I used the Ancestry version and found out lots… but no surprises in my US family tree.
The European family tree (father was a German, family from the central-eastern parts) is a mysterious as ever. Part of the problem is Germanic / European attitudes toward public genealogy—especially suspicion at using an American company! Add in the fact that most of the area was torched several times in WW2, and whatever remained of public records probably vandalized by Red Army people and Soviets… There’s just not really any publicly available information to go on. Whatever information is left is guarded jealously by German-Prussian bureaucrats with an attitude hellbent on keeping everything forever safe from public access. Not even family can be trusted with such info!
I like ancestry, although I have found sometimes it mixes records of people with the same name. For example, there were at one time 3 Jay Janney living in the same zip code, the same age. Sometimes our records contains stuff of someone else. Frustrating.
But I used it in a research project, and it is useful. I was looking up the parents of every Friends pastor, as well as the parents of every spouse (941 pastors, so several thousand searches). I used that to build a count of family linkages. My favorite two odd names were "Oliver Cromwell Beeson" (Cromwell actively persecuted Friends), and "Hugh Love Risk", who I assumed got teased annually at Valentine's day.
I did a ton of genealogy for mom and dad. I was much more successful with Ancestry.com and their linked DNA testing with records as evidence.
Dad had passed, and he knew and had all adoption papers. Apparently required by the US Army for his WW2 enlistment. These included his actual birth certificate and birth name and parents. Dad's birth mother was a young widow who obviously had a successful affair with a local NJ farmland. Allentown, NJ area. Birth grandma lineage was very deep, somewhat well off circa 1730. I found her burial location. Dad's birth father was much harder as his first and last names and age, (from Dads birth certificate) were more common. But I found him.
Mom's side was very well documented in Census, wills etc. Especially in the most genealogy friendly state archives of West Virginia. Mom's grandmother was a Jackson. A 2nd cousin to Thomas Stonewall Jackson amd some other prominent VA, WV Jackson's.
As Mom's mother died from pre-eclampysia hours after her birth, mid depression, her now single, early 30s, Irish and mostly alcoholic father, ran off back to Indianapolis and leaving mom with her maternal Grandfather and his 2nd wife. She obviously felt abandoned. She tracked him down after she married Dad. We went out to Indy from WV in the 60s to visit. They were quite nice to us. Unfortunately he was still an alcoholic. I came to believe he made a responsible choice to give mom up to her Grandfather.
Ancestry DNA helped a lot. Turns out Grandfather lied or changed or used a name not on his birth certificate. In Indiana you habe to be a direct descent or sibling to get a birth certificate or death certificate. Only his Death Certificate was found, signed by his 2md wife whom we knew.
His name was not Edward Irish. It was the unusually common name of blank Smith!!
DNA and records found relatives who filled in the story. Grandfather's Father took his own life when he and his brother were young teens. Their mother earned a living ..umm. They ran away from home and changed their names. Grandfather never appears in any census or record for 20 years.
One observation I gathered was the tremendous amount of orphaned children born in the epoch change from farm living to earning a wage in a town or city. because sustainability farms could no longer be divided and passed on. too small.
Yup, Indiana has strict rules on that. Although you can sometimes get official death notices. When using Ancestry I was able to get some that were on-line. I would have guessed Utah is more genealogy friendly than WV....
I am fortunate, our library subscribes to ancestry.com so I can use it for free.
> One observation I gathered was the tremendous amount of orphaned children born in the epoch change from farm living to earning a wage in a town or city. because sustainability farms could no longer be divided and passed on. too small. <
Sounds similar to the problems of (British? Latin?) primogeniture.
Katie inherited a mini farm from her father. He used to farm 900 acres, but left Katie and her sister the last bit of the family farm, about 110 acres. Today, you can hardly turn a John Deere combine around in a field that sized. The crop yield is about $25k gross revenue. Of course, that has to be split with the family who farms it for us, her sister, and an unwelcome relative, Uncle Sammy.
Back from Envirothon. Epic and Teengirl were acceptably successful at the end-of-year tests. Given the success of both their teams last year (2nd in state, 3rd in state), I anticipate they will be placed on strong teams this year. On the other hand, some girls from last year's second high school team are pretty ambitious, so they may bump Epic out.
I've done the DNA testing thing, but through Ancestry rather than 23 & Me. The results weren't too surprising. I have a relatively small family. Going up to my grandparents generation (both sides), my grandparents and their siblings had very few children (2-3 Max). The generations before that, however, tended to have fairly large families. As a result, Ancestry periodically finds a third or fourth cousin to tell me about.
This is mildly interesting, but not exactly life-changing. With a third or fourth cousin, the common ancestor is usually a second or third-great grandparent, which is distant enough that there's no strong incentive to meet and certainly no need to worry that they're going to show up to make any kind of claim on an estate.
As I shared last night, I turned in grades. I have half a dozen students I expect to hear from who had lower grades than they expected. Partly they did bad on the final exam, but partly they failed to turn in easy assignments. I dunno what to do about students like that.
My youngest got all A grades this semester. He had two really tough courses, both had labs, and three easier courses. Next semester he's only taking 11 hours, so he can study for the Dentist Aptitude Test (DAT). TBF, 2 of those courses are tough and in his major. He has all As but for one A- in pre-med (pre-dentistry) so he's in a good position.
