“To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root.” – Chinese Proverb

They say it takes a village to raise a child. My Grandparents raised me, making them a very significant part of my “village.” My Grandpa served our country as a Marine in WWII then supported his family working for the City of San Diego. My Grandma raised four children, then took on the responsibility of raising three grandchildren. My life would not be the same without their love and wisdom.

Celebrating the difference my grandparents have made in my life

In 2004, my Grandpa passed away from lung cancer. This Grandparent’s Day, to help create awareness and prevention, I’m honoring him with a Memorial Donation to the American Lung Association. My Grandma taught me everything I know in the kitchen. Pierre’s Place, a café near my house, employs alumni of Toussaint’s Youth Villages, a residential program for teens. Profits from the café, along with my Gift Donation in her name, will help provide training for youth to succeed in the restaurant industry.

History behind the tradition

Grandparent’s Day was first celebrated nationally in 1978. Marian McQuade, a housewife in West Virginia, started it to create awareness of elderly men and women in nursing homes. She also hoped to inspire grandchildren to tap into the wisdom and heritage their grandparents could provide.

• Learn more about the Forget Me Not program, which connects youth with seniors, and benefits both generations. It may be something you’d like to participate in!
• Use the JustGive Guide to find the perfect cause to honor your Grandparents. Are Grandma and Grandpa tech savvy? Buy them a GiveNow charity gift card and they can choose from any of the more than 1.5 million charities on JustGive to donate to a cause they care about.

Sarah Myers
Program Manager

Share this idea with friends and family—it’s almost as sweet as Grandma’s fresh baked cookies.

My Great-Grandparent Flints below.  They lived and raised my Mawmaw in Neshoba County.  I visited some of the area in which both of my grandparents on my mom’s side grew up.  It is interesting that I now live only about 25 miles from this area.

The little girl standing in the front is my Mawmaw Byars (maiden name Flint).

A new company, Pathway Genomics, is offering affordable genetic testing for only $250. Some competitors charge $400 or more, up to $1,000. All you do is spit in a test tube, and drop it in an envelope in the mail. You recieve a report detailing what major diseases you could be at risk for, which medications might affect you more, and even your genetic history as far back as 150,000 years. I’m only slightly sceptical about that last one. My grandmother traced our ancestry back to England in the 1500’s with paper research, but it would be cool to see if I was in fact, part aboriginal, or asian. If you go back that far though, how could you not be?

Of course some people might be scared by this new accessibility to people’s genes. I mean, look at the company’s name. Pathway Genomics? How about, secret government black project to make genetically superior super-soldiers with a well placed, genetically tailored trigger in the public water supply. I’m not paranoid, just a sci-fi author. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.

You can read the Yahoo article by Glenn Chapman here.

When I went to Ireland, I began to recognize typical Irish faces. My friend Sam’s father was Irish and I didn’t know how Irish Sam looked until I was in the airport and saw a guy that could have been his brother.

As I travelled through Ireland I noticed this one face that I would call the quintessential Irish man’s face. The men were not really wizened but had broad brows, often creased with a line or two even at a young age. I saw eighteen-year-olds with this look. The eyes not large but big and bright, and the chin narrower, giving a triangular shape to the face. The guy we met in Donegal, that I called a leprechaun had this look. It was hard to tell his age because he looked both young and old at the same time.

There were other facial shapes that would be more Irish than not but this is the one I remember the best. With women, it was a rounder face, with high cheekbones and a bit of a ruddy complexion, or rosy cheeks and pale skin. Darker hair is more common and these people could be ancestrally related to the black Irish, those who descended more from the Picts than the Celts.

I took a university course once with a woman whose last name was Kelly. She had white white skin, rosy red limits and hair as black as midnight. She was a living example of Snow White and could not help but attract the eye with the vividness of her coloring.

When we got to Glasgow I noticed the rounder, broader faces with the fuller cheeks (puddin’ face). In some cases, it might be Scottish or English ancestry but seeing the people in Scotland I thought of my friend Chris and knew he had roots in England or Scotland.

Facial shapes are a general thing and of course the same type of face might be a characteristic of a another country’s indigenous peoples as well. Well known speculative fiction editor Ellen Datlow has very curly black hair, distinctive eyes and cheekbones. Her chin is pointed and her face broad. A couple of months go I was at a local restaurant with a group of people. A friend of a friend came in and she looked a lot like Ellen. She had the black curly hair, the same shape of eyes and cheekbones, the same chin.

