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Sep. 12th, 2011
Speaking my Geek - genealogy
Sep. 12th, 2011 02:04 pmIt took me awhile to decide what to say for Speak Out with Your Geek Out.
I mean, WoW is certainly easy but I am not really a major WoW geek... I just play WoW. And, erm, read a lot of WoW blogs. And take lots of screenshots. And, erm, I did wear a Hawaiian shirt to work today that bears the Horde symbol. But still.
And whilst in the past I have been very involved in Science Fiction fandom... I just haven't been the last few years. Ditto Second Life. Ditto Geocaching. Ditto Where's George. Ditto just about everything. Where has my geek gone!
Well, being sick for the last year has definitely put a dint in my levels of enthusiasm for anything/everything. So I am going to reach back and talk about genealogy. Which I have pursued most of my life and which has led to quite a bit of geekery over the years.
My mother was the family historian for her family most of my life (I've taken it over now) and I remember as a child being taken to the National Archives and into various local history places looking for muster rolls, census information and all the minutae of the family history geekdom. I remember the excitement when researchers like Vera Apperson who compiled "The Apperson Family in America" came by our house to chat with Mum.
Whenever I visit a new city I look to see if there are particular archives or centers there that might be useful. When the Special Libraries Association had an annual meeting Indianapolis I spent a couple days before the conference in the State Library pouring over Quaker Meeting records. Once when EasterCon (the British SF convention) was on the Isle of Jersey I talked my Mum into coming with me so we could go to the Archives there and research our Poindexter ancestors. (And may I say that was a MOST AMAZING experience as they brought out actual medieval documents for us to look at with no more than gloves to keep the oils off. And there is a stately home of our ancestors cousins set up as a living history centre that we visited and knew our ancestors had trod there before us.)
Whenever I meet someone with an interesting name I just can't resist starting a conversation about origins. If someone mentions doing genealogy the world just lights up. Even if you are looking totally different countries for totally unrelated surnames, there is a bond amongst those who care about history and family in this particular way.
And then along came the internet! People began to share information and find distant cousins with the click of a button. Naturally I set up my own family site and became the moderator of my family surname lists on Rootsweb (back in the days when it was geeks and hadn't been bought by Ancestry.com). I did a county study, creating a database of all the people (of European descent) in Cooper County, MO using a pair of biographies that had been done in 1883 and 1919. I corresponded with people all over the world. I still do.
And now there is genetic genealogy! I got my brother tested so that I would have both Y-line and mt-DNA info. Our Y-Line Haplogroup is I2b1 which is mostly found in Scotland and Switzerland last time I looked. Like 70% of Western Europeans, our mitochondrial line is Haplogroup H (with three HVR1 differences from CRS).
And so, that is my enthusiasm, my geekery that I would like to share on this first day of the Speak Out.
I mean, WoW is certainly easy but I am not really a major WoW geek... I just play WoW. And, erm, read a lot of WoW blogs. And take lots of screenshots. And, erm, I did wear a Hawaiian shirt to work today that bears the Horde symbol. But still.
And whilst in the past I have been very involved in Science Fiction fandom... I just haven't been the last few years. Ditto Second Life. Ditto Geocaching. Ditto Where's George. Ditto just about everything. Where has my geek gone!
Well, being sick for the last year has definitely put a dint in my levels of enthusiasm for anything/everything. So I am going to reach back and talk about genealogy. Which I have pursued most of my life and which has led to quite a bit of geekery over the years.
My mother was the family historian for her family most of my life (I've taken it over now) and I remember as a child being taken to the National Archives and into various local history places looking for muster rolls, census information and all the minutae of the family history geekdom. I remember the excitement when researchers like Vera Apperson who compiled "The Apperson Family in America" came by our house to chat with Mum.
Whenever I visit a new city I look to see if there are particular archives or centers there that might be useful. When the Special Libraries Association had an annual meeting Indianapolis I spent a couple days before the conference in the State Library pouring over Quaker Meeting records. Once when EasterCon (the British SF convention) was on the Isle of Jersey I talked my Mum into coming with me so we could go to the Archives there and research our Poindexter ancestors. (And may I say that was a MOST AMAZING experience as they brought out actual medieval documents for us to look at with no more than gloves to keep the oils off. And there is a stately home of our ancestors cousins set up as a living history centre that we visited and knew our ancestors had trod there before us.)
Whenever I meet someone with an interesting name I just can't resist starting a conversation about origins. If someone mentions doing genealogy the world just lights up. Even if you are looking totally different countries for totally unrelated surnames, there is a bond amongst those who care about history and family in this particular way.
And then along came the internet! People began to share information and find distant cousins with the click of a button. Naturally I set up my own family site and became the moderator of my family surname lists on Rootsweb (back in the days when it was geeks and hadn't been bought by Ancestry.com). I did a county study, creating a database of all the people (of European descent) in Cooper County, MO using a pair of biographies that had been done in 1883 and 1919. I corresponded with people all over the world. I still do.
And now there is genetic genealogy! I got my brother tested so that I would have both Y-line and mt-DNA info. Our Y-Line Haplogroup is I2b1 which is mostly found in Scotland and Switzerland last time I looked. Like 70% of Western Europeans, our mitochondrial line is Haplogroup H (with three HVR1 differences from CRS).
And so, that is my enthusiasm, my geekery that I would like to share on this first day of the Speak Out.
