What did he scrape his nose on?

You are so much braver than I.

One of the weird things I had to think about when I started doing geneology is that my family probably was an oppressor, if not of slaves, than of Native Americans/Indians.

Considering the sheer number of people in each individual's ancestry, and how bloody minded people can be to each other, I don't think anybody can claim full freedom from being descended from some sort of an oppressor. You are not them. I am not my pirate ancestor, who cheerfully slaughtered Spaniards from religious motivation and Irish from financial motivation. Then there's Governor Endicott, who felt great satisfaction at shipping elderly Quakers off onto Long Island Sound in the middle of winter while preparing to sell their daughter off to slavery in the West Indies. They're illustrative examples, not role models. (Though I reserve the right to channel a bit of pirate if needs must.)

We're all related to Charlemagne (statistically). After 1000 years we have a trillion ancestors.

Inside of the carrier, perhaps one of the edges of the ventilation holes. He was really going nuts. He settled in the car fine. Rattling the bars, but that was not so much frantic as idle attempts to get out. He just curled up and would whack at the door.

It's just easier to do one trip rather than 2 or 3. And I get a multiple pet discount (I haven't seen that before, so I guess they kinda like scheduling them all in one go.)

The differences in our genetic material from individual to individual is statistically insignificant. As far as stats are concerned we're all the same person.

Because I'm in a pedantic mood, I will take issue with this. Statistical significance concerns the likelihood of a particular outcome being the result of random chance. It essentially is a comment about the deviation of a particular result, against the dispersion of possible results. However, you're talking about the degree of dispersion within the human population, rather than the deviation of a specific result.

You've actually made two somewhat different statements. The first is that the amount of genetic variation between humans is tiny compared to the total number of genes - which is true - and that the differences are immaterial (we're essentially the same person) - which is not entirely true, as - at the extreme - any number of genetically based diseases makes clear.

billytea, if you are now channeling some Dr Spencer Wells, I am going to have to insist that America needs you back for sheer awesomeness at some point.

I recently discovered I have an ancestor who was born in Montserrat after the death of his father (he's in the will as "the child my wife is big with now"), was apprenticed in London at age 14, and by 20 was being tried for murder at Old Bailey, having ditched his apprenticeship. He got off on the murder charge but was convicted of manslaughter and was presumably branded on the thumb with an M as the standard punishment. He returned to Montserrat on his majority and had one of the top-10 plantations on the island (owning dozens of slaves), then set up the first foundry north of Philadelphia in the area that became Bethlehem. He had two children, though it's not clear if he married either mother, and he seems to have had at least one acknowledged child by a slave (there were slaves in PA at this date, 1730s-1740s, which I hadn't realized).

As an interesting afterlife note, in 1961 he was disinterred as the cemetery he'd been buried in more than 200 years before was being developed, and his body and grave marker were moved a couple hundred miles across PA to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Pittsburgh where his son was buried.

Because I'm in a pedantic mood, I will take issue with this.

I'd expect no less from you! In fact, it was practically a challenge.

You've actually made two somewhat different statements. The first is that the amount of genetic variation between humans is tiny compared to the total number of genes - which is true - and that the differences are immaterial (we're essentially the same person) - which is not entirely true, as - at the extreme - any number of genetically based diseases makes clear.

Yes, well, the joke lies somewhere in the elision between these two. But only a trained actuary could actually parse the mathematical fallacy. Nice buzzkill, math man!

I'm related to a lot of people who worked in coal mines. And a lot of people who worked as fishermen and even more who worked on pineapple plantations.

Not so interesting nor so sexy. In fact, it made me de-register my ancestry.com account.

In gustatory news, I am eating a green chile cheeseburger and it's delicious.

Most of my family on both sides were farmers.

However, googling just my own name turns up a survivor at Andersonville, the notorious Civil War prison. Also a fighter pilot.