Marc's Updated Ethnicity Estimate at AncestryDNA

My son's updated ethnicity estimate at AncestryDNA.

My son Marc's updated ethnicity estimate changed a bit.  It seems accurated based on the paper trail.

Updated Estimate

Germanic Europe 31%
Refined from:
Europe West 34%

Norway 27%
Refined from:
Scandinavia 18%

Ireland and Scotland 13%
Increased by 9%

Baltic States 12%
Refined from:
Europe East 25%

England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 11%
Decreased by 3%

Eastern Europe and Russia 6%
Refined from:
Europe East 25%


Migrations
Pennsylvania, Ohio & Indiana Settlers
Western Norway
Hordaland & Rogaland


No Longer in Estimate
Iberian Peninsula 2%
Finland/Northwest Russia 1%
Europe South less than 1%
Asia South less than 1%




© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Steve's Updated Ethnicity Estimate at AncestryDNA

My husband's updated AncestryDNA.

My husband Steve's updated AncestryDNA estimate seems to correspond to his known ancestry (his mom was born in Germany, his father was a half Polish and part Irish/English/German).

Updated Estimate

Eastern Europe and Russia: 34%
Refined from:
Europe East 50%

Germanic Europe: 31%
Refined from:
Europe West 33%

Baltic States: 18%
Refined from:
Europe East 50%

England, Wales & Northwestern Europe: 9%
Increased by 3%

Ireland and Scotland: 2%
Decreased by 1%

Finland: 2%
Decreased by 2%

Norway: 2%
Refined from:
Scandinavia 3%

Sweden: 2%
Refined from:
Scandinavia 3%


Migrations
Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland & Lithuania
Lithuania


No Longer in Estimate
Nigeria (less than 1 percent)



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Christine Won't Be Posting Today (Again)

But she has a very good excuse. Here's a picture I took this afternoon of Christine lying in her hospital bed at the Prebys Cardiovascular Institute.*

[From my personal collection]

She's feeling much better now and is demanding her cell phone and laptop.


*The giant machine blocking her from view is a CRRT hemodialysis unit (which has since been disconnected and taken away).

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

A Visual Comparison of My Son's Ethnicity Estimates to Steve, Me, and My Parents

My son's Grandtree on 23andMe.  I finally have enough people on my direct lines to make interesting comparisons (the problem of the only child (Marc) of an only child (Christine) of an only child (Pat Hartley, sorta).

Marc's father Steve's map.  His paper trail is mostly German/Polish with some British Isles.

My map.  My paper trail is mostly British Isles/Scandinavian/Germanic and some French.

My mom's map.  Her paper trail is mostly British Isles, German/Dutch, and some French.

My dad's map.  His paper trail is Scandinavian, British Isles, and Germanic.  On most DNA ethnicity tests he has trace Native American, but 23andMe points to Subsaharan African, even at 90 percent confidence (I get West African at 90 percent confidence).

Marc's map, a combination of all the people above.  He didn't get any of the fancy stuff, just 100 percent European.  Very interesting.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Christine and Marc - 2007

This snapshot, taken at the San Diego Zoo in 2007, is my favorite picture of my daughter and her son Marc.

[From my personal collection]

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: San Juan Capistrano, California - 2008

This time the rider is my grandson Marc (at Zoomars Petting Zoo).

It was part of a day-long field trip to San Juan Capistrano via Amtrak in February of 2008.

Marc's Halloween-appropriate t-shirt was a souvenir of my trip to Sapelo Island off the Georgia Coast the previous year.

Before we boarded the train for our trip home, there was ice cream.

[All photos from my personal collection]

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: Marc's 7th Birthday at Disneyland

Grandma Ella, Grammy Pat, me, and Steve, in March 2009 at Disneyland.  Marc is doing his best Jack Skeleton smile in the center with Goofy.

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Steve Took Marc to Work Today (Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day 2017)

Steve and Marc on our front porch, just back from Mesa College today.

They got to walk around almost the whole campus (which has changed a lot since I last worked there in 2002), but I forgot to ask Steve to take pictures while there.

Marc's favorite picture of this set.

