Unfortunately, there wasn't as much light as I hoped for on my family. Bits and pieces were falling into place but other areas were like being a blaster in a railroad tunnel wondering if the sun would ever shine again.
That was twelve years ago and I still feel like that sometimes. On the other hand, there are the moments when something goes boom like the oldtime newspaper photographer's flash and things fall together in ways that I could have never expected.
I guess that is just the way of a genealogist. Slog through the swampy quagmire for countless periods to finally find that glimmering ray of sun or moonlight outlining the bank to set up camp and dig into the latest discoveries.
Thus ends the poesy of the moment. Or is it arty prose? Whatever it is, it will likely return of its own volition as we wende our way through ancestors great and small.
According to Ancestry.com's DNA lineage program, I am 42% Central European, 37% British Isles, 10% Scandinavian, 8% Finnish/Volga-Ural and 3% uncertain. I often wonder if the 3% is a fudge factor that all studies have.
The divisions I understand are the first three. Siepmanns, Shaffers, Millers, Daleys (more about that spelling in another blog), Langs, Whites (of Ireland), MacKintoshes, Munroes (don't ask me how the MacKintoshes and Munroes ended up in a blended family here in the States but they did), Lowthers, Stotlers/Statlers, Shirleys, Heirs/Hires, Werlings, Willers, and the like, run like swift flowing rivers (okay, some are dammed up, but someday will be broken) through my tree. I even get the Scandinavian piece because I know where the Vikings attacked. The Finnish/Volga-Ural 8% just makes no sense at all in the current parade of names.
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