I don't know much about my OBC's family. Matter of fact, I know nothing. Hmm. Wonder if I should even attempt to try to find out if anyone on that side has done any research.

But my dad's family is related to this (in)famous McVay: [link]

> I didn't know car computers could tell you that.

The amount of data that pours out of obds these days is staggering. My brother relies heavily on the data to improve the running of his car. And, uh, sometimes to get it running.

Franken Monkey

Glow in the Dark eyes and removable brain. What more could you ask for?

I know that there is DNA testing for African descendants to find out what region one has descended from. Do they have the same for other countries? Europe and the like?

I did the National Geographic thing which wasn't any great surprise. It pretty much tells you what route your mothers (if you're female) took to get out of Africa. I was what you'd expect.

I need to convince my mother's surviving brother to do the patrilineal one now.

I didn't know car computers could tell you that.

I have the luck to have a friend who was obsessive about his GTI so he has the chip and software to tell me why my Jetta's engine light goes on. Now that I barely drive (making visits to the dealership very well spaced out) it's quite the relief.

I just discovered that my great-great-grandparents were first cousins.

I was what you'd expect.

I have no clue. What was your mothers' route?

My Cousin Charlie found out that he is almost entirely Celtic... which seemed odd since we are part Spanish.

Yeah, the Celts were all over most of Europe for awhile there.

Apparently there's research suggesting that the people of the British Isles are less Celtic and Anglo-Saxon than assumed, with the largest genetic contribution actually coming from the pre-Celtic original settlers of the island, who may be closely related to the Basques. Which makes sense, in a way, that each succeeding wave of conquest and immigration would impose their authority and intermarry with whoever was already there but not totally replace them.

My Cousin Charlie found out that he is almost entirely Celtic... which seemed odd since we are part Spanish.

Did your ancestors come from Galicia, perhaps? (I've always wanted to go there.)

Did your ancestors come from Galicia, perhaps? (I've always wanted to go there.)

Asturias [link]

They were taken first to Tule Lake

I am ashamed to say that my grandfather was stationed at Tule Lake. I hate to think that, if our families crossed paths generations ago, that's how they did it, but so it was. I'm very sorry.

When I did a family history project in high school and interviewed him, my mom warned me not to ask much about WWII and said that if I did he wouldn't have much to say about it; to my great surprise, he volunteered that he'd been an officer stationed at an internment camp, and to my dismay he defended it, saying, "I truly believe that some of them were disloyal in their hearts and we had to do it to protect ourselves."

But my mom told me a couple of years ago that shortly after 9/11 he called her, fretting about the future of the US and the possibility of war and his nauseated dread that we'd start rounding up Arab Americans. "We already did that, in WWII, and it was wrong then and it'd be much worse now. We can't let ourselves do it this time." I can only imagine what uncomfortable self-scrutiny he must have put himself through, at well past ninety, to say even that much.

My only other WWII connection is through my boss, who was born and raised in Austria. His father spent his life savings getting his family passage on a ship to Ellis Island, with the promise that he himself would follow as soon as he could manage (he made it across Austria and Germany but was turned around by an irritable bureaucrat at the Belgian border, and died in Auschwitz).

My boss's first clear memory of anything is of being six years old, sitting in his mother's lap at Ellis Island, swaddled in a blanket because he had contracted measles on the journey over and his mother was terrified they'd be turned away. She later told him that the immigration staffer who examined them saw that she was trying to hide his face and didn't even try to unwrap him, just glanced at the top of his head, gave her a reassuring look, and said, "Don't worry. He looks fine to me. Come in."