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Results from AncestryDNA Genetic Communities

I got three Genetic Communities.  I would upgrade these connection ratings from Likely and Possible to Definitely.  That is actually a decent summary of my ethnic background based on what I know and what the paper trail reveals.

So AncestryDNA now has a Genetic Communities feature.  I thought that I would have the same ones as my parents, but as you'll see, with the exception of Norwegians through my father, they have different communities than me.

I think this is an interesting new development for AncestryDNA.

My father's Genetic Community is Norwegians in Hordaland and Rogaland, which is exactly where his maternal grandparents came from. His other ethnic heritages are apparently too diffuse to pinpoint to a specific place, although he has a huge amount of British Isles and German ancestry that I know about.

My mother got two Genetic Communities.  They seem right on point.  I was surprised that her New England heritage didn't come through as strongly, though.  EDITED TO ADD: She actually has another Genetic Community, "Settlers of Central Georgia and Central Alabama" in her shared matches, but it doesn't show up (yet?) in her summary seen above.  That estimated GC is also on point.

Our dear reader Bonnie DID have a Genetic Community in New England.  This is not just possible, it is definite.

My husband Steve's Genetic Community is right on track.

Where my husband's great grandfather Ignatius Manczuk (1877-1933) came from (Trzyrzeczki, Poland).

Ancestry's guess as to Steve's Genetic Community.

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

That Day When Steve Met The Dalai Lama

I think this is probably the back of  Lama Tenzin Dhonden, a Buddhist monk, but not the Dalai Lama! lol.  1999, from my personal collection.

Yesterday my husband came home with some old pictures from 1999 from work.  One image showed him meeting a Tibetan monk, and Steve told our son Marc (with a typical mischievous glint in his eye) that it was a picture of when he had met the Dalai Lama.

Well, no.

Taste of Tibet (WE (San Diego Community College magazine "With Excellence", Winter 2000)

The San Diego Community College District was treated to a rare cultural event recently when three Tibetan monks turned the Mesa College Learning Resource Center into a showcase for their masterful artwork.
Working entirely from memory, monks tap out one grain of colored sand at a time through metal funnels to create the intricate symetrical design of symbols and figures.
Working entirely from memory, monks tap out one grain of colored sand at a time through metal funnels to create the intricate symetrical design of symbols and figures.

Toiling quietly, efficiently throughout the day for two weeks, the religious men created a sand mandala, literally one grain of brilliantly colored sand at a time. Thousands of people from on and off campus came to witness the event.
A sand mandala is a colorful, hand-crafted circular artwork that is said to symbolize man’s relationship with the cosmos. It is also a blueprint for a Tibetan palace.
At the invitation of Mesa, the monks began creating the mandala on Sept. 28, 1999, in the LRC lobby. Dressed in Tibetan garb, they began each day meditating, then, using hand-held tools, built an impressively symmetrical piece of sand art.
Every day spectators of all ages gathered, many returning more than once. Made entirely of brilliantly colored sand from the Himalayan Mountains, the artwork was completed Oct. 9. The monks created the mandala by using narrow metal funnels to drop the grains of sand into place. When complete, it measured 6' x 6'.
The sand art remained on public display until Oct. 15, when the mandala was swept up during closing ceremonies, then taken to the South Mission Beach Jetty and ceremoniously scattered in the ocean. Some 600 persons attended the closing ceremonies.

 An example of the construction and destruction of a sand mandala (not from the Mesa one in 1999).

The LRC gate count for the mandala’s three-week run was 68,264, more than double the normal building traffic.
The monks occasionally travel to the Western Hemisphere to create mandalas, used in Tibetan Buddhist ritual, as a way of promoting peace and familiarizing people with Tibetan culture, which is considered under threat of extinction.
“We are fortunate to have a relationship with the monks, enabling Mesa to provide a rare educational and cultural experience to our students,” said Pat Olafson, Mesa College Humanities Institute director, who coordinated the event.
That relationship began some eight years ago when one of the monks, Tenzin Dhonden, moved to San Diego and met Mesa College English professor Dorothy Berger, an expert in the Far East. He later enrolled in general education courses at Mesa and remained friends with Berger.

To be fair, Steve did film the sand mandala ceremonial disposal at the beach.

