Sharing 365 life lessons, tips, or hacks; the things that make life easier, happier, and more productive. I hope you’ll follow along and find them helpful too.
#4
Know Your Ancestry
It used to be that people were excited to get their ‘palm’ read – now it’s trendy to have your DNA read. Just by spitting in a little tube, you can identify where your ancestral roots originated. Why bother?
History
Whether it’s a family tree or DNA, your family history is important. It’s the anchor of your ship… the chemical composition of your existence. It offers information about your great-great-uncle Joe or connect the dots between your English and Irish heritage centuries back.
Genealogy
The most elementary part of knowing your ancestry is to record your direct lineage. Your father, his father, his father and so on… Do the same with your mother and hers… Connect those lines as far back as you can. When you run into a stumbling block, try the DNA route to run the lines as far as they can go.
DNA
Whether you choose 23&Me or another service, researching your cellular structure offers even more information. Instead of learning that your great, great, great, great, Aunt Florence was the first woman to captain a ship out of Naples, you might discover that your Italian heritage is closer to the French than it is to the Baltic even though she was he hero of that port.
DNA even allows you the genetic history of disease influence. No matter if your ancestry stems from Jewish, African, European, or Middle Eastern – the results can indicate propensity for issues carried by others in that gene group.
Story
At the very least, knowing your ancestry is a tool to help you construct your ‘story’ – the story of you and of how you came to be. It’s a more advanced version – a 3D illustration – of you. Knowing a little about the people that came before you gives depth to who you are.
Can you imagine all those souls that were in front of you? Do you know their story? Their contribution to your being? It’s possible that you’ll be forever changed if you only take the time to …
Know your ancestry.
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This Is Leslyn 
Boy, do I. Have you ever heard the old saw that there are only a handful of families that actually run the US, that everyone else is a figure head? Well I suppose I went a little bit overboard but my Maternal side includes 12 Presidents of the US, 7 Vice Presidents, 1 President Pro Tem of the Senate, 3 Secretaries of the Navy, 6 Secretaries of State, 2 Attorney Generals, 2 Secretaries of the Interior, 1 Postmaster General, 4 Secretaries of War, 1 Secretary of the Treasury, 2 Secretaries of Commerce, 2 UN Delegates, 1 Secretary of Agriculture, 1 Secretary of HUD, 2 CIA Directors, 2 Supreme Court Justices, 1 General in Chief of the Army, 21 Senators, 54 Congressmen, 17 Governors and 2 Chairmen of the National Republican Party. Those 144 positions were held by 82 different people. Just saying.
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