Genealogy, a very inexact science, suddenly has become more accurate and creditable in its ability to solve genealogical problems. DNA findings have become accepted without qualification in courts throughout the world. In addition, DNA has proven relationships between ancient human remains and living individuals. We now know that DNA remains basically unchanged over thousands of years. DNA from a frozen prehistoric skeleton in the Swiss Alps was found to be a distant cousin of a present day lab worker in Zurich. An ancient body uncovered in Cheddar, England was an ancestor of a teacher now teaching in that same community.

It has been proven that DNA can solve these kinds of relationships for anthropologists as well as the kinds of problems we have with establishing our ancestors and you don't have to dig up their skeletons in order to scrape the bones. Mainly, DNA Genealogy works with males, carriers of the Y Chromsome. This DNA is virtually unchanged over thousands of years from father to son to son etc.

Here is how it works. Let's suppose you know another male with the same surname as yours and you suspect, but don't know for sure, that you two are related. You ask him to submit a DNA sample from inside his mouth (a simple swab is used) and you do the same. The test company takes these samples and the DNA is extracted. You then receive a report which will tell you whether you two are directly related (the same DNA Markers). It is as simple as that and costs about $100 a participant.

I have by neccesity simplified this explanation but if you want to learn more read about my Norin Surname Project which is one of more than 250 DNA Projects under way.

Norin DNA Surname Project

FAMILY MEMORIES

Over the years various family members have told me stories about life on the Mc Donald farm, stories that are worth sharing. Bobbie Dobbel told me this one:
"One day her father, Bob, was holding a leather strap which Roddie was going to chop. Bob got his finger in the way and Roddie proceeded to chop off a tip! Tessie looked everywhere until she found the piece and tied it up tightly with a bandage. Their parents were away so the kids harnessed up the buggy and rushed to town where the doctor sewed it back on. He told the kids they saved the finger by their quick thinking. This sounds like quite a medical fete for that period. Bonnie says that even though the finger grew back crooked, it became fully functionable. Later the boys used to joke that Tessie found it in a chicken's beak. In later years Bob would show Tess his crooked finger and thank her for her heroism. Truman was given a ring that Bob couldn't fit on his crooked digit."
And, cousin Marcia Lindstrum told me this tale :
"" Aunt Kitty told how when she was quite young, three or four, she was playing in the tool shed and was bitten on the knee by a black widow spider. She screamed and one of the Mexican laborers heard her. He ran to see what had happened and killed the spider. The worker was a tobacco chewer so he spit a fresh wad on Kitty's knee. Apparently it drew out a lot of the poison. Still Aunt Kitty's leg was paralized for some three years after that. She claimed that the workman saved her life."
Shyrl and Marcia shared many other stories:
"Shyrl recounts how the girls took care of the babies and how they resented their mother having so many children. Aunt Kitty told Marcia that she did not say much to others about how many sibs she had for she felt people would think THAT was all her parents ever did. There were always babies with diapers to change. Ellie used to say she was a built-in baby sitter, being the eldest."

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WE MET ON THE NET

For some time now I have been keeping track of "new" cousins I have met on the Net. The list continues to grow as people either find themselves or their relatives in my web page database or find this information on one of the other web pages which have this same data. I know I have left some of you off, so if we first made contact this way and you aren't on there, please let me know so I can correct the omission Take a look:
We Met on the Net

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"THE LANDS OF MISSION SAN MIGUEL*"
By Wallace V. Ohles

The small village of San Miguel, California was starting to experience a building boom in the late summer of 1886 for that fall the construction of the Southern Pacigic Railroad woukd reach town and the community would never be the same again. Out of town and local power brokers were gearing up to make significant profits from this boom. Two of these "shakers" were Michael and Loughlin Mc Donald, over a period of time they had acquired numerous parcels of land called the Mc Donald Addition smack in the middle of the newly developing San Miguel business district.
A book by Wallace V.Ohle, a school teacher in Paso Robles, provides us with many insights into to San Miguel during the Railroad boom. There are several newspaper references to Laughlin and Michel and here are a few:
"The location of the train depot is not announced but appearances point to the flat area some three-fourths of a mile below the Mission. It is a fine level tract of several hundred acres and is owned by G. Kunz, Davis Bros., the Flint Estate and the Mc Donald Bros."
"The Estrella Land and Loan Company, C.F. Smith, resident agent, has nearly completed an office building on the Mc Donald Bros. Addition"
"Mr Knott, a practical tinsmith, has purchased a lot in the Mc Donald Bros, Addition."
Loughlin also donated land for the flour mill that would be built in San Miguel.
Also at this time it appears that Loughlin's father-in law had a new vocation, " Stagecoach passage people were to apply for tickets at the Jeffreys' Hotel; P.Mc Adam was the proprietor."
Michael was busy operating the post office that was located at his ranch, "In 1887 a stage ran east from San Miguel to Shandon, through Estrella and Bern two days a week. Bern was the site of the Micheael Mc Donald Home."
Copies of this book can be purchased from the gift shop in the adobe next to Mission Sam Miguel at $24.95 plus tax of $1.81 at this mailing address:
Caledonia Gift Shop

P.O. Box 326

San Miguel, Ca.93451

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A POEM FROM ANNIE

The following poem was one of many written by cousin Annie Frobese of Pinehurst, Mass. In a couple weeks she will celebrate her 95th birthday and she's still going strong.In case you can't read it, her T shirt says, "Over what hill?" Annie is a grandaughter of Annie Mc Donald Gillis. Loughlin and Michael's sister.Big Pond is a small village adjacent to East Bay. The Bras D'Or is a large inland lake adjoining these two villages.

BIG POND CARNIVAL

One childhood day I strayed away
To find a field's expanse,
And in the grasses waving there
I saw the daisies dance.
The bagpipes whistled on the breeze
A bonny highland tune,
The bees and breeze were mingled
In a rhapsody for June.
The white capped waves came waltzing in
To kiss the sandy shore,
The larks song soared to heaven
By the beautiful Bras D'Or.
In awe I stood,
Then caught the mood,
And hanging by a cloud,
My breast leaped over daisies
To join the joyful crowd.
But shadowed were the daisies
All the joy was lost for me,
When on the music laden air
I heard "come -- home -- Annie ".
So I left the dancing daisies
And I hurried home instead,
But for years those dancing daisies
Still are dancing in my head.

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