This must be the same kind of communication that has gone on forever between parents and their children, who often only half listen.  And why we sometimes think our ancestors did more exciting things or met more exciting people than they really did.








© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: Salt Lake City Trip

Marc, Ella, and myself.  Salt Lake City, abt 2012.

A few years ago we made a trip up to see my mother-in-law Ella.  As residents of sunny San Diego it is a rare treat to see evidence of snow on the sidewalk.





© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Houston, We Have Parking!

Perhaps it's because of all the construction in the neighborhood, but street parking around here has gotten very tight in the past few months especially in the evening. So much so that when I came home around 10:30 from a Los Tres Reyes party in January the nearest spot I could find was seven blocks away. Now my hood is very safe and I'm physically able to walk that distance (and it wasn't raining at the time) but the situation caused me to hesitate making any plans to be out after dark.

My property is terraced down a canyon with a dead-end alley at its lowest level and there's a cement pad down there where a long-gone garage originally stood and when I first moved here 21 years ago I parked down there all the time. But access to the space was bad and when I traded my old car for the MINI I quit using it because the new car scraped its underside pulling into it. And I never tried it with my new (used) car.

My contractor Dave and I have discussed the solution to this problem for years but last week he made it happen!

Of course this isn't the first time I've celebrated an improved driveway. Here I am in 1948 in front of a freshly poured section of the circle drive in Encanto.

[All photos from my personal collection]

Note the little red car on the left.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: Goofing Around in the Polar Bear Exhibit Area

Marc and I at the San Diego Zoo's Polar Bear Exhibit play area.  Probably 2012.

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: Our "Wedding Banquet" in November 2001

Me and Steve sharing a pizza slice.  Courtesy of Mike McLaren.

I'm not the most traditional person and wasn't interested in a typical wedding.  Steve and I just had a civil ceremony performed by a couple of employees at the old Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk office in Kearny Mesa.  Once our coworkers realized we had gotten hitched they threw a pizza party in our honor.





© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Celebrations: Marc's First Christmas - San Diego, 2002

[My grandson Marc with his parents on the stairs to my home, from my personal collection]

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: Position Wanted

"Wanted: Position, by middle-aged widow woman of German descent...," Morning Examiner (Bartlesville, OK), page 7, col 1; digital image, The Gateway to Oklahoma History (http://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc143253/m1/9/zoom/?q=buchholz : accessed 15 December 2016).

The wanted ad in its its context.

The fate of my husband's 2nd great grandmother M Louise "Lizzie" (Malchow) Buchholz (born about March 1862, likely in Brandenberg, Germany) remains a mystery.  The wanted ad is the last record I find for her (I can't find her in the 1910 Federal Census).  She had daughters in Dewey, Washington County, Oklahoma about 1910, and one of her daughters married a man in Polk County, Missouri in 1911 (I'm not sure how they met, Polk County is over 200 miles away).

Modern Bing map showing Dewey, OK and Polk County, MO.  I will start on my journey to pick up Mrs. M. L. Buchholz's trail somewhere along that way along these corridors.

Mrs. M. L. Buchholz was the maternal grandmother of my husband's paternal grandmother Kathleen Murphy.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: With Coworkers

Steve and me (at bottom) with coworkers at a work outing in San Diego, about 2000.  Courtesy of Mike McLaren.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: A Day at Balboa Park

Our niece Rachelle took this circa 2007 picture of Steve, Marc, and me at the Balboa Park fountain.  Note that Marc is clutching a Legos catalog (there was a time when he took that everywhere). 

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: Hike at the Batiquitos Lagoon

Steve took this photo of Marc and me at the Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad, San Diego, about 2010.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Another Generation Added to My Husband's Manczuk Line

My husband's father's Manczuk line.

Thanks to information sent to me by my husband's cousins Sandi McNulty and Daniel Bucko, I've been able to add more details on my husband's great grandfather Ignatius/Ignacy Manczuk's parents (Karol Manzuk and Wiktoria Kondracka) and grandparents (Onufry Manczuk, Marianna Pietuk, Kazimierz Kondracki, and Elizbieta Stefanowska).

All were from Trzyrzeczki ("Three Rivers") and nearby villages in eastern Poland.

Trzyrzeczki, Poland

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.