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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I did 23AndMe, got a list of genetic matches, found several with the same obscure name which doesn’t match any names in my extensive genealogy. I managed to contact one of the family members who also had access to an extensive and accurate genealogy. We compared notes and found no common names. But we kept working at it, and now we have found that the two families’ trajectories crossed briefly in a small community of about 400 souls way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in the 1860s, a place that is still little more than a gas stop on the freeway, on the way to somewhere else. I am coming up genetically related to them for completely unexplained reasons, but we noticed that in 1866, my great great grandfather for whom I named my own son, was aged 23 years and was looking for a place to live after his North Carolina farm was wrecked by General Sherman’s boys. The inexplicably-related cousins are apparently descended from a local girl who was 17 in that year.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I haven’t proven it yet so it is merely a suspicion based on it being a convenient explanation for a collection of baffling observations. There is much detective work to do. But what a sitch: these two sleepwalkers get caught nearly a century and a half later.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The human genome project was supposed to help us solve humanities most vexing medical problems. Instead it is helping us figure out long after the fact who was jumping whom and when. It’s the scientific version of using all that internet bandwidth to exchange pornography.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike <o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>