He's in an odd place. He only needs 21 hours to graduate, but he didn't have enough completed to apply for Dental School starting next fall, so he would have had to wait another year. He only needs 10 hours next year. They also won't do a January admit for him. I told him he'll probably enjoy having a light senior year!
I am too. Getting into dental school isn't easy, so the GPA won't be a source of stress for him. Studying for the dental exam is a priority for him.
One of his HS classmates was going to do medical school, then switched to Optometry. Her GPA is right at the median, as were her test scores (she plans to graduate in 3 years, not 4). She is sweating it. She might still make it, I hope she does, but she is worried. My son will still be stressed but if he has above average GPA and test scores then he'll know he did all he could, and he'll be okay with that. a PA program is his fallback. Since UD has that program, and prioritizes its own students, he should have no problem being admitted.
Congratulations to your son on a successful semester. I hope he does well on DAT test.
I was one of those students who didn't do the easy assignments - like homework. I mean, it was just homework.
My daughter pulled Cs out of statistics and physics. She failed the OPEN BOOK statistics final, getting the calculations right but the T/F questions wrong. Being statistics, the professor posted the grade distribution for the class: 80% of students got a B or better. She busted her tail for that class -got good grades on the homework, missed maybe one class, talked to the professor, asked questions. But it was like her scope was somehow out of alignment.
She was able to get her "scope" dialed in for physics right before the final; three more points on the final would have gotten her a B.
It was a tough semester but I think those bad grades taught her something about herself that she needed to know.
Some students do not test well. My daughter is that way. We helped her study, crated quizlets which she would do until she got a perfect score. Then the next day she'd get a 60-65 on the exam.
This is the girl who at age two knew how to unlock a car door from the inside, while in a car seat.... I didn't know whether to be proud or terrified.
It took her three times to pass her phlebotomy exam, but she did. And she is doing well at it in the local hospital. Although I get nervous when she looks at my hand and tells me I've got good veins!
A good friend of mine, a Black man, whose children and grandchildren are friends of my kids, had interesting stories of his father when growing up in Baltimore. He was not much of a talker, but I can get most people to open up and am eternally curious. I got him to talk a bit about his father. His father was hard man. A brawler if challenged. What most surprised me was that my friend said that at last count he was aware of something like 23 siblings, to an undetermined number of women. He was very close to only one sister, and didn't have the least interest in tracking or counting his half-siblings.
I thought of this when watching a documentary about B. B. King, who is one of my all time favorite guitarists. Almost identical story regarding number of children. I struggle to hold old B. B. in as high regard as I used to.
On an entirely unrelated note...I did a little search via ChatGPT on the flooding in the Pacific NW. Some of the worst flooding and economic damage was in the area created by draining a giant lake that used to be there and developing it as agricultural and other use. There was very substantial economic loss in areas designated as flood plain, and vast areas that are adjacent to designated flood plain that were also damaged...leading to the idea that the flood plain maps are worthless, and people build in areas that used be lakes and designated flood plains anyway.
I have heard that updating flood plain maps significantly lags new construction but it doesn't generate enough political juice to do anything about. The extent and speed of construction in this area should make this alarming.
In my limited but not insubstantial experience, flood maps generate HUGE political juice...the juice that says make the map show us what we want to see, i.e., they're political and economically driven, with some minor bureaucrats moaning small objections and then doing what they're told to do. Of course, no one wants to own up to that, and it's dodgeball nowadays. Jobs have been lost and career trajectories altered or derailed when folks go against what economic interests or deeply held ideological bias demands.
We are supposedly in a minor? flood area. If the wash rises 30 ft.
So before finalizing our home purchase, I hired a couple firms.
a. an FDA qualified water and chemical test lab to test our well water. which is superb.
b. A high end enuf, civil engineering firm and their experienced geo-hydraulogist. Who terrain mapped and computed the volumetric, surface area etc of all watershed flows in both washes near the house. I really appreciated the confidence he got from .. See!! those almost century old mesquite... that's a good sign.
My first home was on a hill, a 1 acre lot, a small creek across the street. They designated about 50' of my property as being in a flood plain, and the insurance company wanted to jack up my rates. It took quite a bit to get the decision reversed. BTW, the homes on the other side of the creek sat below the top of my hill, suggesting hundreds of homes would be under water before me.
My current home has a flood plain in our woods behind us (we don't own the woods, but I tried to buy them once). Again, we're on top of a hill where 1/4th of the town will be underwater before it reaches us...
My worry is more about a tornado hitting us than a flood.
Silly me, I was thinking political juice with normal people :-)
It is particularly egregious on the coast. I have seen cottages built on property that I would swear is underwater during an astronomical high tide. And the impact of runoff on coastal waters? Pfft. My oldest brother is, among other things, a fisherman, hunter, naturalist (right wing, not left) and the changes he has seen on the coast grieve his soul.
He and I would get along very well. I've been amateur studying this stuff for 40 years, starting with an intro to Orrin Pilkey, may he RIP. We've destroyed our coastlines, including West Michigan, which used to be a literal environmental wonderland.
