From ''Genealogical Confusion in Book of Abraham''

[_MeDotOrg]

If you have a 2,000 year old Jewish Grandmother, make sure to get your bubby a nice coat for Chanukka!

[_Quasimodo]

...
An estimated one-third of males worldwide are circumcised. The procedure is most common in the Muslim world and Israel (where it is near-universal for religious reasons), the United States, and parts of Southeast Asia and Africa. It is relatively rare in Europe, Latin America, parts of Southern Africa, and most of Asia. Please focus on israel, united states and europe !

Many years ago I was photographing something in the newborn nursery in the hospital where I worked (I don't remember what). While I was there, a Pediatrician friend was circumcising a baby who was screaming at the top of his lungs (yes, it hurts). I had been reading studies that there was no valid reason for circumcision, so I asked her why she was doing it. She smilingly replied "Hey, I have three kids to put through college."

It's common in the US, but for no justifiable reason.

[_Choyo Chagas]

It's common in the US, but for no justifiable reason.

same way as they vote for presidents...

yes, it hurts

[Guest]

If you have a 2,000 year old Jewish Grandmother, make sure to get your bubby a nice coat for Chanukka!

It is pretty cool to have come through a direct matrilineal descent of Jewish mothers from the Ashkenazi woman who is the predecessor of 20% of all Ashkenazi Jewry in the world (up to the Holocaust.)

The farthest back my Israeli cousin who was an avid genealogist before his death in March on our Jewish ancestry has been 1400's Old Germany/Prussia/Alsace-Lorraine.

No one knows her name. Only her DNA that has survived through two millenia.

[_AmyJo]

I'm not strictly observant Jewish.
:)

would you say a few words about circumcision - in your family?
as far as I know, it is a speshul jewish thing...

Are you kidding me?

no, i am deadly serious - and curious

There are no Jewish males in my immediate family. Only Mormon. Other than my siblings who are fully Jewish as I am through our matriarchal lineage. All the Mormon males in my family were circumcised as a CUSTOM of where we live and were raised.

Mormons recognize the Jewish circumcision as a religious rite. It isn't one for Mormon, but is the standard nonetheless without a religious ritual attached to it.

Both my OB GYN and pediatrician were LDS, who happened to be cousins. The baby doctor told me when my son was born it is more hygienic than not circumcising, and causes less problems for the prostate later in life.

It was also the custom for the area/region we lived in at the time. Religion played a very minor role in LDS men circumcision unlike the Jewish religion.

If you were LDS you would know this.

[_Choyo Chagas]

If you were LDS ...

fortunately, i am not
With a Little Help from My Friends

read viewtopic.php?f=1&t=38327 .
then, please read joseph heller's "God Knows"

At some points, David betrays knowledge of the future (he mentions Michelangelo's David, saying it is ironic that a King of the Jews should stand there uncircumcised)

the "king david report" by stefan heym is worth to read, too
for Bible blabbers..

[_AmyJo]

If you have a 2,000 year old Jewish Grandmother, make sure to get your bubby a nice coat for Chanukka!

I just learned this past week from studying my DNA from 23 and me and then matching it up with family genealogical records I'm also a descendant of Pocahontas.

Reason I didn't catch that in my earlier research was because her name on our genealogy tree isn't "Pocahontas" but Rebecca Rolfe, married to Captain John Rolfe. They had one child, Thomas, before she died at the age of 21. Thomas had one daughter, Jane Rolfe Bollen, who had three children of her own.

From their descendants it's estimated Pocahontas has between tens of thousands up to 250,000 descendants born since she lived.

What are the odds of that? It may be from both sides of my family too, because my maternal uncle has the same DNA pattern I do for Native American Indian. And it's known on my dad's side that we're descended from Pocahontas through another cousin's genealogy input who's now deceased. There's often overlap in family trees - so if you're related to one ancient historical figure - there may be several connections linking you to that person. The generation closest to you is the one you ascribe to being related by however many generations apart.

Take for example a pair of great great grandparents going back generations. My parents are distant cousins through this same set of parents, who had twelve children. They were of the Plantagenet family of Wars of the Roses fame.

Two of their daughters are my gggrandmothers. One by 18 generations. The other by 13 generations. So I'm linked to their parents by 14 generations. George Washington was a descendant of the same family through one of the sisters brothers, by 10 or 11 generations. He could as easily have overlapping connections as well. Most all of the US presidents are blood cousins by degrees, through their English genealogy to George Washington. (Trump isn't one of them! Ha! Although he and Hillary Clinton are supposedly related.)

As for some of Pocahontas descendants, Nancy Reagan is one first lady who was. Another first lady who was a descendant of hers, was Edith Bolling Wilson. Edith played into her role as a ninth generation great granddaughter of Pocahontas while being a racist in her private memoirs.

[_The CCC]

I never had much control over who my ancestors were. Stay in England and starve, or stay in Ireland and be hung.

[_Dr. Shades]

Two of their daughters are my gggrandmothers. One by 18 generations. The other by 13 generations. So I'm linked to their parents by 14 generations.

If their daughters are your great-great-great grandmothers, then you're linked to their parents by a maximum of 7 generations, not 18 or 13.

[_AmyJo]

Two of their daughters are my gggrandmothers. One by 18 generations. The other by 13 generations. So I'm linked to their parents by 14 generations.

If their daughters are your great-great-great grandmothers, then you're linked to their parents by a maximum of 7 generations, not 18 or 13.

What I did Shades was put 2 G's in place of 18 and 13. I should have just said they were my great grandmothers x13 and x18 generations.

The generation that's closest to me is the one that counts, rather than the one further removed when doing genealogy.

So their parents are my 14th generation great grandparents, instead of 19th.

That was a long time ago those oldest great grandparents lived. Joan Beaufort lived from 1379-1440. Her husband, my great grandfather Ralph de Neville lived from 1365 to 1425. He was her 2nd husband. Her first husband died in battle in the Wars of the Roses at the age of 26 or thereabouts. She had two children with him, then 14 more with Ralph. (Five daughters and nine sons.)