Saturday Serendipity (August 12, 2017)

Here are a few recommendations for your weekend reading.

1.  Increasingly, the popular press and genealogy publications and blogs are replete with stories of family discovery using DNA test results. This week The Weekly Genealogist newsletter of NEHGS recommended a fascinating story of persistent detective work begun with a simple yet surprising DNA test.  It is worth the read because it so clearly explains and illustrates the twists and turns such testing and subsequent detective work can take. The surprise ending is not at all the kind of story of infidelity or teen pregnancy sometimes encountered and warned about for those embarking on the path of DNA discovery. It is a solution that could only have been uncovered in the era of affordable "recreational" DNA testing and incredibly persistent detective work!  You can read the full story here.   

2.  And after reading the article above, you might want to take the time to read another piece recommend by The Weekly Genealogist that will resonate with the surprise solution to the DNA detective story. You can read "Handmaids, Hospitals, and The Pageantry of t he NewbornNursery Window" here.    

3. The Open University in the UK (self-styled as "the UK's largest academic institution and a world pioneer in distance learning") has offered almost a dozen colorized photos of life in the trenches and at home during WWI. One hundred years ago, the world was embroiled in the "war to end all wars," which, in August 1917, was still almost two years away from ending. The photographs bring a new vision and perspective on life during the war due to an extremely close approximation to exactly what a living observed saw at the time. Since so much of the world's population was caught up --directly or indirectly -- in the carnage that was World War I and its aftermath, many -- if not most -- of us alive today have ancestral connections to this regrettable chapter in human history. See the colorized photos here.        
        
4.  NPR had a piece on All Things Considered recently. It is about the discovery and preservation of photographs and makes very interesting reading for genealogists. You can read the piece here.      
     
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Copyright 2017, John D. Tew

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