Orrin Pilkey was not popular here in the 80s, even though he was at Duke. I have one of his books and believe I did read it. The thing is I don't think folks then (including me) could possibly imagine the population change over the past 40 years. I have noticed that the elevation is raised significantly before constructing schools or state roads.
I was in your 'hood in 1976, and then a couple years ago. Yeah, it's very different. Lots of folks disliked Orrin. He did a study for the West Michigan/Lake Michigan coastline contrary to what they wanted to hear; it was straight up Orrin, i.e., it's extremely dynamic, don't do anything, you'll only mess it up more. After 50 years of watching it, he was right, therefore hated.
when I was in China the tour pointed out areas where whole cities (not just towns) were flooded to make dams
There was a situation in TN, building a dam that displaced several hundred families. But my recollection of that was flooding caused so much damage prior to that TVA, in the 1940s, chose to build a dam for prevention, vs the dams in China for other purposes
Entire geographic regions were flooded for 3 Gorges. 10,000+ households had to move. OTOH, I've seen the after effects. Before, they were living in mud huts on remote mountain worthless agricultural land and literally zero jobs or economic opportunity, and they were moved into very nice (for rural China) new houses and communities with new infrastructure and provided with decent agricultural related jobs and good schools. You should see some of the new communities in Zhejiang, where farmers were moved off teeny family subsistence plots and given very nice (even in America) housing in highly desirable expensive economic zones. So, the story lines in America are utterly negative and the reality in China is quite a bit different. Lots of those folks are thrilled to have been moved. The WSJ reports otherwise.
Tennessee was about flooding and electrification. It seems to have worked OK.
once again, I didn't read about it in the states, it was on the tour that told of the people forced to move along w/ lives lost...
we visited an elderly woman who was living in a narrow, small house whose large home had been taken from her. She told of her previous life, etc. Then she had nothing, no bathroom, had to go down the street to the communal shower, etc.
I don't know anything about the woman you describe. I know folks get screwed in development scenarios, sometimes lots of people, sometimes entire populations. America is a good example; dozens of millions of people got screwed in developing America. There are tours in America that point it out, just like in China. I once read about a tour where you got to follow the Trail of Tears, the demolition and relocation of the entire Cherokee Nation. I find the observations...in both cases...biased (stupid) in ways that take a long time to talk about, so I won't.
I know that describing China to (most) Americans in anything other than "evil empire crushing its people in all cases" is extremely off putting for most folks.
I don’t like much of America’s past, altho there has been MUCH to admire about how we’ve managed to come to where we are, ignoring certain individuals…
I don’t care much of past or present day China’s government
Well, you got to the point that matters, and that is you see the progress. Any accurate account of history is awful. Horrific. Never ending stories of folks chopping each other up over who gets the biggest slice of pie. But, how far have we come? A really long ways.
If we were sitting down and had the time to talk about what's real, what's happened, and how far China's government has come from its formation only 70 years ago, you'd probably say "gee, I've never read or heard anything about that. They've made incredible progress." Which it has. America can't allow that story. It would put our own story in very stark relief by comparison.
History is not a win-lose linear progression; it is a series of ascendant and descendant cycles. Anyone viewing history otherwise confines themselves to a closed, limited perspective. That America even exists is a miracle; that it currently is in a descendant cycle, while those in power claim otherwise, is not surprising.
Yeah, it filed for bankruptcy, but continues to operate. One issue is who gets ownership of the data. I thought it'd be fun to trace my DNA heritage, but once that became an issue I won't go there. The breach and that issue has raised a going concern issue for them.
Yup. Although, "what's her name" isn't derisive enough. I reserve "what's her/his face?" for folks I'm deceptively insulting. Silicon Valley kazillionaire tech overlords and/or their ex-wives get called "what's her face". Most politicians too, even when I know their names.
Relevant to the article, Megan McArdle had a Monday Essay yesterday on the mothership, about how her mother told her of a son, Megan’s brother, born out of wedlock and given up for adoption, before Megan’s parents married. Sadly, the brother had died before she know of his existence. A reflection on abortion and how our families shape us.
& older day views about adoption, unwed mothers... (several books about maternity homes)...
I volunteered w/ hospice patients/clients. An offshoot of that was a group of us started what was called "Tell Me Your Story". We took tape recorders to record what they would say about anything they wanted to say; we would have 'prompting' questions if needed. Some would bring out photos & talk about those... then we'd transfer the taped recordings to CD's, make however many copies the client wanted to distribute to whoever they wanted, then destroy our copy. One woman's only plan for this was to talk to/tell her story to her estranged adopted son. Many twists & turns to the story, but the birth mother & he got together at one point when he was older - feelings got hurt, etc., etc. The woman/the client was dying, she had tried to get him to talk to her, he wouldn't, so she told me so many stories, secrets, knowing he would get a copy.
Re: maternity homes. There are organizations that assist single women with unplanned pregnancies, helping such women to keep their babies instead of aborting them. Women's Care Center is one of the largest. They are a (non-judgemental) successor to the old "homes for unwed mothers".
Good morning. 15 degrees here, maybe reaching the mid 30s this afternoon.
