Dan, they (there were two) are rather scruffy looking things and not all that impressive so I don't doubt they could be overlooked :-) Still, a pity as they are not at all common. I'd guess that tree (and plants in general) thefts are not all that uncommon.......seems like it is a cultural phenomenon that certain folks feel an entitlement to whatever they want regardless of ownership and simply take it if they can. I know of several local gardening friends and design clients who have had plants stolen from their gardens. At a former nursery I worked at, we had several large containerized J. maples 'highjacked', despite an 8' tall chainlink fence around the property. And we watched - unable to respond in time - as a pickup stopped at the light at the intersection had the passenger jump out and rip up several large shrubs from the display beds outside the property.

Flaming wok, Well if eating your own doo doo looks appetizing, imagine what a fig looks like? Don't tell them I told you, that's their dirty little secret. Figuratively and literally! Hehe Seriously though, one day I made the mistake of picking a raspberry and feeding it to them. As soon as they figured out they were edible it was all over! Now you have to look high and far from the fence to get berries. Needless to say they then observed me picking and eating figs and next thing you know, it's an all they can eat buffet. I never even fed them a fig. Good thing I love em! Tim

I am in the middle of my husband's family genealogy, have been since December. I have found out alot of information and made contact with a number of descendants of his GGGGrandfathers siblings through Ancestry.com's family trees and research. We are still at a roadblock for finding where his GGGGGrandfather's family came from. I thought I could link them back to the Eastern Shore of MD/VA but recently found a book on those Boston people and there doesn't seem to be a common ancestor. I gave my husband the ancestry.com website as a gift for Christmas with my doing the research as well. Then for his birthday in Jan. I gave him the DNA kit - well its still sitting on his desk! Not that he doesn't want to do it but as someone said - just forgets. We were also contacted by someone who thinks they may be related back to the GGGGrandfather's generation. They want him to do a more detailed DNA test, one which I found online. Just waiting for them to send it to us - again that was several months ago that we were contacted. For those of you who are into genealogy - check Facebook for groups related to the area you are interested in and/or family member groups. I found one for my mother's family, a group for Southern Maryland Families and one for the Eastern Shore of Virginia. All three have been helpful in finding information and I even met up with a gal who I went to church with when I was a teenager when my brother and I made a sibling trip home to Maryland this summer. She gave me a booklet from the bicentennial celebration of the church we attended. It meant so much to me because my GGGGrandfather had donated the land and lumber for the church, which was 100 years old in 1959 and is still an active Catholic parish. We all attended mass there that Sunday and I will treasure the memories forever.

If you are specifically interested in ethnic information, I wouldn't waste money on a DNA test. This is as detailed as it gets at ancestry and FamilyTreeDNA. If you want to know what town in what country you would be better off spending your money on an ancestry subscription to build a tree. I think anyone just starting would have the best luck with ancestry only because it does a lot of work for you. BUT BE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR FAMILY AND NOT SOMEONE WITH THE SAME NAME! After you get a bit of experience you will find lots of stuff on familysearch, Macavo, and all the other free sites. If I were just starting, I would subscribe to ancestry for the U.S. Discovery for 6 months $89 and build a family tree there. It's free to make a tree and free to keep it there. You can still work on it but you won't have access to any ancestry owned documents unless you are paid up. You can add documents you find other places that you've saved to your computer. One word of warning. When you find a document at ancestry or anywhere, save it to your computer with a good name so you can find it again. Then upload it to your tree if you've a mind to. The document you find today might not be there tomorrow. And beware of "family data" and other trees. Make sure it's right before you use it. Join their mailing list so you know when they run specials. No point in paying full price! Then if you are still interested pay for another 6 months or a year until you have a good handle on it. At this point I would probably use the free sites and the information I gleaned from the green leaf hints. Once you have the U.S. conquered, then if you still need help subscribe to ancestry world for 6 months $134. These are sale prices so watch carefully to be sure you get a good deal. If you let your ancestry subscription elapse they will start offering you a resubscribe deal that's pretty good. Usually 6 months to a year for the really good offer. And notice that the offer is for 6 months, not a year! There are several sites where you can build a tree or upload a GEDcom and work on it for free. But start somewhere until you are familiar with researching this type of thing. Then add some of the other sites. One tree, one site to start. You will be confused enough.