It's all in the genes

I finally decided to open up my laptop. So 30 minutes and a million pop up windows later here I am. It was really bugging me that my paragraphs weren't showing up on my iPad. Then again, it also annoys me that I actually have to spell stuff right because apple auto correct won't fix it for me. Le sigh.

So last time I was saying how I contacted my dad and started talking to him. Well a few days ago I sent him some of my questions through a facebook message. And we ended up messaging back and forth for about 4.5 hours. Holy cow. Time seemed to fly by. And I learned a lot.

Did you ever wonder how much of your personality is related to how you were raised and how much is because of genetics? Me too. And now it's looking more like genetics has a lot to do with it.

When I was talking to him, I found out he likes Investigation Discovery, Silence of the Lambs, and even read a book on Charles Manson. His dad was into forensics too apparently.

That alone just kind of surprised me. I mean... SotL is one of my favorite movies. I get so... excited when I see it on tv. I mean I majored in forensics. My mom's even been like ok where do you get this from you are way too into this creepy stuff. Well I guess I know now.

His mom and his grandma are/were into genealogy. No one in my mom's family is. I mean my Busia a little bit but not like what he's described.

Could it be in the genes?

Other similarities:
I listed a bunch of concerts I've been too. He's seen them all. The Styx concert that I went to last summer? He had tickets but gave them to a friend.
He said he has a dark sense of humor, quick wit, and over analyzes things. When I read that I was like whoa... cuz... thats me.

It just seems so weird that we have all that in common and we've never actually met.

Anyway on the topic of genetics and asking questions... I found out a bit of medical history. I wasn't planning on asking right away but it came up. I wasn't considering that an important question to ask, but all the websites I looked at (I had a hard time coming up with questions so I Googled), suggested that one.

Turns out it is important.

Apparently cancer is in the family. Lovely. His dad and his dad's dad died of cancer. His grandfather was in his 50's and his dad was in his 60's when he died. Not freaky at all. His sister had cancer but is a survivor. His mom's sister died of cancer in her 60's. There might have been another one in there. But either way its scary. As far as I knew I only had to worry about heart problems on the Bieda/Lapinski side.

You must be able to tell how excited I am.

On the bright side (I think, my uterus hasn't decided how she feels about it yet) twins run in the family. His mom is a twin (with the sister that died). Identical twin even. I used to think that was so cool. Now I just think holy cow how would I tell them apart? If I had identical twin boys though I would totally name them Fred and George. Haha. Anyway. My grandma's sister had a son that had twins (boy & girl). Then one of her granddaughters had twin girls. I don't know what my chances are, but I'm thinking it's quite possible I'll end up with twins.

I kind of like that idea though. I don't know.


I'm feeling really good about this whole... talking to my bio dad thing. Everything is positive so far. I still have more questions of course but that will come in time.

And then there's the whole I'm going up to Pennsylvania the end of September thing. What will happen then? Will I just stick to the norm and hang out with my Busia & Pap? Or will I meet some new family? I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Until next time genealogy peeps!

My brain just won't shut up.