The mothership is reporting on the Bondi Beach antisemitism shooting in Australia. The FP is headlining Jimmy Lai, convicted of political crimes in Hong Kong, and Rob Reiner, who with his wife was found shot to death in his home, with their son a prime suspect.
I wondered about that one, but I also thought it might engender some privacy discussions.
I wanted to keep it short without going into too much detail about privacy but those issues will be with us. Bidders considering buying 23 and me want the DNA access as much as, if not more so the ongoing business.
I think you were thinking I was referring to your post here. I was saying at The Morning Dispatch, not much focus on the Bondi Beach story.
I think everyone here is interested in your story. It's thrilling and scary to think what blood relatives might be undiscovered! For my part, it would be interesting, it's just that I don't want anything more to complicate my world. Saving all my emotional energy for my wife and kids, and the family I already have.
I hear you on that. I don't need to meet relatives I never knew! I went to the Janney family reunion once. It was interesting. We were welcome, but not a part of it at the same time....
Katie's family has a 4 day reunion in western Indiana every year; about half the family lives there, the rest scattered. The culminating meal has over 100+ in attendance. It's interesting, to say the least.
What is there to say, really? I'm just glad that they aren't riding on the back of this atrocity to the land of hot takes and gotchas. It's a good comments section.
My practice was business litigation, but my very first trial was in a paternity case. A young woman had brought a lawsuit claiming that a key employee of one of our important clients was the father of her small child, and they gave the case to me as the most junior litigation associate. This would have been around 1980.
It didn't seem that my client had much of a case. But at the trial I learned from the woman's testimony that she had previously been married and divorced. When divorced, I wondered? At lunchtime I sent a paralegal down to the county clerk's office. She brought back a certified copy of a divorce decree dated two months after the child was born.
That certificate was the only piece of evidence I offered on behalf of my client. Under New York law, there is a strong legal presumption that a husband is the father of a child born during the marriage. The judge issued a verdict in favor of my client.
That was, of course, before the days of DNA testing.
In WI, it is presumed the husband is the father. My mailman married a pregnant woman knowing said child was not his child. I was asked to serve as GAL in the paternity case and I wanted nothing to do with that so I declined.
A messy business and no doubt you were best out of it.
Back 45 years ago I had a duty to do the best I could for my client (who told me after the trial that, yes, the baby probably was his). But doing the best for him also left something of a sour taste in my mouth.
my kids gave me 23&me in its early days as a Mother's Day gift. I followed all the directions, sent it in & what I received was just a repeat, pretty much, of the info I had provided regarding what I knew of my parents, except they mixed up bits & pieces of "my story"... blah!
I refused to make mine public. I don’t need to know about any long lost siblings. I had a dad who skipped out when I was 7, doubtful he sired more children but just in case he did.
I'm a 15th generation Janney on my father's side. Friends are famous for record keeping, so tracing it back wasn't a big deal. My Mom's side was not as easy. I even visited the little town in England from where they came. It's....a little town, nothing noteworthy to it.
While doing some genealogy I discovered on my grandmother (my father's side) a DAR certification. I was curious: does SAR accept DAR? They do not, I'd have to file all the paperwork myself. Maybe after I retire.
I had virtually no info on my dad's side. His parents came from Russia, at different times. His dad, by himself, thru Ellis Island, changed his name. No one really knows what his original name was, so that makes it difficult. His mom came w/ her family, somewhat wealthy, on a ship the dad owned, but he died on the way, so the captain then owned the ship ? leaving the family poor. Dad's mom & dad met, married, in Penn. My mom's fam - ??? - English background... T
And that's all she wrote...
At one time, many yrs ago, the church I attended in TN was trying to establish pen pals w/ people in Russia. I applied, wrote my intro, indicating I'd love to find some relatives - and that's all she wrote... never heard another word from anyone 🤔😢
Not on myself. 23 and me hasn't reassured me th results won't be released to others, and besides, don't some crimes not have a statute of limitations?😉
One funny thought. My college friends who have met my sons tell me they know they are mine the second they meet them!
I used the Ancestry version and found out lots… but no surprises in my US family tree.
The European family tree (father was a German, family from the central-eastern parts) is a mysterious as ever. Part of the problem is Germanic / European attitudes toward public genealogy—especially suspicion at using an American company! Add in the fact that most of the area was torched several times in WW2, and whatever remained of public records probably vandalized by Red Army people and Soviets… There’s just not really any publicly available information to go on. Whatever information is left is guarded jealously by German-Prussian bureaucrats with an attitude hellbent on keeping everything forever safe from public access. Not even family can be trusted with such info!
I like ancestry, although I have found sometimes it mixes records of people with the same name. For example, there were at one time 3 Jay Janney living in the same zip code, the same age. Sometimes our records contains stuff of someone else. Frustrating.
But I used it in a research project, and it is useful. I was looking up the parents of every Friends pastor, as well as the parents of every spouse (941 pastors, so several thousand searches). I used that to build a count of family linkages. My favorite two odd names were "Oliver Cromwell Beeson" (Cromwell actively persecuted Friends), and "Hugh Love Risk", who I assumed got teased annually at Valentine's day.
I did a ton of genealogy for mom and dad. I was much more successful with Ancestry.com and their linked DNA testing with records as evidence.
