My husband has done some DNA testing, Autosomal, which is where you match cousins and that is probably what he is asking you to do. The other hubs did was Y testing, trying to find males with the same surname. One thing you can do to have a little more control over the results is to 1) make sure you have the kit number and that you set up the password. I had ordered kits for two people and paid for them myself. This was so I could see the results but I also included their email addresses so they would get results and match notifications as well. Once I determined if hubs was related to them (one yes, one no), then I had them change the passwords so that I can no longer get into their kit information. Our situation is a little different than yours but again in our case, like yours, these were total strangers who agreed to help us out. ] Be aware that there are sites that the DNA information can be downloaded to sites like gedcom where people that have different companies that test can compare results. This person may then have your information out there for anyone to compare your DNA to theirs. Names are not listed, just your kit number and he would probably put his email address as the contact person. There is an option of not putting email address at all but then that limits possible matches from contacting him/you. These are questions you should discuss before you do the test. Know if he is having the results sent to him only, you only, or both. If you have them sent only to you, then you can request him sending his to you and you could be the one who sees if there is a match. The person who hubs did not match still appreciated receiving the information and we still keep in touch. The one who did match has helped confirmed our lines matching back to the GGGF in the late 1700's. The autosomal testing is not as definite. We get matches all the time but the probability is small. It has helped to find some relatives that we weren't sure of. Do you know the name of the company and type of test?

I have a World Deluxe membership to Ancestry.com. I can access anything and everything they have. Additionally, I am a contributor to the site (keying in records that will eventually be online), and I'm also an arbitrator for the Ancestry.com web site. Before new records are released online, they are keyed in by two different people. The two sets of keyed records are then given to an arbitrator, who can see the original digital imgage, and who then compares the data. If the two folks who keyed the stuff enter different information, it's the arbitrator who decides which is correct (or can enter completely new info if both keyers got it wrong). Also, once information is available online, if a member sees something that's wrong (or might be) they can suggest a correction. For example, let's say you're looking at a Census image that lists your ancestors. The enumerators (the folks who went door to door collecting the information) were notorious for misspelling names -- they weren't necessarily familiar with a lot of the foreign names and/or didn't understand the foreign accents, etc. Let's say you have an acestor named Celia, but on the Census page it's written (and transcribed) as Sialia. So, you click on the link to make a correction. Or, you see the name Amelia but it's been transcribed as Amella. When you look at the digital image you can tell that the dot over the "i" is sort of connected to the bottom part of the "i" so it's a simple transcription error. You click on the link to make a correction. The information that you enter is reviewed by an arbitrator, who decides whether or not the info you enter will be viewable by everyone who has access to the records.

Good grief! DC, I'm amazed! Writersblock, you're right about the young men and their otherwise designated compadres. I know some. They don't actually chew their food, or taste much, so they look for flavors that assault their tongues as they blow past. LPink, I think it depends on the potato chip as to the whole gateway thing. The original Laura Scudders (not the current people who bought the name), the first packaged potato chips which were a local legend here, were real potato chips, not industrial stew, and the barbecue flavor was just some of the same things you'd put in your dry rub sprinkled lightly on the chip instead of plain salt. Those were yummy!! Nothing like the candy coated orange chips of today. Also, much spicier. Even given the weird attraction for gamers and stoners, I don't get seaweed and salt potato chips. Why not just eat seaweed chips at that point? Seaweed chips are great! I'm okay with real flavors, like barbecue spices. Or wasabi. Or even seaweed if it's sprinkled with dried seaweed rather dipped in artificial seaweed perfume. If they need to sugar coat the chips to make the flavors stick, however, what's the point? The weird flavors are surely created with industrial chemicals. Like "truffle" oil. Even things made with essential oils, like a lot of mint flavored sweets, taste chemical to me. Much different if they're made with actual mint leaves. I'm fine with vanilla extract, and even a little almond extract if it's not too heavy handed, though at that point I'm more likely to use Amaretto liqueur if I'm making it, but if the flavor is more industrialized than a little soak of alcohol, it just tastes tinny to me.

Edna Gladney was just one of many entrepreneurs operating throughout the US, beginning in the early part of the twentieth century. The Cradle was a similar operation near Chicago. They were 'alternatives' to state and religious charities, an option for people who often failed to meet social workers' qualifications -- too old, unstable, dubious histories, etc. An adequate financial situation was qualification enough at these alternative operations. They even created an aura of being superior. *Their* babies were 'special'. (They did attract people who would pay more.) Gladney and Cradle still exist, but they had to change after the advent of birth control -- and subsequent difficulty in finding the desired product: Healthy white babies. A greater social acceptance of white pregnancy outside of marriage also limited supply. (Am I shocking you? You didn't know about the business side of adoption, with Demand, Supply, and Profit?) There are no Payments. Goodness, that would be *illegal* -- even given the remote chance it became known under the sealed records system. Instead, there were and are upfront and lifelong contributions to these 'charities'. Supporters also housed pregnant girls -- cutting down on Overhead. Pregnant girls worked as nannies and maids. (In the late 1960's a friend of mine was on her hands and knees scrubbing her benefactor's kitchen floor when she went into labor.) There were simpler, cruder operations in less affluent areas: "Baby Farms", where pregnant women were 'sheltered'. When they gave birth they were presented with bills for room, board, delivery, and nursery care. If a woman had had financial support, she wouldn't have been there in the first place, so... she signed the surrender and the baby was actually *sold* -- no pretense of 'a charity'. Should the infant be un-marketable (not white, infirm, whatever) , it was sent to the state home. Local judges facilitated these adoptions. (The legal system has long opposed unsealing adoption records.) I don't know if it still exists, but Easter House in Chicago was still using this bait and take as recently as 1990. They found frightened pregnant girls through ads in newspapers and at schools. Respondents were brought to Chicago and isolated in small apartments, escorted to clinics, their hospital bills paid. Once a healthy infant was born and the agency had the surrender, the girl got a bus ticket home. Today families are more likely to view the unplanned child for who it IS, a member of the family. "Shame" no longer has the same unworthy power to break a family apart. And...childless people can now have a child made-to-order in a petri dish -- as though sperm and ova were merely 'donor products', not resulting in their sons and daughters.