Life is a combination of magic and pasta.

I'd mentioned finding out about my aunt only being my half-aunt (tsk tsk, grandma!) and my cousin's husband finally got what would be her half brother to respond! They had no idea and he even has two sisters that haven't tested so my aunt probably has another couple of half siblings.

He was able to get a little information from the now very interested half brother about his family. When he saw the DNA link, he thought it was some random cousin and not an actual half-sibling but now they're all fascinated. Hopefully her daughter takes care of introductions and such. I don't really like that aunt (she has never been very nice, especially not to my mom). However, I was more than pleased to help investigate and put together their tree. I wasn't able to take it very far back since they come from Slovak immigrants and that is a huge challenge. Even so, I was able to make a tree that was decently fleshed out, impressive considering I didn't have much to go on and was mostly using and confirming records and such on Ancestry and other genealogy sites.

The cousin's husband asked me a favor if I'd see if I could do more on his paternal line and heck yeah, don't have to ask me twice! I wasn't able to take his line back further (Prussian immigrants from the early/mid-1800s), however, I was able to make several corrections as well as I was able to find the Ellis Island record for the whole family unit that came over in 1864 even though there were errors in transcription (that I sent a message to the Ellis Island site about corrections needing made)

Interestingly, I got an email out of the blue from familysearch.org, asking if I'd look at some records of people not related to me and do some confirming and matching. Yeah, sure. Why not. Though it seemed like a random request. It did make me wonder and do a little googling about what it might take to go into the field. There's an online certificate program at Boston University that with the prerequisite, would cost about $3700. Bit rich but I haven't done a lot of investigating. Definitely need to think on this but I have such fun doing it and it would be nice to make some money doing it too.

I was poking about on the DNA relatives on Geni.com since there are more folks outside the US and it's interesting to see what non-American relatives that I have. Quick background - my Dad's side goes wayyyyyyyyy back in the US so I don't start seeing direct relatives outside the US for quite a while (I have a 10th great grandfather buried a couple of miles down the road - pre-Revolutionary War). Mom's side is more difficult for me since while I managed to cobble together more of her Dad's side, her Mom's side pretty much hits a wall when you get to my great grandmother and grandfather on her Mom's side. They came over in the early 1900s from somewhere in Czechoslovakia/Hungary area and that's the furthest I can go back.

Anyway, Geni shows me with estimated 4th to 6th living DNA cousins living really far north in Norway and even some near Siberia. I don't have any good tree links, though. I look for distinct non-American names for fun and last night I saw one that sounded Dutch, which it was. She had a good bit of her tree done and was estimated as a 3rd to 5th cousin of some sort.

But the real eye opener for me was when I clicked back to look at her grandfather, Fritz Albert Citroen. I saw that he died in 1943

And then I saw where

Auschwitz.

Whoa. Evidently he was part of the Dutch resistance.

My great grandmother Rhea Horton (nee McCullough) 1890-1972


I found this picture on Ancestry last night from an old Indiana school yearbook. What was even more fun to see is that on the same page was my 2nd great aunt who isn't Rhea's sister but instead Rhea's husband's sister. So clearly the ladies knew each other before Rhea married Howard Henry Horton.
Here's Olive Amy Horton. Early on, she swapped her first and middle names and always went by Amy Olive Horton (1892-) She married a travelling salesman and fellow entertainer, Maurice Paul Fitzpatrick, but I can't seem to find anything about when she died yet.

The funny thing is that I'd never seen a close of picture of her but the little hula girl on my dashboard is named Olive for her and she part of the first groups that went to entertain the troops overseas during WWI. Emily thinks I look like her I also love the blurb about her in the yearbook:
"Amy Olive Horton - Language and Science Course, Debating Club.
All is attention when Amy is called on to recite, for her recitations are as spicy and amusing as anything ever published in the joke column"

Ah, a fellow sassypants! No wonder I felt an affinity for great great aunty Amy!

Then later on findagrave.com, I found a picture of Amy's sister, Agnes Victoria Horton (1889-1950)

My cousin on FB who knows a lot of the family history from that side isn't sure but she thinks that she may be the one that was an actress. Earlier that evening, Dad told me that one of the girls was a friend of actress Fay Bainter.

So cool stuff found last night!

Oh, as an update, so far *knock wood* the penicillin seems to be helping. My tooth is still a bit sore but I'll keep taking the pills regularly and hopefully it gets rid of the infection. The bigger surprise is that the temperature sensitivity seems to be gone. Considering that I've had that problem for a LONG time, it makes me wonder if I've been sick for longer than I realize. If so, it might take longer than expected to get better. 

The first of my DNA tests are done. Oddly, I didn't get an email and it's not showing matches so it must still be processing but there is a map that according to their FAQ gives me a rough combination of 50% from each parent. How not a shock that I'm 100% European lol

One thing that I am surprised about is that the percentage of British Isles is so low since most of my work on fleshing out Dad's side shows that most of the ancestors go back to the UK. I'm interested in the 7% Sothern Europe and WOW at 26% Scandinavian with another 5% in Finland and Northern SIberia?

Hopefully ancestry.com comes through with their testing so I can compare the two.