I've been actively researching my family genealogies for 25 years now. I have at least basic information on 30 of my 32 3-greats-grandparents, and 38 of my 62 4-greats-grandparents.

Finding out (and getting confirmation of) why I have only a maximum of 62 in that generation, and not 64, was...an awkward endeavor.

My mother got interested in genealogy and did some research on her family ... not my father's. My father was the youngest of six; his two oldest brothers died young, his parents both died when I was two or so. I knew his mother's name but I'm unsure of his father's (his family was ... odd ... in regard to names ... his surviving older brother used his middle name with their family, his wife used his first name and her family his last name ... my father had a weird name, so in the Air Force they called him "Jim"). My mother's mother died when I was 15, her father when I was 21, my father died when I was 25 and my mother died eight years ago. So ... I'm pretty much unmoored family-wise.

My mom has been working on our genealogy for a long time and has been telling me bits and pieces as she goes which is really the only reason I know anything at all about anyone I didn't actually meet. I keep thinking I should get her to show me all her research or results or whatever because it's interesting but we haven't gotten around to it. My dad's side of the family is much more piecemeal - I'm not sure, for example, exactly how I'm related to everyone who is called Uncle Somebody - they might be my dad's uncles or older cousins or friends of the family or great uncles, who knows?

We have done genealogy on the fanciest branch of my family (the Cartiers), but not the regular ones!

I have a guy on my dads side of the family (…first cousin once removed? Second cousin once removed? Guy who is related to two sides of the family but only sorta because my grandmother’s parents died when she was an adult but still had kid siblings and they got taken in by a family who had kids and one of them married my grandpas brother? I think?) anyway he did it for one side.

My moms moms side, my greats came over from Denmark, and I found them but didn’t go farther. Her dads side my grandpa was named something extremely common and generic, as was his dad, and they lived in Chicago. I THINK I found them on the census but…oh well.

I got a scanner for Christmas and scanned some older photos for the family Nixplay photo players. That's a system where people have frames that show a series of photos from shared google photo folders. It's pretty neat. So we all see [adorable 4 year old] [adorable 1.5 year old] [adorable 1 year old] [grim-looking Victorian era great grandmother] [adorable pet]. No one has told me to stop yet, so I'm assuming the grand tapestry of life is OK by them.

THat's very cool, Calli

I was feeling not great but I got up and dragged myself to work. Not because I don't have PTO to cover (I have plenty!) but calling out sick is an unexcused absence/occurrence and 3 of those means you will get written up (unless it's special circumstances) and I don't want to play with fate. So I get to work and try to clock in and it won't let me --because I was scheduled this afternoon. After finding the HR lead and my team lead we figured out I could just clock in and work. So that was good.

Sheryl I know this is all really hard but I hope that the residential program works well for Mr. S.

Timelies all!

Mr. S had a major meltdown last night and ended up strewing potato chips all over the place.(I think it was started by him losing a game of Pokemon)

We have a bunch of forms to fill out for the program.

I did an ancestry.com DNA test a couple years back, so I've traced my genealogy a bit via their site. As far as lack of forks in the family tree, I discovered that my paternal grandparents were third cousins, but also that I myself have a TON of third cousins out there whose existence I never suspected and can easily imagine a world in which I met and dated one of them with no clue of any kinship unless their genealogy researcher cousin happened to compare notes with mine.

I also found a first cousin marriage way back in the late 17th or early 18th century, but that was the Puritan New England branch of the my mother's family that I hadn't even known existed, so take that, every joke I've ever heard made about inbred Southerners.