An answer at last?

We had snow late last week. I waited for the sunshine to take care of it, and went out grocery shopping.

I think this is a sparrow or some small bird hopping on by. This picture is just a small indication of filling boredom.

I have been tracking these little fellows. Every day it's "Come on! Come on!"

The same with these big fellows, too. There actually are three fat buds there, and I think they will be some sort of fancy, feathered tulips.

Today is just too lovely.  High in the mid sixties, light film of overcast, bright sunshine. And I've been rewarded. I believe these are ten petal anemone. And it seems today was the end of spring. The rest of the week if forecast forties and rain.

Some of you may remember I signed on with 23andMe  several years ago. I frequently get notices, "you have new relatives!", and I don't react to them because the generations aren't near enough to me to be excited. 

I am intrigued how further down they are drilling on all of us, me included. I now am incredibly Neanderthal, for instance. I have 293 Neanderthal "Variants", more than 83 percent of all the rest of their clients.

Recently I had an email from a young, new 23andMe client, asking me about her relatives. She probably didn't understand that 3rd or 4th cousins and pretty far down the ladder. I explained what I know about how it works and told her worst of all, she probably is part of my great-great grandmother Cox's family, maiden name Smith, and all my research dead ended with her. She is the grandmother who succumbed to the 1918 flu epidemic.

23andMe also tweaked me with a new clue, I have three close relatives. Of course, I must upgrade for more information. Or I could sort on the oceans of data they give me and see what I find. And by golly, I found several new relatives sharing my paternal grandmother's maiden name in their genealogy. One still lives in this state.

His info said he's 47 years old, and new to this game. A new generation looking back. I sent an email and had an answer in hours. We are related; his maternal great-grandmother was a younger sister of my grandmother!

I asked if he could throw out my question, why did my grandfather marry my grandmother, a teenager fifteen years younger. He answered  he would do that; "some of them are still alive and "Jay, who's ninety, is a real talker!"

So, another cousin has answered and I will ask him to go stir up his old aunts and uncles, too. I would love to know. And it won't hurt them to learn some ancestors were scoundrels.