That's life!

Seriously. You're African American and you don't think you have ancestors that died free? How does that work, exactly? It's called history, and certain bits of it are pretty much inevitable.

Anyway, I found mediarelations@ancestry.com, and I sent off an angry email that could have been better constructed. Which brings my total of "Are you fucking with me?" emails to only three. Fox, about the Melrose Place gay kiss, DC about tarting up Starfire, and this. I spend so much time mad, and that's it? Huh.

I never knew my ancestor, but it turns out she was probably a prostitute and caused my other ancestor to be disowned from his samurai class family. But I'll never know for sure because the records were blown up in Hiroshima. And that was worth knowing.

My pirate ancestor sacked the Irish coastal town of Baltimore and hauled most of the populace off to the slave markets of Morocco. That's worth knowing.

Oh, and my Puritan governor ancestor tried to sell my Quaker ancestors into slavery in Barbados, but the ship captains wouldn't cooperate.

My great-great-something-grandfather was listed in census records as having the occupation "luftmensch." Roughly translated from the Yiddish, that means someone who doesn't seem to do any work at all, but somehow manages to survive anyway, so as far as anyone can tell, he's living on air. And that was worth knowing.

Some of my ancestors were slaves. Some weren't. It's not just worth knowing, IT'S FUCKING HIGHLY LIKELY.

someone who doesn't seem to do any work at all, but somehow manages to survive anyway, so as far as anyone can tell, he's living on air.

I can just hear someone describing him that way.

How does that work?

Sumi, if I go into half-time pay on illness, which I did when I gave birth and I will this year with Grace's surgeries, then I only get a partial year of service instead of a full year of service which means I have to retire later.

I can just hear someone describing him that way.

The word translates literally as "airman." I'm just wondering how it ended up on a census -- like, did he list that as his occupation, or did the census-taker decide that that was the best way to describe him?

Sumi, if I go into half-time pay on illness, which I did when I gave birth and I will this year with Grace's surgeries, then I only get a partial year of service instead of a full year of service which means I have to retire later.

Ohhhh. I thought you meant you'd have to retire a year from now.

In a bit of good news, I made the A team in roller derby and my league got into WFTDA--the Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Association. Well, sort of. We got wait listed until their April rounds because they don't have enough mentor leagues. But still! Our application got accepted!

ita, I agree in the awfulness of that ad.

{{{{Tom}}}}