She was young enough to be Ellen’s daughter but I’m pretty sure Ellen Datlow doesn’t have children. So I asked this woman if she had relatives in New York. She said yes but when I said the name Datlow, she said no. And she was El Salvadorean. Maybe Ellen has some Spanish ancestry in there.

Nature’s canvas is our faces. Each painting is different. There may be a series Nature does before moving on to try something new. My family is Italian and Danish. My brothers tend to take on the Italian coloring more whereas my sister and I are fairer hair and skinned, like the Danish side. We also look more like that side of the family, but it’s a combination. Nature doesn’t just work in paint but in mosaics as well, and that’s what we all are; pieces rearranged each generation into new and unique works of art.

Having just returned from an Art Salon, in San Rafael, CA, where California artists, Ruth Schafran and Tanya Joyce among others shared their passion for what they create.  Ruth creates collages by disassembling photographs, snipping out images and skylines and pieces of the photos and then reassembling them in a new order, creating a new world from an old world.  Tanya Joyce, works in a variety of mediums, but this evening she shared collages that she created of poetry and art, in some cases the poetry was written years ago and put together with sketches created in the present.  Much of the discussion circled around the role ofancestors on our lives and future, and how an ancestor is not necessarily a blood relative, but can be anyone who touches us from the past or we will impact  in the future.   The creation of art provides the opportunity to take from the past experiences, feeling, and emotions and capture them, so that the artistic piece can impact the future of those who will see it and experience it.

It was my father’s 60th birthday back in April. To help him celebrate Anna and I presented him with this family tree (high-res here). The whole project took about two weeks to complete and although we still have some gaps on the Dodson line (Irish records being less complete than English ones) we did manage to trace our ancestory back to 1582, to the small hamlet of Noke in Oxfordshire. Other branches stretch out to Licolnshire and through our home county of Yorkshire. My darling Anna drew the image above, adding much attractive detail to the drawing.

On a self-depracating note, as part of my research I did uncover the origins of the name Dodson. According to the Internet Surname Database, Dodson is “a patronymic of the Middle English given name “Dodde, Dudde”, from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal byname “Dodda, Dudda”, And its meaning? Ahem, Dodda or Dudda is ultimately from a Germanic root “dudd, dodd”, meaning “something rounded” and used to denote a “short, rotund man.” Which delighted Anna no end.

Can I also add a note of thanks to both Paul Weaver, who through the shared ancestor of Thomas Stokes I was able to trace our Oxfordshire roots as far back as to Queen Elizabeth’s reign; and Jacky Clarke, who through our shared ancestor, Camack Lammyan,I was able to trace our line through Coningsby in Licolnshire to discover that one of our forebears, Peter Desforges, was a huguenot refugee who landed in Tower Wharf, not far from my old stomping ground of Brick Lane in east London, in 1681. Many thanks to you both.

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Hmm… While we in Lebanon cannot agree on a shared historical narrative, while we are still (silently) struggling to come to terms with ‘who we are,’ Ida has been found — to tell us all that we’re one “great big family.” So, in a much larger sense than what Ziad Rahbani meant in ‘She Fashel,’ ‘Kilna ekhwee’

Ida is one of the most immaculately preserved primate fossils ever found and, at 47 million years old, she comes from a key moment in our evolutionary history. This beautiful little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals: with cows and sheep, and elephants and anteaters. According to one of the scientists who has studied her, she is a “Rosetta stone” for ­understanding our early evolution.

Check out this beautiful essay by Colin Tudge

Apparently, this website is capable of providing you with information on the lives of your ancestors.  Personallly, I have not tried it out, but it looks pretty interesting.  Who knows, maybe you’ll find out something about your great great Grandparents that your family has been hiding from you.  Check this website out at www.ancestory.com.

I think it’s safe to say that every generation from now on will have the blessing/curse of having their entire lives cataloged online.  Despite what may be your views on personal privacy, one benefit is that our children’s children’s children (and so on) will be able to learn more about their ancestors than most of us ever will about ours.

When I’m 90, this blog – in some form – will probably still exist.  Imprints of my time in London and my life from about 23 on will be there for my future family members. I think that’s kind of cool.  I just wish I had the same sort of resource for my ancestors.

Last night on Twitter I saw that David Griner from AdFreak started a Twitter account for his Great Aunt who, today, suffers from severe dementia. The feed is solely made up from her line-a-day-diary during The Great Depression.

