DNA Monday: Mom's results from 23and Me are starting to come in!

It went like this: I gave myself the 23andMe DNA test as a holiday present this past holiday season. I give myself a present every year, and that might sound self-centered or childish but after all the holiday fuss and buying a boat-load of presents for others, somehow the thought of having one for myself (and if it's from me I know it will be perfect) keeps me going. You do what you gotta do to keep it all moving along. I'm not above self-bribery. So when Mom's birthday came along this past July 29th, and it was her special 95th birthday, and I asked her what she wanted and she said "A DNA test", I was right on board!

There are two types of DNA results that can be had from 23andMe. The first is medical in which they estimate your chances of reacting to a number of common drugs, they likelihood of you having a genetically-based inherited condition, and some fun stuff like your eye color or if you have wet or dry ear wax. They send these results out first. Mine came about three days before the genealogy stuff. That gives you some time to delve into the medical information and focus on it before you start chasing down cousins... because, if you're like me, once you start chasing the cousins, the medical stuff is left in the proverbial dust.

When your medical results are ready and you sign in, there's a notice that says:
We need a few more days to finish calculating all of your ancestry results. Each ancestry feature will be made available as soon as it's done being calculated. Check back soon!

Mom's medical results have just come in and we will be checking back real soon for the ancestry results. What's the news on the medical results? Not much new news, really, because at 95 you kinda know what's up with your body... or should. She has some glaucoma and macular degeneration going on but it's under control, and that was there on the results. Only to be expected. And then she did have trouble with gall stones a while back, so it was no surprise to see that it might be a problem for her, or rather was! Arthritis also showed up and we knew that too. As I say, no big surprises.

There were no variants present for any unusual inherited conditions that are genetically based... wacky genes, if you will. None. Not a one. Maybe that's why she's 95 and pretty much just fine:) We should all be so lucky! My ACADM variant isn't there on Mom's DNA so I'd be looking to Dad if he were still with us and able to donate a sample. But he's not, more the pity all around.

I'm so glad Mom decided to jump in and have her DNA done! Now we can go looking for DNA cousins together:)

Mom, on the right, with her parents in the middle, and her sister on the left.

Front row, left to right: Dorothy Williams Conrad (1920 - 2007), Emma Susan (Whetstone) Williams (1897 - 1956), Virginia Williams Kelly (living),

back row: Cambria Williams (1897 - 1960).

Hill Street School in the background, now the Frostburg Museum, Frostburg, Allegany, Maryland.

 

Mom's eye color: blue, ear wax is wet;)

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/08/dna-monday-moms-results-from-23and-me.html

A Little Museum Packs A Big Wallop

Recently back east visiting Mom in the little Western Maryland town of Frostburg, and we thought we'd make time to go visit the Frostburg Museum. Glad we did! A visit to a local museum can really shed light on the lives of the ancestors, and possibly render even more direct information from the files.

Here's a link to the Frostburg Museum: http://frostmuseum.allconet.org/index.html
And here's a link to their genealogy page: http://frostmuseum.allconet.org/genealogy.html
Here's the text about the holdings that might be pertinent to family history researchers:

Without following the usual procedures of those tracing family roots, the Museum has a great deal of information about families who have lived in the Frostburg area. Voting registration prior to World War I; tax assessments from 1910; a tailor's measurements from the first part of the century... items not found on the Internet.
Card files, vertical files (mostly newspaper clippings), and correspondence with family members are cross-indexed, and City maps of various vintage help to locate the houses where people lived.

This lovely small town museum is housed in an old historic school building once the home of Hill Street School. Mom attended Hill Street School because it was the closest elementary school situated just at the other end of her block. Here's waht the museum's web site says about the building:

Built in 1899, the Hill Street School was the last school in the area of a design that was fairly common at that time. Originally six rooms, a two-room and auditorium addition dates from ca. 1914. Several areas of the basement were at one time used for cafeteria, kindergarten, and meeting rooms. When it was no longer needed as a school, the building reverted to the County Commissioners, who gave it to the City; the Museum Association now holds title to it.

Looking towards Mom's childhood home,
just beyond the house with the striped awning.

 

Hill Street School,
now the Frostburg Museum
(Photo courtesy Frostburg Museum)

I can attest to what the museum has, and if your ancestors come from the area, it's a must do on your itinerary. Inside you'll find shelves with numerous genealogies of local families including the Trimbles and Porters, and those are ours. A long time ago Mom gave them a copy of her Whetstone family file but we forgot to check and see if they still have it. The old city maps are invaluable. And you might even find ancestors in the sales books of a grocery store! On our next visit Mom and I want to go play in these records and see what we find!

Interpretive display of a coal mine.
So many of the area's residents worked in coal mines that
this display must be popular!

Besides direct information about the genealogy of ancestors, there are so many artifacts and objects that frame the time and place in which the ancestors lived! Room after room full of the memorabilia of daily lives in small town Western Maryland are found here as well as specific objects that give history to named families. 
 
Ralph, our docent, asked me if the family still had the big barber chair that was in my GGF's barber shop behind the old house at 89 West Main Street. No, sad to say we don't. It was sold off years ago by I don't know who. I remember that you could probably talk one of the cousins into giving you a good spin ride in it;) It would have been great if the old barber chair had been donated. Too bad.

Mom had fun in the classroom on the second floor and found her 1936 high school class photo, and Dad's too. Aunt Betty looked for hers and found it while I found Aunt Dot's and Uncle Harolds... they were in the same class! High school sweethearts:) It was shocking to see how very small the desks were then: did we ever fit into one? Guess so.

Mom and Brother, left, look for classmates in

her high school class photo, while our docent, Ralph looks on.

 

 

 

Aunt Betty in her class photo.

 

Small museums like the Frostburg Museum must dot the county! There's one we want to visit just west of here in Garret County. That's next on our list. Imagine all the history waiting to be discovered by family historians in these local gems.

Aunt Betty donated a trunk that came over with her GGM form Wales! It's quite the story and I think that I'll save it until next time. There's a beautiful crazy quilt that goes with it too... and I have photos.

Yeah, this post is going to come in parts:)

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-little-museum-packs-big-wallop.html