If you’ll allow me one more post about our Fort Wayne visit? Let me tell you what our walk-off gift was, courtesy of the Allen County Public Library’s world-class (and I do mean world-class) genealogy department:
The Homecoming organizers told us this was in the works, and said that if we wanted our personal family tree, to provide birth, death and cities for our parents and grandparents. I am one of those people mostly left cold by this stuff; at some point it started to strike me the way past-lives ninnies did, the ones who are always the reincarnation of Cleopatra or Henry VIII, never a guttersnipe in Victorian London or one of Cleopatra’s litter-carriers. But what the hell, why not, I thought, and coughed up the names and dates. And this is what I received in return:
Lordy. All that? Yes:
From the summation inside the front cover, this goes back five generations, to the great-greats. The last of the bunch was born in the 1830s, several in Germany or Switzerland. Some Civil War vets in there. One of my great-great grandfathers had charge of Abraham Lincoln’s bier as he lay in state in Indianapolis for 24 hours on his funerary trip back to Illinois. Another was, get this, a newspaperman.
I’m still working my way through this. Much of it is U.S. Census records, death certificates and the like, but for the first time, I’m starting to see the appeal of doing this research. I don’t carry but a few teaspoons of these old gents’ blood, but it’s fun to see what they did with the hands they were dealt, and how they were carried off. A few of cancer, stroke, some vague “illness” and the big cataclysm on my mother’s side, her father’s exit: “suicide by firearm.” I have a small medal that was his, awarded for bowling prowess:
He was a bank teller. I’m thinking I’ll have it made into a necklace.
If you want to dig up your roots, you won’t find a better place. The story was always that the only equal of Allen County’s collection was the Church of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, and the Library of Congress. I believe it.
So. Here’s a Sopranos joke, adapted for the times: An American walks into the Oval Office with a duck under his arm, and says, “This is the pig we elected.” The president says, “That’s not a pig, that’s a duck.” The American says, “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Doubt me? Don’t:
Over the summer, we learned (weirdly, via a social-media post by Jeanine Pirro) that Trump was planning to hang a row of paintings in the walkway adjacent to the Rose Garden, which connects the Executive Residence and the West Wing. …The portraits still haven’t been hung, but on September 21, White House photographers captured a new addition to the colonnade: a mock-up of a sign that reads “The Presidential Walk of Fame” in a large golden font.
Yep, that’s the pig we elected. Of the events of recent days, I have nothing to say that could be captured here. We elected a pig, and that’s that.
Happy Wednesday, eh.
basset said on September 24, 2025 at 12:40 am
Wonder what it’d cost to get one of those done if you were paying for it?
i’ve taken a few dabbles at genealogy and sometimes mentioned em here – I guess I was just trying to feel connected to something. Didn’t always work, either.
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Deborah said on September 24, 2025 at 3:05 am
Read Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter today, about Trump’s UN speech yesterday, OMG talk about a pig. Sorry I don’t have a link. The guy is stark raving mad.
Went whale watching yesterday and saw 4 whales total, 3 humpbacks and 1 fin whale. It was absolutely spectacular.
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David C said on September 24, 2025 at 5:30 am
My patrilineal line was done and is in a book by Jane Fletcher Fiske, who I understand is a big deal in the genealogy world. We were lucky enough to have her marry into the family. So I’m listed in her book “Thomas Cooke of Rhode Island”. It goes back to something like my 16 greats grandfather in Netherbury, Dorset, England. It’s pretty dry reading except for the fact that Thomas Cooke had a brother-in-law named Preserved Fish.
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Alan Stamm said on September 24, 2025 at 7:26 am
I grin again at the vigor and vitality of your wordplay, a style classical musicians call energico.
“I don’t carry but a few teaspoons of these old gents’ blood . . .”
We’ve all got access to the same words, but how you string ’em rises above. Way to bring it, Nance.
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Suzanne said on September 24, 2025 at 8:03 am
A number of years ago, my husband & I visited New York. A friend who lives there arranged a private tour of the UN by her neighbor, who was a UN translator. It was marvelous! I even got to stand at the podium where Dear Leader Don fawned all over himself yesterday. During the tour, this translator regaled us with an insider’s view of life at the UN including the Qaddafi UN speech disaster which rivaled our dear leader’s speech; unhinged, fact free, peppered with narcissism and vitriol.
I guess we can all agree that American exceptionalism is now swimming with the fishes.
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Jeff Gill said on September 24, 2025 at 8:28 am
Don’s aside about how he bid on the reno job and didn’t get it, mocking the terrazzo and wall coverings: classic Trump. I continue to be fascinated by his drowsy monotone when he’s reading a script or prompter, and the gear shift into a buzzier energy which is obvious when he’s “weaving.” Let alone the erratic pauses and phrasing that make it pretty clear he doesn’t give his speech text more than a quick skim before he gets up to deliver one, even in front of the United Nations.
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Mark P said on September 24, 2025 at 10:15 am
I did two of the DNA companies. I found ancestors back a few greats, and I keep getting emails about how they found a new DNA relative, but I kind of gave up on it. The most interesting thing I found was a small percentage of DNA consistent with a sub-Saharan African ancestor about six generations back. A tiny bit of Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, too. I might have mentioned that before. There is family lore on my mother’s side about a not-too-distant ancestor owning a huge farm in South Georgia. I think we all know what that means. I have an ancestor who was a slave owner, and another who was a slave. I’m the poster boy for white-ass redneck, with red hair (ok, mostly white now), freckles, and skin that burns but never tans, but it’s interesting to know that somewhere I have black relatives.
Did you see the press conference where Trump was trying to pronounce acetaminophen? What an embarrassment he would be if there were any embarrassment left in the embarrassment warehouse.
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Jeff Borden said on September 24, 2025 at 10:35 am
I wonder if theso-called ‘American Era” wasn’t killed yesterday. He’s betting on 19th century principles as the rest of the world races into the future. How will the U.S. ever catch up? Or, maybe, tRump prefers to be a second-rate power?
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Dexter Friend said on September 24, 2025 at 10:54 am
Preserved Fish is my gangster name. (take on that elderly comedian, Andy, who shows up on my feed daily).
Mom, Berne Switzerland…Dad, London, England…Great great uncle killed by cannonball at Chickamauga, 1700 era Friends, fought General George Washington during The Whiskey Rebellion, and the first Friend here was a Merchant Marine sailor who crashed in a storm at Tom’s River, New Jersey. Also, a great uncle died in the 1918 flu epidemic during army training in New Jersey, his body shipped home in a boxcar full of bodies. And great great grandfather Michael Friend told this story, recanted to me by my grandpa, “If any sonofabitch ever calls me a German again, I’ll knock his head off.”
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