Dad had passed, and he knew and had all adoption papers. Apparently required by the US Army for his WW2 enlistment. These included his actual birth certificate and birth name and parents. Dad's birth mother was a young widow who obviously had a successful affair with a local NJ farmland. Allentown, NJ area. Birth grandma lineage was very deep, somewhat well off circa 1730. I found her burial location. Dad's birth father was much harder as his first and last names and age, (from Dads birth certificate) were more common. But I found him.
Mom's side was very well documented in Census, wills etc. Especially in the most genealogy friendly state archives of West Virginia. Mom's grandmother was a Jackson. A 2nd cousin to Thomas Stonewall Jackson amd some other prominent VA, WV Jackson's.
As Mom's mother died from pre-eclampysia hours after her birth, mid depression, her now single, early 30s, Irish and mostly alcoholic father, ran off back to Indianapolis and leaving mom with her maternal Grandfather and his 2nd wife. She obviously felt abandoned. She tracked him down after she married Dad. We went out to Indy from WV in the 60s to visit. They were quite nice to us. Unfortunately he was still an alcoholic. I came to believe he made a responsible choice to give mom up to her Grandfather.
Ancestry DNA helped a lot. Turns out Grandfather lied or changed or used a name not on his birth certificate. In Indiana you habe to be a direct descent or sibling to get a birth certificate or death certificate. Only his Death Certificate was found, signed by his 2md wife whom we knew.
His name was not Edward Irish. It was the unusually common name of blank Smith!!
DNA and records found relatives who filled in the story. Grandfather's Father took his own life when he and his brother were young teens. Their mother earned a living ..umm. They ran away from home and changed their names. Grandfather never appears in any census or record for 20 years.
One observation I gathered was the tremendous amount of orphaned children born in the epoch change from farm living to earning a wage in a town or city. because sustainability farms could no longer be divided and passed on. too small.
Yup, Indiana has strict rules on that. Although you can sometimes get official death notices. When using Ancestry I was able to get some that were on-line. I would have guessed Utah is more genealogy friendly than WV....
I am fortunate, our library subscribes to ancestry.com so I can use it for free.
> One observation I gathered was the tremendous amount of orphaned children born in the epoch change from farm living to earning a wage in a town or city. because sustainability farms could no longer be divided and passed on. too small. <
Sounds similar to the problems of (British? Latin?) primogeniture.
Katie inherited a mini farm from her father. He used to farm 900 acres, but left Katie and her sister the last bit of the family farm, about 110 acres. Today, you can hardly turn a John Deere combine around in a field that sized. The crop yield is about $25k gross revenue. Of course, that has to be split with the family who farms it for us, her sister, and an unwelcome relative, Uncle Sammy.
The Dispatch has given me a free subscription.
No Comments Allowed, however
Daily spam.
I asked them to stop sending me emails.
Back from Envirothon. Epic and Teengirl were acceptably successful at the end-of-year tests. Given the success of both their teams last year (2nd in state, 3rd in state), I anticipate they will be placed on strong teams this year. On the other hand, some girls from last year's second high school team are pretty ambitious, so they may bump Epic out.
I've done the DNA testing thing, but through Ancestry rather than 23 & Me. The results weren't too surprising. I have a relatively small family. Going up to my grandparents generation (both sides), my grandparents and their siblings had very few children (2-3 Max). The generations before that, however, tended to have fairly large families. As a result, Ancestry periodically finds a third or fourth cousin to tell me about.
This is mildly interesting, but not exactly life-changing. With a third or fourth cousin, the common ancestor is usually a second or third-great grandparent, which is distant enough that there's no strong incentive to meet and certainly no need to worry that they're going to show up to make any kind of claim on an estate.
On my Dad's side his mother was one of 9, his father one of 13. Just remembering to send Christmas cards would be overwhelming.
I'm guessing there's an app for that. 😀
As I shared last night, I turned in grades. I have half a dozen students I expect to hear from who had lower grades than they expected. Partly they did bad on the final exam, but partly they failed to turn in easy assignments. I dunno what to do about students like that.
My youngest got all A grades this semester. He had two really tough courses, both had labs, and three easier courses. Next semester he's only taking 11 hours, so he can study for the Dentist Aptitude Test (DAT). TBF, 2 of those courses are tough and in his major. He has all As but for one A- in pre-med (pre-dentistry) so he's in a good position.
He's in an odd place. He only needs 21 hours to graduate, but he didn't have enough completed to apply for Dental School starting next fall, so he would have had to wait another year. He only needs 10 hours next year. They also won't do a January admit for him. I told him he'll probably enjoy having a light senior year!
Very glad for your youngest! Must be a relief to all concerned.
I am too. Getting into dental school isn't easy, so the GPA won't be a source of stress for him. Studying for the dental exam is a priority for him.
One of his HS classmates was going to do medical school, then switched to Optometry. Her GPA is right at the median, as were her test scores (she plans to graduate in 3 years, not 4). She is sweating it. She might still make it, I hope she does, but she is worried. My son will still be stressed but if he has above average GPA and test scores then he'll know he did all he could, and he'll be okay with that. a PA program is his fallback. Since UD has that program, and prioritizes its own students, he should have no problem being admitted.