Late last year, my family found a line-a-day diary maintained by my great-aunt from 1937 to 1941. She was in her early teens, living on a small farm in rural Illinois with her two brothers, one of which was my grandfather.

It’s a fascinating account of life in a bygone era, a time when my family’s only connections to the world were schoolhouse chatter and a neighbor’s radio.

Looking at the terse journal, my sister quipped, “This is the Twitter of the 1930s.” We glanced at each other and almost immediately began planning the Twitter account that would become Twitter.com/Genny_Spencer.

What an amazing idea. Thoughtful, topical and incredibly innovative (in a roundabout way).  We spend so much time talking about ourselves online, perhaps we should make more of an effort to showcase how we got here.

Has anyone taken any efforts to record family history online that otherwise wouldn’t have existed online?  The most I’ve done is scan some of my baby photos.

*Photo of Genny borrowed from Dave’s site. See more about the project here.

History for many people is something they can not learn enough about and having a little dose of it everyday not only feeds them something new, but it also gives them something to think about.

Many things have been played out in the past; there have been wars and battles, disease, new lands and riches. Lives were far different from today, they were more difficult and in many cases exciting.

There are many people that fall into history rather than it being something they have always found exciting. The person tracing their family history starts out just thinking about how far they might be able to trace their family generations. This of course leads to something far different, not only do they start finding names; they also begin finding bits and pieces of history. With each thing that is found, which leads to a name of an ancestor history is something that begins to excite them.

History is everywhere, whether you realize it or not, from the old building in town to the land a home is built on, because there are few places that have been left untouched. Each day on the calendar is proof of this and as proof of this starting a new year with a small dose of history of someone from the past everyone has heard of, Betsy Ross.

Betsy Ross is the woman that has been credited throughout American history for sewing the first American flag. Today January 1st is the day she was born in Philadelphia in the year 1752.

This is also the day that President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which gave slaves living in rebel states their freedom, in the year 1863, prior to the end of the Civil War.

January 1st is also a day when two events took place in New York in different years and both will be equally important to the genealogist. The first event was in 1892; this is when Ellis Island was officially opened and where many people would take their first steps on American soil.

The second event in New York occurred in 1898, this is when four areas of New York were consolidated into what is known as New York City. These areas, which were separate prior to 1898, were Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island.

I am in Kaleden and most of my fellow world travelers may never have heard of this town. I never knew it existed until my parents decided to move here.

It is beautiful in the summer. I am usually here in the summer and I am sure if you are a winter person, the winter landscapes are beautiful; however given a choice I will not stay to experience it. I am a Trini to D Bone and I hate cold weather. Snowy mountains, frozen lakes and rivers, trees bare and cold: no the death of nature holds no special interest to me.

Back to why I am here.

Since my Mom’s trip to the unknown, none of the family members has had the time of the inclination to come up and settle her estate, so it fell upon me as the Matriarch of my family, with 100% support from the siblings to do the job. Another point was that some of my mother’s belongings were in my brother’s studio and my sister in law was very adamant to have them moved!

Everything was going fine as for the past few days the weather has been cooperating. It was lukewarm and fairly nice.

But then it started raining. COLD RAIN! We Trinis love rain – WARM RAIN!

I remember as a child loving to go out playing in the rain. I have since thought about why I enjoyed doing that so much. Rosie, my Nanny, or my Mammy as my children call her, always made us Ganga tea when we got home soaking wet so we would not “ketch fresh col”. So I am deducing that I liked the rain then because after all the fun we got Ganga Tea! Well maybe not: but I enjoyed walking in the rain and I still do.

My brother is not here so I am home sick on top of being cold.

I am calling United and hope that they would not charge me an arm and a leg to change the date on my ticket.

At this point I feel that I would gladly give an arm and a leg to go home.

I should call this my homecoming.

I think that will do that!

We have just been informed that our gigantic relocation shipment from the US will FINALLY be delivered to us on October 1. This is the best news I’ve heard in DAYS. Thank God!

