You don't know...

...what you don't know...

We all know that the Americans are picky to the point of paranoia about whom they allow into their country, but when he applied for a Green Card, Sir Paul Nurse had no reason to suspect that he would be deemed an undesirable.

The Nobel Prize-winning geneticist had not only lived in America for three years, but is president of Rockefeller University New York – a powerhouse of American research, so when his application was turned down by the Department of Homeland Security, he assumed that it was nothing more than a bureaucratic blip.

"I know they have high standards," he joked, "but this is ridiculous."

[Read it all}

It is what it is

If you're researching family history... bear in mind, it probably isn't gonna be all nobility and accomplishment.

-- Berlin (dpa) -- The success of a British television programme in which celebrities investigate their ancestry has prompted a German broadcaster to copy the concept, but what do the celebs say if their ancestors turn out to have been Nazis?

While researching my own family history, I discovered my great-grandmother had a thing for sailors and coal miners. It made her, in my eyes anyway, more interesting, more human.

You can choose to bury facts about your ancestors, or you can try to understand their choices.

So far, family history has yet to catch on as a mass pastime in Germany. Its upswing under the Nazis, when people had to prove non- Jewish pedigrees, has given genealogy a bad name in Germany, many practitioners admit.

Making stuff up... or burying all the nasty bits means you're only fooling yourself.

Just like in the big, bad real world.

Technorati Tags: genealogy, family history, revisionism

Genealogy Friday 5

This free searchable online database is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... that's right, the Mormons.

Among other things, it's a conglomeration of census data, births, deaths and marriages and user-submitted records.

It's a good place to begin a general exploration of your ancestors, but try getting a second source here... some data here is known to be a little less than precise.

Technorati Tags: Familysearch.org, LDS, Genealogy

Genealogy Friday 4

To anyone interested in genealogy, a cemetery is not a drab, depressing reminder of ones mortality. Indeed it is often a place of celebration.

Finding a well used family plot can add generations to your research in one fell swoop... and being able to search often far off cemeteries online is a huge timesaver.

And that's what you can do at the Ontario Cemetery Finding Aid.

It's pretty much self explanatory. Happy hunting.

Technorati Tags: Ontario Cemetery Finding Aid, dust to dust, Genealogy

Genealogy Friday 3

For anyone searching for ancestors in the province of Ontario, you should check out the searchable marriage records at the Ontario Vital Statistics Project.

It is by no means a complete record, but it is a good place to start a search, especially if you aren't familiar with searching through microfilm at libraries or the local archives.

All the trancriptions are done by volunteers, out of their own pocket, on their own time. Also, even though as of July 1, 1869, all births, marriages and deaths were required to be registered, compliance was nowhere near 100%

A goldmine of easily accessible data.

Technorati Tags: Ontario Vital Statistics Project, marriage registrations, Genealogy

Genealogy Friday 2

Anyone doing genealogy online knows about Rootsweb.com.

For those just starting their family research, I'd like to point to their searchable "WorldConnect Project" database.

Worldconnect is an ongoing compilation of over 400,000 user-submitted genealogy projects... encompassing a mind-boggling 487,539,113 surnames, which allows you to actually talk to the person who put up the data.

You can also submit your own research, which lets relatives worldwide get in touch with you. I recommend it highly, but as always... this is the internet, so "trust but verify" all information.

Best of all it's free. Happy hunting.

Technorati Tags: WorldConnect Project, Rootsweb, Genealogy

DNA - the double-edged sword

The almost magical science of DNA testing... can cut your heart out.

I posted something just a little while ago, about the use of "DNA testing" in genealogy. The same science that's being applied so successfully to "criminal forensics", is now also being used to re-establish distant family relationships that have become hazy over the passage of time.

It has also become a tool to verify familial relationships for immigration purposes.

Sometimes though, you don't get the results you're looking for.

-- When the DNA results landed on Isaac Owusu’s dinner table here last year, they showed that only one of the four boys — the oldest — was his biological child.

Federal officials are increasingly turning to genetic testing to verify the biological bonds between new citizens and the overseas relatives they hope to bring here, particularly those from war-torn or developing countries where identity documents can be scarce or doctored.

Which got my "science in genealogy" wheels spinning...

Six years ago now, I left Toronto and moved to a small rural community... where oft-times the name on the family farm hasn't changed for close to 200 years. It's been a thoroughly positive experience, but there have been a few minor adjustments... like how inter-connected most people are out here.

Obviously, back in pioneer days, there were less, shall we say -- matrimonial options -- out in the sticks, which led to a somewhat initially restricted gene pool. This social circumstance lasted well into the 20th century.

Human nature being what it is... and now that home "DNA test kits" are out there... I've always thought it would be interesting for all the longterm residents of the community to "get typed". I think the results would be fascinating.

That said, there would probably be some fallout, from the... uh, unexpected connections and more significantly... the lack of any connection at all.

Science may have changed, but human nature itself is immutable.

So, what is the bigger picture here?

Mary K. Mount, a DNA testing expert for the A.A.B.B. — formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks — estimates that about 75,000 of the 390,000 DNA cases that involved families in 2004 were immigration cases.

Of those, she estimates, 15 percent to 20 percent do not produce a match.

Hmmm... maybe we'll put that one on the back burner.

Technorati Tags: DNA, immigration, the ties that bind

Genealogy Friday

The Battle of Vimy Ridge has been popping up in the news lately... encouraging Canadians to remember the huge contribution their grandfathers made to winning the "Great War."

