If You’re Going to Genealogy, Then Genealogy

 What’s with DNA matches on genealogy sites that say “[Name] appears in a family tree with 5 people…”

So that person built a tree with him/her self, 2 parents, and only 2 grandparents… and then gave up and took a DNA test?

Do people even know how to do research anymore?

Here’s a good one, can’t even be bothered to add grandparents.

If DNA results via genealogy sites were more accurate:

“Great-grandmother’s 1st cousin 3 times removed… cut off from the family, sent into exile, and finally 86’d with the body dumped somewhere in the back 40.”

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In my case, by researching and filling branches of the tree I’ve discovered real family connections I would’ve never known about otherwise.

The most remarkable to date are two connections in Germany to my great-grandmother Helena Straus, who migrated to Chicago from a small farming settlement in Transcarpathia, which at that time was part of Hungary, then Czechoslovakia, now Ukraine. She was a dead end, information-wise, but I now have contacts to both her father’s Strauss lineage and her mother’s Baumann lineage.

I’ve also found matches for my maternal grandfather’s relatives in Denmark and my paternal side in Poland… and my maternal grandma’s family I can now trace back to arrivals to North America as far back as the 1600s, with multiple ancestors fighting in the Revolutionary War – including later-arriving German Hessian mercenaries who arrived circa 1776 as reinforcements for the British forces, then gambled big by turning against their British employers for a chance at a new life in America (my how times have changed – for my chance at a better life I’ve migrated back to Europe).

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A Tip Regarding Best Sources of Correct Names and Dates

Census records are rarely a good source of correct names and birthdates. Think of it like this... when someone was responsible for quickly filling in the names and ages of a family of 8, 12 or 15 people, for a report that had a tendency to be focused on ethnicity, profession, and such, you will find a lot of discrepancies.

Birth, Marriage, and Death records tend to have the most accurate details for an individual, as they are more apt to be meticulously completed for that one person, with less time constraint.

I hope this helps anyone just beginning their genealogical research journey.

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Am I Back to Blogger?

Yeah, this is an old blog and I’m dusting it off... might start musing here again.

Greetings from Brno, #GreatMoravia.

Jason

It's Complicated: Relationships in 2014

Three articles were making the social-media rounds this February and, together, they just might be an odd enough trinity to tell us something about relationships in the year 2014.

First, an Atlantic article showing how Facebook can predict who will be in a relationship -- perhaps before the couple themselves are even aware of it.

Second, a Guardian reprint of a New York Times piece titled "Does equality kill sex?" -- with the result being that men who do only 'manly' things and don't try to 'help around the house' have sex more frequently and with partners who report greater sexual satisfaction.

And third, a short Independent article suggesting that polyamory may be the key to a longer, happier marriage -- that is, 'outsourcing' a few needs, as the needs couples place on each other are allegedly increasing over time.

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After reading all three articles, I started to get the feeling, however, that there may not be anything 'new' to any of these studies. Of course two people will increase their communications before 'hooking up', of course male/female gender roles are adequately hardwired no matter how much we may try to reprogram them, and throughout all human history, of course, it seems to have been too much for one person to fulfill all of another person's emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs. It seems that the old saying "The more things change, the more they stay the same" has struck again, despite whatever 'newness' researchers try to attach to their data. Human relationships are just... complicated.

New Jason Mashak poems en route

I'll soon have new work coming out in Amsterdam Quarterly and the revived Lummox Journal.

Earlier this year (2012), I had work published in Unshod Quills (as featured poet!) and some poems that appeared earlier in a printed volume, in both English and Czech translation, reprinted on the web edition of Kumquat Poetry.

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UPDATE: You can read my poems in Amsterdam Quarterly here:

• "Bratislava Airport"
• "Prague Metro, 2 June 2009"

Enjoy!

Portland, Oregon's Orange Lining Art Project

“Hi Jason, We had over 1100 submissions of lines for the Orange Lining project and have chosen 103 for potential use.  Your line, EVERY RUIN IS A THING WE HAVE MADE, was selected, during our second round of reviews.”

I’m pleased to announce that a line from my book Salty as a Lip has been chosen “for potential use” for an art installation that will accompany a new light-rail (metro) extension deep into SE Portland, Oregon.

Other authors include people I’ve read with in Portland (e.g. Hurricane Katrina Benefit, Wordstock/Poetland) or whose work and professionalism I’ve admired over the years, and I’m honored to be listed among them:

Anatoly Molotkov, David Abel, Jules Boykoff, Kaia Sand, Laura Winter, Paulann Petersen, B.T. Shaw, and David Biespiel.

More info: http://orangelining.net/

April, the Kindest Month

2011 has been a year of mostly Mondays. Maybe something to do with the moon's closest hovering in decades... or simply a convergence of obstacles to test my endurance. Regardless, April promises a new mentor in my life, a second daughter. My little Zoe will be a big sister to.. baby Chloe.

On the poetic front, I'll be reading at the U.S. Embassy's American Center here in Prague, along with legendary Czech underground writer/musician/artist Pavel Zajíček and the notorious American fiction writer Brad Vice, to celebrate the release of a new Czech-English anthology (with a theme akin to 'self-exile') recently compiled and translated by poet-professors Matthew Sweney and Bob Hýsek.