Congratulations to your son on a successful semester. I hope he does well on DAT test.
I was one of those students who didn't do the easy assignments - like homework. I mean, it was just homework.
My daughter pulled Cs out of statistics and physics. She failed the OPEN BOOK statistics final, getting the calculations right but the T/F questions wrong. Being statistics, the professor posted the grade distribution for the class: 80% of students got a B or better. She busted her tail for that class -got good grades on the homework, missed maybe one class, talked to the professor, asked questions. But it was like her scope was somehow out of alignment.
She was able to get her "scope" dialed in for physics right before the final; three more points on the final would have gotten her a B.
It was a tough semester but I think those bad grades taught her something about herself that she needed to know.
Some students do not test well. My daughter is that way. We helped her study, crated quizlets which she would do until she got a perfect score. Then the next day she'd get a 60-65 on the exam.
This is the girl who at age two knew how to unlock a car door from the inside, while in a car seat.... I didn't know whether to be proud or terrified.
It took her three times to pass her phlebotomy exam, but she did. And she is doing well at it in the local hospital. Although I get nervous when she looks at my hand and tells me I've got good veins!
This semester really shook her confidence because school has been her thing. This semester's C's were her first.
Curiosity, creativity, intellect and education make an interesting mix. That's a good thing.
As are good veins.
Good morning! Today is the 252nd anniversary of the the Boston Tea Party.
I'll drink a cup of tea to that!
Surely you meant coffee! ;-)
I drink both coffee and tea.
A good friend of mine, a Black man, whose children and grandchildren are friends of my kids, had interesting stories of his father when growing up in Baltimore. He was not much of a talker, but I can get most people to open up and am eternally curious. I got him to talk a bit about his father. His father was hard man. A brawler if challenged. What most surprised me was that my friend said that at last count he was aware of something like 23 siblings, to an undetermined number of women. He was very close to only one sister, and didn't have the least interest in tracking or counting his half-siblings.
I thought of this when watching a documentary about B. B. King, who is one of my all time favorite guitarists. Almost identical story regarding number of children. I struggle to hold old B. B. in as high regard as I used to.
On an entirely unrelated note...I did a little search via ChatGPT on the flooding in the Pacific NW. Some of the worst flooding and economic damage was in the area created by draining a giant lake that used to be there and developing it as agricultural and other use. There was very substantial economic loss in areas designated as flood plain, and vast areas that are adjacent to designated flood plain that were also damaged...leading to the idea that the flood plain maps are worthless, and people build in areas that used be lakes and designated flood plains anyway.
I have heard that updating flood plain maps significantly lags new construction but it doesn't generate enough political juice to do anything about. The extent and speed of construction in this area should make this alarming.
In my limited but not insubstantial experience, flood maps generate HUGE political juice...the juice that says make the map show us what we want to see, i.e., they're political and economically driven, with some minor bureaucrats moaning small objections and then doing what they're told to do. Of course, no one wants to own up to that, and it's dodgeball nowadays. Jobs have been lost and career trajectories altered or derailed when folks go against what economic interests or deeply held ideological bias demands.
We are supposedly in a minor? flood area. If the wash rises 30 ft.
So before finalizing our home purchase, I hired a couple firms.
a. an FDA qualified water and chemical test lab to test our well water. which is superb.
b. A high end enuf, civil engineering firm and their experienced geo-hydraulogist. Who terrain mapped and computed the volumetric, surface area etc of all watershed flows in both washes near the house. I really appreciated the confidence he got from .. See!! those almost century old mesquite... that's a good sign.
My first home was on a hill, a 1 acre lot, a small creek across the street. They designated about 50' of my property as being in a flood plain, and the insurance company wanted to jack up my rates. It took quite a bit to get the decision reversed. BTW, the homes on the other side of the creek sat below the top of my hill, suggesting hundreds of homes would be under water before me.
My current home has a flood plain in our woods behind us (we don't own the woods, but I tried to buy them once). Again, we're on top of a hill where 1/4th of the town will be underwater before it reaches us...
My worry is more about a tornado hitting us than a flood.
Silly me, I was thinking political juice with normal people :-)
It is particularly egregious on the coast. I have seen cottages built on property that I would swear is underwater during an astronomical high tide. And the impact of runoff on coastal waters? Pfft. My oldest brother is, among other things, a fisherman, hunter, naturalist (right wing, not left) and the changes he has seen on the coast grieve his soul.
He and I would get along very well. I've been amateur studying this stuff for 40 years, starting with an intro to Orrin Pilkey, may he RIP. We've destroyed our coastlines, including West Michigan, which used to be a literal environmental wonderland.
I think you might.
Orrin Pilkey was not popular here in the 80s, even though he was at Duke. I have one of his books and believe I did read it. The thing is I don't think folks then (including me) could possibly imagine the population change over the past 40 years. I have noticed that the elevation is raised significantly before constructing schools or state roads.
