I do not think that means what you think it means, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya

I really do not care for genealogical genetics. I believe they promise you conclusions based on dubious assumptions so that you'll feel a sense of belonging, when most people, including myself, don't understand the intricacies that can go into genetics beyond simple Mendelian inheritance. I don't think the conclusions they reach regarding people are any better than the companies who purport to tell you what breed your dog is.  Beyond that, there is the matter of how utterly stupid it is to freely give a for-profit company your genetic material that they may monetise later.

Population genetics are a different matter, though, so I find this fascinating, and I loved the following quote:

In any given population, the number of lines in your family tree that reach any specific medieval person is about the same between you and everyone else who belongs to the same population you do. In other words, everyone alive today is equally related, genealogically, to all medieval people from that population.>In any given population, the number of lines in your family tree that reach any specific medieval person is about the same between you and everyone else who belongs to the same population you do. In other words, everyone alive today is equally related, genealogically, to all medieval people from that population.

 

DNA says you’re related to a Viking, a medieval German Jew or a 1700s enslaved African? What a genetic match really means

Some fun Thanksgiving facts

Thanksgiving 2012 Myths and Facts

Here's more on that 'first Thanksgiving':

The 1621 Thanksgiving

On a personal note, one of my ancestors, Edouard Bompasse, came here right after that, on the second ship to reach Plymouth Colony, the Fortune:

Ship Fortune's 1621 Arrival at Plymouth: The ship Fortune arrived at Plymouth Colony just after the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving.

He's the first recorded ancestor in this country. We do apocryphally have native tribes in our lineage, but of course that wasn't really recorded, and while I'm supposed to be something like 1/16 Blackfoot with some Cherokee mixed in, I've never pursued that connexion because I have no cultural or real-life ties to the tribe or reservation, and I have enough respect for indigenous peoples that, unlike certain people I've known, I do not want to be part of the Wannabe tribe of mostly white people trying to be Indian. I knew one guy who kept coming up with strange fractions in a bid to be legally recognised as full Indian. He was blonde, blue-eyed, but would go about spouting stuff about the sacred hoop and how our ancestors killed his, never realising that he was a loon. Sure, I believe he had some Indian in his background. But he wasn't doing any of that out of respect for the culture--he was trying to be special, and trying way too hard.

Giant killer...storks?

Giant storks may have fed on real-life hobbits: Bones of small humans and giant birds, found together, tell chilling tale

The fossil remains of what may have been a hobbit-like species of human were discovered in 2003 at the Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. In that cave, scientists also unearthed a large number of bird fossils — including 20,000- to 50,000-year-old wing and leg bones from what appears to have been a stork nearly 6 feet tall (1.8 meters).

"From the size of its bones, we initially were expecting a giant raptor, which are commonly found on islands, not a stork," said Hanneke Meijer, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

I love this comment by 'News9065': 'I always had an intuitive fear of Big Bird on Sesame Street...now I know why.'

:)