If you have a relative who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force to fight in WWI, you can search online for their "Attestation Papers" here.

Follow the links to get to the actual GIF images which can be saved, or printed. You can also obtain copies of your relatives WWI records.

They will be remembered.

Technorati Tags: Battle of Vimy Ridge, Canadian Expeditionary Force, genealogy

Pestering the living...

To dig up the dead.

As someone who has a hobby interest in genealogy, the potential of this type of research fascinates me.

After testing his own DNA at the request of a distant cousin, Mr. Grieve was shaken to discover that he did not match any of his extended family, including his first cousin, the son of his father’s brother.

That could only mean an occurrence of what genetic genealogists call a “nonpaternal event.”

Either his father was not his father, or his grandfather was not his father’s father. But the elder Mr. Grieve has refused to surrender to the swab.

As anyone interested in genealogy knows, too often the "paper record" is sketchy, or downright inaccurate.

Right into the latter part of the last century, an illegitimate birth was a scandal, to be officially obfuscated whenever possible. Marriage dates or birth dates were adjusted to cover such events.

In census records, women often lied about their ages. If it was Dad who answered the door when the enumerator came around... children's ages were often wildly inaccurate. If ole' Dad had been drinking... it was worse.

If the person being enumerated had any sort of foreign accent, they could be listed as "Irish" because in the 1800's, the epithet "bogtrotting Irish" could encompass all foreigners and persons of low birth.

No one -- the O.J Simpson jury excepted -- questions the validity of DNA.

Which raises the issue... do you really want to know?

Technorati Tags: DNA, genealogy, where's poppa

It's culture, not skin colour...

That matters.

There's a huge kerfuffle out there, about the new Canadian census data.

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UPDATE: More Pavilions At Folkfest...

Will automatically create racial harmony... goes the LibFib.

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It doesn't have to be, if you'll excuse the pun, so black and white.

-- “Welcome to Harlem,” Ms. Higginsen told Mr. West and his wife, Mack, as the crowd cheered. “Meet your DNA cousins,” Ms. Higginsen yelled to her relatives.

“If it’s my story, it’s many people’s story too,” Ms. Higginsen said.

"It’s the real story of America. People are finally asking: ‘Whose blood is running through our veins? Who are we?"

Trouble is, the people who don't get it, are, for the most part, the extremely parochial immigrants who cluster in the Chinatowns, Greektowns and ghettos like the Jane-Finch corridor... the ethnic enclaves.

It's this isolation that encourages the tribal outlook. And that tribal outlook too often spawns trouble.

Out in the wider world, the continued, increasing exposure to newcomers and the idea of all men being equal has paved the way for a diverse North America.

As Missouri cattle rancher Marion West announced to his newfound Harlem cousins...

“I’ve been breeding cattle all my life, and I’ll tell you, cross-breeding is better,” he said. “You mate the black angus with the other breeds, and you have better, healthier offspring.”

Canada with it's government sanctioned spoonfeeding of multi-culturalism, emphasising everybody's differences... is doing no-one any favours.

And we're gonna pay for that one day soon.

RELATED: -- The Billion Loogie Boogie...

Speaking of cultural dissonance... check out China's massive pre-Olympics social-engineering project...

In her view, the worst habits of Beijing's residents will be extremely difficult to change unless they are publicly shamed by others. Spitting is one of the nastiest examples.

Don't miss the comments that accompany the article.

Technorati Tags: political correctness, nanny state, Oh, oh Canada

Rolling the bones...

I guess you gotta have faith.

-- If you took the entire population of Jerusalem at the time," says Dr. Taber, "and put it in a stadium, and asked everyone named Jesus to stand up, you'd have about 2,700 men.

Then you'd ask only those with a father named Joseph and a mother named Mary to remain standing. And then those with a brother named Yose and a brother named James.

Statistically, you end up with one person.

Technorati Tags: Jesus, what are the odds, DNA

My parents were immigrants

I can't tell you how many times someone has labelled me a xenophobe on these pages...

-- It's usually just a single raging, barely articulate blast... unadorned by any sort of argument. I can't imagine what sort of satisfaction it affords the obviously frustrated and ideologically bereft writer, to simply call me names and run away... but it must serve some purpose.

-- I have nothing against immigrants... I'm a first generation Canadian, born to parents from the UK. I'm also a history buff... I've traced my ancestors back to 18th century Ireland. They were solid hard-working folk... from my shoemaker great-great-great-great grandfather who left Ireland for Scotland in the 1820's to his sons and grandsons who worked the mines and foundries in Lanarkshire.

Thus my interest in the following...

Details of more than 30 million people who emigrated from Britain by ship are being published on a new website.

Previously family history researchers would have had to make the journey to The National Archives in London to read the lists. But now people will be able to access the information online from their home or local library.

Details of people who left Britain by sea between 1890 and 1960 will appear at www.ancestorsonboard.com. The list includes departures from ports in England, Scotland and Wales as well as Irish ports before 1921 and ports in Northern Ireland after 1921.

Anyway... I invite all of the people who usually drop by with their invariably one-line sneer, or accusation... to flesh out their insults with some sort of rationale or reasonable argument. It's a little difficult to reply to, "You crazy fucker." I usually just assume the writer needs his meds... or perhaps a nap.

It might work out better for both of us.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, inarticulate rage, immigrant