Last month I decided to contact my bio dad. It sounds so weird typing it out. My friend found him on Facebook so after much debate I messaged him. And waited. And waited. For what seemed like forever but was only a week. Then I sent another message. Longer, more sarcastic and more me. The first was just a "hey I'm you're daughter and I'm really into genealogy" type thing. By the time I wrote the second one I was like ok wtf it's been a week. So I was a little peeved and that just lets my writing flow and not be all... Formal? Stuffy? What's the word I'm looking for? Anyway it was more me and less ok does this sound ok? I think it sounds ok. Does it sound stupid? Cuz face it I do that a lot when I message people. On here I don't care. Words just flow. So I sent message two and waited. And waited. And kinda gave up. Not completely. I was thinking of what else to do. I hate phone calls. So that was out. My brain kept coming up with scenarios though. Like if I did call. And pretend to be a genealogist working for a client or something. Or what if the messages didn't go through. What if ou can only send one to a friend? Then again why would they have the button there. Then something happened on Thursday night. Or Friday morning, whichever you like. I had a reply. Of course I didn't find this out during normal times. Of course not. I get up for a drink in the middle of the night and check my phone and there it is. Think I did a triple take. Then I freaked out. And texted my bestie at 2:30 am. and none of my peeps were online to consult. I obviously couldn't sleep so I had to read it. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe I do. Maybe I was just automatically expecting rejection. Maybe that's why my brain was giving the "pretend your a genealogist working for a client and call" scenario. But it was ok. Whatever I was expecting, this was better. I don't think I can accurately describe it but... I'm relieved and excited and happy. Yet still awkward and nervous and freaked out. He said I was brave. Ok if you consider typing a message for an hour, doubting yourself a million times, debating on whether or not to actually push the send button, and freaking out for at least an hour after sending the damn thing. I guess it was brave since I was flipping terrified. He said he' thought about me. And he's up for questioning. And communication. Which sent my brain into a whole new spiral of not shutting up. And there's all sorts of emotional... Stuff flying around in there too. And I can't really categorize the emotions which is so frustrating. Apparently technology didn't want to cooperate. That's why he didn't see the message earlier. He mentioned that in the second part. And I guess I made him laugh which is good. I really have to get used to this. I have a mild heart attack every time I see a message or something. Oh yeah, cuz he's on twitter. And I can't flip out on Twitter. So I have to flip out here. But I have a link to my blog on twitter. I'm taking the chance that he won't click it when I'm done writing. Or at least not let me know he looked at it. Dear lord I'm a bundle of nerves again. Ok. I can do this. I don't even know if this post made any sense.

Short and sweet

Just a quick note. No time for a lengthy post. Plus I'm tired and distracted by Lord of the Rings #2. Good battle scene and all. Anyway. Last week I received a package. One of the most exciting packages ever. My Ancestry DNA kit. My nerdy joy could barely be contained. I made it from the mailbox to the car before a squeal of delight escaped. And as I drove the half mile home these screeching noises of glee kept coming out of my mouth. When I walked in the door... Happy dance ensued. Several actually. Of course I was sick last week, so I had to wait to spit for science as I've been saying on the twitter. Thought the DNA people would appreciate non contaminated saliva. So I waited until Monday to spit into the vial. I thought it would take longer. Then I doubted myself about 5 times. "is that up to the line? Doesn't include bubbles right?" But in any case, the package is in the mail again and product has been registered. As far as I know it will take 6-8 weeks, probably longer since its in beta... So hopefully by... October I will have results. That's all for now folks. "The road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began now far ahead the road has gone and I must follow if I can..."