Just a quick summary of the past week’s events:

* Still waiting to hear from Speech Pathology Australia re: my credentials (boo!). But, I was told by a potential employer who wanted to hire me prior to learning that I am still in the process of getting my credentials here, that after I get registered with the Speech Pathology Board HERE, finding a job should be pretty swift and easy (let’s hope.);
* Got a used 6-month-old refrigerator and a new washer (yeah…Australian landlords don’t provide these things, unlike the USA ones);
* Got a used futon off ebay that kinda sucked and that we’re gonna relist on ebay soon;
* Tried Mexican food at Taco Bill and while it’s definitely not the same thing as King Taco or stuff on Alvaro Street, it still satisfied our Mexican food craving pretty well (thanks, Ying!!!);
* Bought a ton of Asian groceries from Boxhill;
* Decided to continue taking Spanish lessons and possibly take a TESOL (teaching English as a second language) certificate.

Some days I wake up thinking I can live in Australia for a long time but most days I still wake up wondering how much simpler my life could’ve been if I just stuck to living in Singapore or staying in SoCal. Of course, many people would love to be in my shoes…to see more of the world, experience more cultures, be more exposed to new experiences. And when I think that, I am humbled and thank God for all that he’s blessed us with.

Something on a slightly different tangent: I watched a program on SBS last night, about a black British lady who went to the Dominican Republic to look for her roots, to find out more about her great grandfather’s family and work. She found out that her great grandfather taught himself to read and write, and became an educated man. His perseverance and intelligence was a resemblance she (and I) sort of saw in herself. I’m always fascinated by how much of one’s intelligence or character is inherited from one’s family.

Which created an urge in me to visit my grandparents’ hometown in China to learn more about my family – who were they? Did their lives resembled mine at all? Were they adventurous, emotional, hardworking, and thoughtful people? Were they industrious? Entrepreneurial? I’m really curious. Then again, how will having that knowledge benefit me? Will it make me a better person? Will it make me feel more whole? Shrugs. But it will certainly satisfy this curiosity that I now have about my family.

“Hailing from ancient Nubian descent, the “Kings of Kush” represent a category of storytellers not yet seen. A humble blend of new age poetry and traditional pan-african rhythms, this group represents all that is past, present and yet to be discovered. Consisting of Award winning singer, musician and composer (Toronto African Music Awards, Band of the Year Award, 2000) Waleed Abdulhamid and award winning Spoken Word Artist (CBC poetry face off, Best New Artist, 2007) Boonaa Mohammed, the Kings of Kush provide a blend of innovative acoustical candy. Breaking down generational gaps by bridging hip hop with its ancestry, their originality alone helps secure an uncontested throne.”

Here is their myspace page and make sure to listen to “Heart of the Horn”.

For the history buffs, the first Kushite King was King Piankhi and the second one was King Shabaka. And historians have found out that the 3rd and 12th dynasties of Egypt were Kushite Oromos and Sudanese.

Recently news surfaced that Will Smith will play the part of King Taharqa in a blockbuster called The Last Pharao.

I think we’re witnessing the Renaissance of Kush – Oromia shall be Free!

CRACKER
+++
hey brother lets go out
and blow off some steam
we’ve all been workin towards
the American dream
+++
thirteen hour shift
deep in a earth shaft
fourteen ton haul in
daily coal draft
+++
we got no time
for the fishin today
the stream soot black
and the fish gone away.
+++
the air full of grit
in this broken bone town
everybody’s glued
their eyes to the ground
+++
overheard the wife
talkin the other day
wants to grab up the kids
and move far way.
+++
we came to this country
with nothin but a name
traded that too
to play the immigrant game
+++
coal minor,draft writer
it don’t mean a thing
we’re all workin toward
the American dream
+++
well times marchin on
i got some money in the kittie
gonna send all kids
to the big college city
+++
Hey brother lets go out
and blow off some steam
we’re sendin our kids towards
the American dream
*

(for the salt of the earth)

* This is a poem written about my ancestors, who were slovac immigrants. They came lived in Spangler Pennsylvania–America, a quiet pretty little town, today. The coal mines are long gone.

Recently, I took a challenge of finding my ancestral origin using the modern technology of Mitochondrial DNA research. I signed up at geentree.com and paid $150. They sent me a mouth wash to take DNA samples in my saliva. I sent the kit back to the lab after I spitted in the little cup and waited about a month. While I was wondering when my result is going to come, I recieved an email telling me that my DNA is unlocked and I could see the test results by signing to my account. 

voilà  – my predicted ancestral origins – Haplogroup: L3 Subgroup: L3f.

What does this haplo-bablo crap mean?

Well, this is the scientists explanation.

