Kimberly Powell proves that, while not everything is online, enough is online to make Sarah Jessica Parker weepy.My Scots Ancestors presents the geekiest genealogy post in the world, converting Ahnentafel numbers to their binary equivalents. If you were born to a surrogate mother, use base 3.A genealogy blogger wrote about a mysterious box found near a lake and ended up on the evening news. A serious journalist would have climbed inside the box. If you're sick of watching celebrities on genealogy shows, the latest episode of The Generation Project starts with a non-famous woman conversing ...

Interesting discussion over at Genea-Musings here and here regarding the question whether an American of Colonial descent should be able to document his complete ancestry back ten generations. The problems Randy brings up are rooted in our unique American history: Ours is a federal system of government. Any requirements for BMD registration were first imposed by 13 diverse colonies and their various governments, later by the states. These requirements have converged toward universal registration, but even today some states have policies that other states would never countenance.Ours is a ...

Neil Genzlinger's New York Times column on tonight's premiere of "Who Do You Think You Are?" warns potential family historians not to get their hopes up.Some of us may take the genealogical plunge expecting cool family stories like the ones the celebrities get, only to find that we’ve been ordinary and uninteresting since we were living in caves.My own tree, for instance, shows that, on my father’s side, Great-Grandpa Fred and Great-Grandma Elisa came to the United States from Germany on the same ship, the Noordland, in June 1889, apparently meeting onboard, down in steerage. ...

On last night's Simpsons episode, one of Lisa's paternal ancestors looked remarkably like Lisa's mother, who is related only by marriage to the Simpsons. Back to the Future III had a similar problem. Writer/producer Bob Gale and writer/director Robert Zemeckis were once asked to explain how the same actress ended up in two branches of Marty's family tree:Q: Lea Thompson plays Maggie McFly, Marty's great-great-grandmother, as well as Lorraine, Marty's mom. But Lorraine's family name is "Baines". Why did Lea play Marty's paternal great-great-grandmother, when she's really not part of that ...

Who's stupider—Time columnist Joel Stein or his great-grandmother?I found out through the 1930 Census that my father's father's parents paid $45 a month for a one-room New York City apartment for six people and they were the only ones on the block without a radio. My great-grandmother, when asked what country she grew up in, wrote "Poland," crossed it out and then wrote "Austria." These are countries that don't even border each other. I come from stupid people. You know how I know that? Because I had to look up whether those countries border each other [Link]Um, is Stein aware that ...

Yitta Schwartz, who died last month in New York at age 93, left behind some 2,000 living descendants.Mrs. Schwartz was a member of the Satmar Hasidic sect, whose couples have nine children on average and whose ranks of descendants can multiply exponentially. But even among Satmars, the size of Mrs. Schwartz’s family is astonishing. A round-faced woman with a high-voltage smile, she may have generated one of the largest clans of any survivor of the Holocaust — a thumb in the eye of the Nazis. [Link]

The Hawaii Health Department has to deal daily with birthers eager to see President Obama's "real" birth certificate, says spokeswoman Janice Okubo.When Okubo told one writer they did not have a right to Obama's birth certificate because they were not related to the president, the person wrote back saying they, indeed, had a common ancestor. "They said they have a tangible right to his birth certificate because they're descended from Adam," Okubo said, referring to the biblical figure. "We told them they need to provide some type of legal documentation." [Link, via]

An odd and touching story by Dave Eggers, founder of Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency. His website, literary journal and publishing house bear the name of a mysterious man who shared his mother's maiden name.She grew up in Milton, Massachusetts, one of five children, the daughter of an obstetrician, Daniel McSweeney, and his wife Adelaide Mary McSweeney.When Eggers was a kid, his family started getting "strange mail" addressed to him and his mother.These were usually notes written on pamphlets and other sorts of mail that required no postage. The messages were confusing, but generally ...

Someday we might all be carrying bottles of liquid glass to the graveyard.Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.The war graves association in the UK is investigating using the spray to treat stone monuments and grave stones, since trials have shown the coating protects against weathering and graffiti. Trials in Turkey are testing ...

The latest chapter in the Annie Moore saga involves the discovery of a photograph that may or may not show Annie and her brothers at Ellis Island in 1892. Megan asks for help in proving the authenticity of the photo. My advice: check the back to see if their names are written there. Other than that ... I've got nothing.

There might be a genetic reason that Uncle Mario prefers eating at the Szechuan Palace.Some people of Italian ancestry, like me, might have a surprise in the family tree—a man of east Asian descent, who was living and working 2,000 years ago in the boondocks near the heel of the Italian boot. The discovery is the first good evidence of an Asian living in Italy during Roman times. [Link]

I do love correcting the New York Times:[J.D. Salinger's] mother, Marie Jillisch, was of Irish descent, born in Scotland, but changed her first name to Miriam (the name, incidentally, of the wife who drives Seymour Glass to suicide) to appease her in-laws. [Link]Not quite. His mother was the daughter of George and Nellie Jillich, born 11 May 1891 in Atlantic, Cass County, Iowa. Here she is in the 1900 census with her parents. They too were born in Iowa. I'm pretty sure that I've seen ship manifests which confirm Miriam Salinger's exact place of birth, but—like the ...

The towns of Ponca City and Cross were both founded in Oklahoma's Cherokee Strip in 1893. Only one would survive.Both aspired to be the county seat, and the war between them waxed so warm that several men bit the dust. Finally the mayor of Ponca City called a public meeting one night and urged the citizens to keep up the fight until they made Cross a cemetery. It is thought by his remark that the mayor actually advised the destruction of the city and the people of Cross by winchester rifles, but if so his threat was not executed in this manner.Ponca City gave a town lot to every owner of ...

I'm sure I'm not the first one to find "The Lesbian Ancestors of Prince Rainier of Monaco, Dr. Otto von Habsburg, Brooke Shields and the Marquis de Sade" a disappointing read.

I was not especially surprised to learn that Sarah Jane Newberry—Britain's Most Famous Virgin—is also a genealogist. Many of Sarah Jane's ancestors are from England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and distantly France, Rome, Greece, Sweden, Spain, and Italy and there are subsequent family links in all the mentioned countries now. She also has links with other countries and is currently researching these and if there are family links in those countries now. She knows there are some in Alaska. She has got a relative that moved to Jamaica and ...