural birth.

    Hope 2014 is as exciting for all of you as it promises to be for me, thank you for being there at the other side of this page. Love, Brianda