I was in your 'hood in 1976, and then a couple years ago. Yeah, it's very different. Lots of folks disliked Orrin. He did a study for the West Michigan/Lake Michigan coastline contrary to what they wanted to hear; it was straight up Orrin, i.e., it's extremely dynamic, don't do anything, you'll only mess it up more. After 50 years of watching it, he was right, therefore hated.
when I was in China the tour pointed out areas where whole cities (not just towns) were flooded to make dams
There was a situation in TN, building a dam that displaced several hundred families. But my recollection of that was flooding caused so much damage prior to that TVA, in the 1940s, chose to build a dam for prevention, vs the dams in China for other purposes
Entire geographic regions were flooded for 3 Gorges. 10,000+ households had to move. OTOH, I've seen the after effects. Before, they were living in mud huts on remote mountain worthless agricultural land and literally zero jobs or economic opportunity, and they were moved into very nice (for rural China) new houses and communities with new infrastructure and provided with decent agricultural related jobs and good schools. You should see some of the new communities in Zhejiang, where farmers were moved off teeny family subsistence plots and given very nice (even in America) housing in highly desirable expensive economic zones. So, the story lines in America are utterly negative and the reality in China is quite a bit different. Lots of those folks are thrilled to have been moved. The WSJ reports otherwise.
Tennessee was about flooding and electrification. It seems to have worked OK.
once again, I didn't read about it in the states, it was on the tour that told of the people forced to move along w/ lives lost...
we visited an elderly woman who was living in a narrow, small house whose large home had been taken from her. She told of her previous life, etc. Then she had nothing, no bathroom, had to go down the street to the communal shower, etc.
I don't know anything about the woman you describe. I know folks get screwed in development scenarios, sometimes lots of people, sometimes entire populations. America is a good example; dozens of millions of people got screwed in developing America. There are tours in America that point it out, just like in China. I once read about a tour where you got to follow the Trail of Tears, the demolition and relocation of the entire Cherokee Nation. I find the observations...in both cases...biased (stupid) in ways that take a long time to talk about, so I won't.
I know that describing China to (most) Americans in anything other than "evil empire crushing its people in all cases" is extremely off putting for most folks.
I don’t like much of America’s past, altho there has been MUCH to admire about how we’ve managed to come to where we are, ignoring certain individuals…
I don’t care much of past or present day China’s government
Well, you got to the point that matters, and that is you see the progress. Any accurate account of history is awful. Horrific. Never ending stories of folks chopping each other up over who gets the biggest slice of pie. But, how far have we come? A really long ways.
If we were sitting down and had the time to talk about what's real, what's happened, and how far China's government has come from its formation only 70 years ago, you'd probably say "gee, I've never read or heard anything about that. They've made incredible progress." Which it has. America can't allow that story. It would put our own story in very stark relief by comparison.
History is not a win-lose linear progression; it is a series of ascendant and descendant cycles. Anyone viewing history otherwise confines themselves to a closed, limited perspective. That America even exists is a miracle; that it currently is in a descendant cycle, while those in power claim otherwise, is not surprising.
well, since I'm sharing GlobalPost, I'll share one more bit, this one more along Cynthia's line:
https://globalpost.com/stories/new-middle-lion-roar-discovered/
Thanks, professor. Fortunately, the reports of 23andMe's death are greatly exaggerated.
Yeah, it filed for bankruptcy, but continues to operate. One issue is who gets ownership of the data. I thought it'd be fun to trace my DNA heritage, but once that became an issue I won't go there. The breach and that issue has raised a going concern issue for them.
What's her face...the original developer/owner/principle...has a buyback effort going on.
Is “what’s her face” a Midwest thing? 😆
As a semi-jocular alternative to "what's her name"? It could be a Midwestern thing. I picked it up in high school.
Yup. Although, "what's her name" isn't derisive enough. I reserve "what's her/his face?" for folks I'm deceptively insulting. Silicon Valley kazillionaire tech overlords and/or their ex-wives get called "what's her face". Most politicians too, even when I know their names.
I don't know. I do it when I'm too lazy to look it up.
We also use "Whoozamadinger" (though rarely in print since it is hard to spell).
Sometimes I think Friends began "This Friend" because they forgot someone's name...it makes sense...
Hah! I have a cousin in South Bend that says Whoozamadinger (autocorrect says it should be Qhoozamadinger) all the time. It must be a Midwest thing.
you're right - they keep sending me emails wanting me back...
not related, however I've mentioned I don't read much news, but what I do like is GlobalPost, & this came thru this morning (just one part):
https://globalpost.com/stories/no-more-crosses-or-hijabs-quebec-tightens-restrictions-on-symbols-of-religion/
Relevant to the article, Megan McArdle had a Monday Essay yesterday on the mothership, about how her mother told her of a son, Megan’s brother, born out of wedlock and given up for adoption, before Megan’s parents married. Sadly, the brother had died before she know of his existence. A reflection on abortion and how our families shape us.
It is a powerful piece.
& older day views about adoption, unwed mothers... (several books about maternity homes)...
I volunteered w/ hospice patients/clients. An offshoot of that was a group of us started what was called "Tell Me Your Story". We took tape recorders to record what they would say about anything they wanted to say; we would have 'prompting' questions if needed. Some would bring out photos & talk about those... then we'd transfer the taped recordings to CD's, make however many copies the client wanted to distribute to whoever they wanted, then destroy our copy. One woman's only plan for this was to talk to/tell her story to her estranged adopted son. Many twists & turns to the story, but the birth mother & he got together at one point when he was older - feelings got hurt, etc., etc. The woman/the client was dying, she had tried to get him to talk to her, he wouldn't, so she told me so many stories, secrets, knowing he would get a copy.
