Phooey on Edward Ball

Ye socks are all too familiar with my attempts to encourage people to read with my numerous book recommendations in the dryer. So, it is with a heavy heart that I feel it necessary to tell you all NOT to bother reading a certain book.

You may recognize the name of Edward Ball as the best-selling author of "Slaves in the Family," in which he explored several generations of relations between his white southern family and their slaves/descendants. It was a good read.

But, his latest book "The Genetic Strand: Exploring a Family History through DNA" is absolute tripe. Don't bother spending good money on it.

I was fooled by the premise: Ball finds nine locks of hair in an old desk and sends them off to some genetics labs to find out what they could reveal about his ancestors' DNA. Sounds interesting, no?

Unfortunately, this guy is so condescending. He even went so far as to point out that most people have eight great-grandparents. Well, duh!

He also quickly reveals himself as one of those self-loathing liberal elites who have nothing nice to say about Western culture and traditions, and looks down his nose at "average" Americans. Here's one particularly offensive quote (pages 129-130):

Most people who do family research are white,

and most of them look for ancestors with the goal

to unearth the whitest, most moneyed forebears

they can.

What an absolute load of crap and nonsense! I know lots of genealogy buffs, both amateur and professional. I can tell you they are not all of one ethnic background, and actually do their research to find out the truth--palatable as it may or may not be to prats like Mr. Ball.

Ball concludes this unworthy book by urging his readers (if indeed he has any left at this point) not to trust science in general and DNA testing in particular. Now, to be sure, scientists make mistakes all the time, and DNA testing is not yet a perfect science. But, they at least try to support their claims with fact--something Ball miserably fails to do.

On the other hand, if you'd like to get your hands on a true literary masterpiece, might I suggest Like the Cats of Kilkenny: A True Story of the Civil War? Autographed copies are available upon request to yours truly.

Killer aps, Dr. Cai!

Dr. Yang Cai, director of the Ambient Intelligence Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, has not only developed some really cool 3D scan technology but also come up with some great ideas for applying it to real-world use.

One day, it will be used to scan human tongues to check for signs of illness. One day, it will be used to scan ocean surfaces to look for possible tsunami threats. But, today, it is already being used in a field that is of great interest to yours truly: genealogy.

How many times have you been wandering thru an old cemetery hunting your ancestors' final resting place only to run across a tombstone that has been rendered completely illegible after the ravages of time?

Not often? Well, then you're not a dedicated root-digger.

Anyway, thanks to Dr. Cai's 3D technology, old stones can now be scanned and their inscriptions deciphered. He's already applied it with great success to some real world stones found in the 200 year old St. Luke's Episcopal Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Check out the complete story at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7024672.stm

Wiley Alexander Morgan

That's the name of the earliest known ancestor of one of the participants in our Morgan DNA project.

All we know about him is that he was born in North Carolina about the year 1819, and that his father may have been named James.

My interest in him is somewhat selfish. I hope, since my DNA markers match his descendants' exactly, that I will be able to find a common ancestor somewhere and trace my own roots further back.

So, I spent several hours. I won't bore socks like Darrell with all the gory details. But, I got my hopes up pretty high, only to have them dashed this afternoon.

And, all of this because some jerk had "knitted" old Wiley into a pedigree instead of doing any real research.

Ok, do I sound like a total genealogy geek right now, or what?!

Let's try to salvage what remains of this fine Saturday . . .