Hi, My Name Is Chloe And I'm A Crazed Geni Tweeter

I have a problem. I love Twitter. I have another problem. I subscribe to Geni so I can see how I relate to cool and or famous people. Put together? I tweet quite a bit about the people I'm related to. The relationship paths. I don't care if it takes up three tweets because I'm limited on characters and the path is so absurd... I don't care it's going up there. But I believe being a crazy Geni tweeter has its advantages (says the girl with three free shirts, two pens, and a huge mention in a WSJ article...) So yesterday while I was sitting on my couch feeling all blah and sick like and watching the revolutionary war documentary thing on the history channel can you guess what I was doing? Of course you can. I told you in my post yesterday. I was on Geni on the project titled signers of the Declaration of Independence. I started out going through every. Single. One. And then I was afraid twitter would screw me over like it did for the finale of WDYTYA... And God knows I can't deal with the hour long twitter banishment again... So I started picking out the interesting names. Didn't matter if they signed the paper or not. Or seeing what other people on my home page were following, even if they were from the British side (I do love Brits in all other matters...) Where was I. Oh yeah. I probably had 20 shared paths on there yesterday. And today I looked at my phone and saw this tweet: “@geni: @bibliophile89 wow, that was just awesome! You should totally turn it into a blog post” So blog I shall. Don't worry, I won't bore you all with every single person. I'll find the highlights. So obviously one major person is George Washington. "George Washington, 1st President of the USA is your 11th cousin 7 times removed. " Making it more personal is this little blurb from a genealogy book I downloaded from my nook, and is also available online here: I don't know Joseph Fisher. Apparently he's connected to Pitner and Farley. Trivia time! Who knows the Pitner revolutionary war ancestor? That's right! Captain Lambert Pitner! So look here: "Lambert Pitner was with Washington at Trenton, Dec. 26, 1776, when the memorable expedition was made across the Delaware..." The site is pretty cool. Although it won't let you copy and paste. Which right now is annoying my. Or at least it won't on the iPad. Whatevs. Everyone knows of Paul Revere. The British are coming the British are coming! "Paul Revere is your 9th great aunt's second cousin thrice removed's husband's father." This next lady I didn't know about. Yes I said lady in reference to the revolutionary war. Apparently Deborah Sampson was the early American version of Mulan. (side note: I posted that on Facebook and it started aback and forth comment singing of "I'll make a man out of you") "Deborah Sampson (Continental Army) is your 7th cousin 7 times removed." Here's the Wikipedia page: Basically, she dressed like a man and signed up for the army. She had two musket balls in her thigh and wanted to die rather than go to the hospital. Secret would have been out then. Well she didn't die. She removed one of the balls by herself. By. Herself. With a penknife and a sewing needle. Oh dear god. That's worse than when Willie from Swamp People was shot in the eye and arm and his dad tried to remove the one with the "family butcher knife". I digress. She was found out the next year after she got a fever and a dr tried to treat her and was like.. Whoops that's not a man... That was all fine and dandy.What pisses me off though, her pay was withheld because she was a woman. She eventually got some, but she had to petition for it and jump through all these hoops. No fair. But hey that's how it was I guess. Ok now for one of the signers. Plus one of my twitter followers reminded me of the WDYTYA drinking game, and I thought hey, alcohol! So I thought of him: "Gov. Samuel Adams, Signer of the "Declaration of Independence" is your 18th great grandfather's wife's fourth cousin once removed's wife's fifth great nephew. " That's hard to wrap your mind around. So I said to myself "Self! You could be connected to him on the other side of your tree too!" "Gov. Samuel Adams, Signer of the "Declaration of Independence" is your third cousin 8 times removed. " See? Much easier. Well,I think I shall return to my regularly scheduled television programs. And the laundry that I started but never finished. Or the packing I promised my mom I would do... Two hours ago. Tata for now!

Happy Independence Day!

I was so ready for today. I had my old navy flag shirt. I had my red white and blue ponytail ribbon hair thing. I had red white nd blue hair clips. Ready to tackle a flag cake at work with my residents. My body clearly had another idea. Started to betray me on Saturday. Boss gave me the day off today which most people would've like woo! Off on the fourth of July! But I can't enjoy it. Well, I'm sitting on the couch watching a history channel special on the revolutionary war. And I've already tweeted a bunch of my geni revolutionary ancestors, or declaration signers and I'm afraid it will limit my tweets. So here I am on blogger. I'll make this quick note before I forget: watching this show, they portrayed Ben Franklin as having a mullet. Nice. So was he the first one to sport that look or what? Also: any weird unconnected train of thought is related to my meds. Lol. A while back, I mentioned my gazillion my DAR troubles. How on one side of my tree those relatives may not be blood relatives. Then on my "fathers" side, I have so many related by blood, but no way to prove it. So frustrating. I've already mentioned the other revolutionary ancestors, so now I'll focus on my dads side. I can't prove anything, since there is no marriage certificate or other proof to connect me to my fathers line. I wish the DAR would just accept a ancestry.com tree and look at it that way. Anyway... A list of revolutionary ancestors from my father's mother's side: George William Byrd - 7th gg James Hudson/Hutson - 8th gg Adam/ John Addem Foust - 7th gg Frederick Emeret - 6th gg Capt. Andrew Mellick - 5th gg Daniel Weidman - 5th gg Abraham Labar - 6th gg Archibald McMahn Johann Martin Schultz Anthony Cressman - 7th gg Um... Holy cow. Here is some stuff I found on ancestry.com. I'm not citing anything because... Well my head hurts and I'm not in school so there lol. "when cornwallis surrendered (at yorktown)george byrd was a standing right thar and saw it...." Decisive Battle Patriots vs Loyalists; Archibald R McMahan was taken prisoner, escaped, turned himself in. Battle of kings mountain in N.C I hope the links work. I'm starting to get sleepy so I'll end it here. Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July!