“Haplogroup L is known as the first derivative of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation in modern humans.  When looking at the evolution of mtDNA through history, haplogroup L is linked to the theory of ‘Mitochondrial Eve.’  This name has been given to the woman (better women) carrying the ancestral mtDNA of modern Homo sapiens approximately 200,000 years ago; haplogroup L is the first variation from these original women.  Eight existing derivations exist within haplogroup L.  These derivates are known as L0, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6 and L7.

“Haplogroup L3 originated in East Africa about 85,000 years ago and it was very successful in giving rise to many descendant haplogroups. Most likely, this event occurred in the Horn of Africa because the richest branching around haplogroup L3 is reflected in modern Ethiopian samples, in contrast to the somewhat narrower mitochondrial pools of other sub-Saharan Africa regions.

“The root of L3 starts from a single haplotype and forks into a number of distinct subclades of African origins such as L3a, L3b, L3c L3d, L3e, L3i, L3k, L3x, L3f and L3h. Haplotypes belonging to L3b, L3d and part of L3e are found mainly in western Africa with a few types shared with eastern, southeastern, and, for the L3b subclade, west-central Africa. L3e is also present in west-central Africa with some of its lineages largely matching southeastern African groups.  This may imply an origin either in southeastern Africa, or somewhere on the west-central coast of Africa, between Cameroon and Angola.

“Moreover, L3 is also the haplogroup from which the haplogroups M and N have arisen covering the mtDNA pool of all non-African lineages.

“The simplest explanation for haplogroup L3 geographical distribution is an expansion of the root type within East Africa, where several independent L3 branches flourished.  This was followed by the so called “African exit” and the divergence into haplogroups M and N somewhere between the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Since neither the L3 root type nor any other descendants survived outside of Africa, the root type itself must have become extinct during a period of genetic drift in the original population. Later, it diversified into haplogroups M and N, granted that the diversification indeed took place outside of the African continent.”

 I wanted to learn more about Haplogroup L3 and did some google search and here is some info I got.

by Joan Bauer, 1999, 185 pages

finished reading it yesterday

fictional story of mid-teen years of main character Ivy Breedlove, (best friend Octavia Harrison (who is into sociology), pet dog Genghis, & Jack Lowden (wilderness-guide-to-be & who winds up being her current “interest”/boyfriend))
Ivy is into the family stories of the Breedloves (ancestory, etc.) & history in general
with the support of her Aunt Tib, she spends the the duration of the book collecting information for a Breelove history book of sorts, (while her Aunt Fiona would rather do a quick & shallow version of the family history), Ivy being an only child, Egan, a cousin once-removed, is a fellow family member close to her age that pops into the story at regular intervals,  many of the Breedloves are/were lawyers (on her Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, Millard Breedlove’s, gravestone, it is etched “O, wouldst that all my sons be lawyers / Lest my heart break with the anguish / That they have become lesser men“), as the book unravels though, Ivy relates to her estranged Aunt Josephine in being different then the lawyers in the family, & the plot develops as quest for her to find her Aunt Josephine (with the help of Wilderness Guide Mountain Mama) & then spend time/get to know Josephine (“Jo”), who lives up in the mountains, lives with & cares for many many many birds, & has a pet wolf, Malachi, as well as reintroduce “Jo” to the family of Breedloves (& vice versa)…

other characters: Dan Breedlove (Ivy Breedlove’s father) Uncle Archie, William Wasington “Iron Will” Breedlove (Ivy Breedlove’s grandfather) (gravestone read: “Justice was his chief end.”) G. Preston Roblick (Headmaster of Long Wharf Academy (school Ivy Breedlove attends)),  Claude (ex-boyfriend), Mrs. Englebert (neighbor)

I agree with the themes that history is important, that researching ones roots definitely gives one a better sense of self, & that loners deserve respect & acceptance like anybody else… found it to be a semi-worthy read.

page 3

“I love to stand on the porch and gaze at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, the oldest mountains in the United States.

Mountains draw you to a deeper place in yourself.”

page 18

“I’ve got the two things a good interviewer needs: curiosity and patience.”

page 28

“…stuck in the backwater. “Backwater” means an isolated or backward place or condition; it had become a favorite Breedlove expression..”

page 185

“You can’t pursue history without finding hope.”

Discover where your family name ranks among others. Every surname has a story. But people who study names — a field known as onamastics — say the origins of most names can be traced to one of five categories.