DNA Day Sales & a Birthday Party

Many of you know that we celebrate DNA Day on April 25th to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the publication of the Nature article that detailed the structure of DNA. It's a little late to enter ASHG's DNA Day essay contest this year, but you still may want to contemplate your own response to the assigned topic. Read the next paragraph before you guess what my position might be. 

A few of you may know that this day has a special significance for the Dowells of Nashville. It will be the 2nd birthday of our 2014 DNA Day miracle. Benjamin was born 9 months AFTER he had part of his DNA screened to select a healthy fertilized egg that did not contain his mother's heritable mutated and potentially deadly Brugada gene.

DNA SALES!!!

To help us celebrate Benjamin's 2nd birthday this weekend, at least two of the big three US DNA labs are having sales from now until April 26th.

1. Last night CeCe Moore spread the word about the DNA Day sale at AncestryDNA 

- $79 and free shipping if you use the FREESHIPDNA code -

www.tkqlhce.com

DNA.ANCESTRY.COM

2. 10 AM Central time today is the kickoff of a big DNA Weekend sale at Family Tree DNA

Ancestry's sale price is for the only product in the company's line of DNA tests. FTDNA's sale includes many but not all of the company's tests -- some of them discounted more than they often are during sales. 

I'm going to a 2 year old's birthday party this weekend dressed as -- (did you guess it?) -- a carnival barker.

So come one, come all and let the spitting and swabbing begin!! 

My 10th great-grandfather is my 9th great-grandfather?

I was stimulated to write this post by reading Lara Diamond's blog today which has the clever title: My Pedigree Has Collapsed! I figured that anything the Ashkenazi could do us WASPs could  do better. Nothing like a little ethnic rivalry. The other granddad of my three Dowell grandsons is Ashkenazi.

According to my RootsMagic software, my immigrant ancestor Richard CURRIER is my tenth great grandfather. But wait he is also my ninth great grandfather:

Yes, Nathaniel Currier of Currier and Ives fame was a 4th great-grandson of immigrant Richard. Thank you for asking. But back to my main point.

 If you insist in trying to read all the details, your browser may open a somewhat clearer image if you click on each page. All the individuals below the line of type projecting to the left halfway down each page are identical in each line. Only their generation number is different.

So one could theorize that I should have inherited some atDNA from these early Puritan ancestors since my pedigree collapsed under their weight. But that was a long time ago and many generations to pass the segments down. By now they would be well traveled, well worn and often recombined. Thank God for those thorough and well preserved New England vital records. As a result I know that my 10th great grandfather is also my 9th great grandfather is also my 9th great grandfather.