Blog posts

From Spaceman to Bassman

From Spaceman to Bassman

If I look back to the ten years from 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first man to actually walk on the moon, to 1979 when Sting just sang about it, I guess that those two extremes (astronaut and rock star) covered my pre-corporate dweeb career aspirations. July 20th, 1969 was a big day for me. No, not because of the moon landing (at least not to begin with). The reason for my excitement was that it was the first day of our family vacation and instead of spending it with my aunt and her family in Rhyl, we were…

Edge Pieces and Corners: Building My Family History

Edge Pieces and Corners: Building My Family History

When I moved to the US in 1995, I naively thought of myself as a bold adventurer, the first in my family to venture overseas. When DNA testing became a thing, I very quickly realized that I have a lot of distant cousins here. Back then, the tools to help you join the dots and determine the who, how, and why distant relatives had made the journey across the Atlantic didn’t really exist, but I’m happy to report that that is starting to change Every 12-18 months, I find myself diving deep into genealogy… a bit too deep sometimes, as…