Re: maternity homes. There are organizations that assist single women with unplanned pregnancies, helping such women to keep their babies instead of aborting them. Women's Care Center is one of the largest. They are a (non-judgemental) successor to the old "homes for unwed mothers".
the organization you mention sounds great!
ohhhhhhhh how I wish abortion wasn't used as birth control....
Good morning. 15 degrees here, maybe reaching the mid 30s this afternoon.
The mothership is reporting on the Bondi Beach antisemitism shooting in Australia. The FP is headlining Jimmy Lai, convicted of political crimes in Hong Kong, and Rob Reiner, who with his wife was found shot to death in his home, with their son a prime suspect.
*stabbed to death 🥺
Yep. Thanks.
The comment section shows limited interest in the lead story. Maybe everyone is getting numb and don't have much more to say.
I wondered about that one, but I also thought it might engender some privacy discussions.
I wanted to keep it short without going into too much detail about privacy but those issues will be with us. Bidders considering buying 23 and me want the DNA access as much as, if not more so the ongoing business.
I think you were thinking I was referring to your post here. I was saying at The Morning Dispatch, not much focus on the Bondi Beach story.
I think everyone here is interested in your story. It's thrilling and scary to think what blood relatives might be undiscovered! For my part, it would be interesting, it's just that I don't want anything more to complicate my world. Saving all my emotional energy for my wife and kids, and the family I already have.
I hear you on that. I don't need to meet relatives I never knew! I went to the Janney family reunion once. It was interesting. We were welcome, but not a part of it at the same time....
Katie's family has a 4 day reunion in western Indiana every year; about half the family lives there, the rest scattered. The culminating meal has over 100+ in attendance. It's interesting, to say the least.
What is there to say, really? I'm just glad that they aren't riding on the back of this atrocity to the land of hot takes and gotchas. It's a good comments section.
I should add.. you and a few others at The Dispatch do a great job serving as guardrails. That makes the site better.
I suppose.
My practice was business litigation, but my very first trial was in a paternity case. A young woman had brought a lawsuit claiming that a key employee of one of our important clients was the father of her small child, and they gave the case to me as the most junior litigation associate. This would have been around 1980.
It didn't seem that my client had much of a case. But at the trial I learned from the woman's testimony that she had previously been married and divorced. When divorced, I wondered? At lunchtime I sent a paralegal down to the county clerk's office. She brought back a certified copy of a divorce decree dated two months after the child was born.
That certificate was the only piece of evidence I offered on behalf of my client. Under New York law, there is a strong legal presumption that a husband is the father of a child born during the marriage. The judge issued a verdict in favor of my client.
That was, of course, before the days of DNA testing.
In WI, it is presumed the husband is the father. My mailman married a pregnant woman knowing said child was not his child. I was asked to serve as GAL in the paternity case and I wanted nothing to do with that so I declined.
A messy business and no doubt you were best out of it.
Back 45 years ago I had a duty to do the best I could for my client (who told me after the trial that, yes, the baby probably was his). But doing the best for him also left something of a sour taste in my mouth.
my kids gave me 23&me in its early days as a Mother's Day gift. I followed all the directions, sent it in & what I received was just a repeat, pretty much, of the info I had provided regarding what I knew of my parents, except they mixed up bits & pieces of "my story"... blah!
I love the results I got. I didn't know much of anything about my background (American mongrel), so I was very happy with them overall.
I refused to make mine public. I don’t need to know about any long lost siblings. I had a dad who skipped out when I was 7, doubtful he sired more children but just in case he did.
I'm a 15th generation Janney on my father's side. Friends are famous for record keeping, so tracing it back wasn't a big deal. My Mom's side was not as easy. I even visited the little town in England from where they came. It's....a little town, nothing noteworthy to it.
While doing some genealogy I discovered on my grandmother (my father's side) a DAR certification. I was curious: does SAR accept DAR? They do not, I'd have to file all the paperwork myself. Maybe after I retire.
I had virtually no info on my dad's side. His parents came from Russia, at different times. His dad, by himself, thru Ellis Island, changed his name. No one really knows what his original name was, so that makes it difficult. His mom came w/ her family, somewhat wealthy, on a ship the dad owned, but he died on the way, so the captain then owned the ship ? leaving the family poor. Dad's mom & dad met, married, in Penn. My mom's fam - ??? - English background... T
And that's all she wrote...
At one time, many yrs ago, the church I attended in TN was trying to establish pen pals w/ people in Russia. I applied, wrote my intro, indicating I'd love to find some relatives - and that's all she wrote... never heard another word from anyone 🤔😢
Have you done DNA testing yet, sir?
Not on myself. 23 and me hasn't reassured me th results won't be released to others, and besides, don't some crimes not have a statute of limitations?😉
One funny thought. My college friends who have met my sons tell me they know they are mine the second they meet them!
I hope that's a compliment. 😉