Have you had your ancestral DNA tested?

Many years ago, I contacted Halbert's and they researched my family tree, but I'm not sure how they did it ...DNA-wise.

Anyway, they traced my ancestry back as far as 1578 ... to Durham County, Durham, England.  West of there, near Carlisle, is a town that carries my surname.  They included my Coat of Arms, information about it and a book of the family tree and it's members in chronological order.

All quite interesting, I thought and well worth the cost.

No, never have - but I do find it fascinating. 

Yes, I did. There were no surprises. My ancestry is 99.9% European and it showed the countries were I already knew my family was from.

No, but my son requested a kit for Christmas and I ordered it for him. I'm excited to see what comes out of it.

No, but I know that all of my recent heritage is mixed UK. English, Scottish and Irish. 

How reliable is a DNA test going to be, beyond possibly a general estimate of racial (not the same as national) background? To be definite for genealogy at family-tree level it would need specific DNA matches.

I tried tracing our family but abandoned it after finding every lead raised commercial outfits who'd bought the records then charge you a lot of money for you doing the work yourself - and then it's by no means certain you will find much.

It was also clear you need a good deal of starting information, details back to at least both pairs of grand-parents, but our family has never recorded much about itself earlier than my own parents' legal minima ('Hatch, Match & Despatch' Certificates).  Frustrating, because it means being unable to prove or disprove intriguing historical claims our Mam used to make. 

Never mind - besides, unless the right one of my nephews has a son, my cousin and I will be the last of his and my family lines anyway.


ALF was lucky with his ancestors - very few families have or ever had genuine armorial right! Coats-of Arms originated as the badge of a Mediaeval nobility title and each arms' design has definite meanings relevant to its family; but having a town name matching surname does suggest manorial holdings, where the town may have originated as the family's estate-workers' and tenants' village. 

I know much of my family history back to about 1200 a.d. We got Henry the Eighth and old English royalty. 

Yes. It flunked.

I was over 50 when I learned that my mother didn't have a mother. She died in the flu epidemic and her father split up the family, sending each kid to be raised by a different relative. My father didn't have a mother because his father got religion and moved to a farm in Tohellandgone, Utah and his wife left him. So I was raised by two people who had no clear idea how to raise kids.

Stuff like giving a star in the galaxy a name and this crap are on par with making me watch a good magician.

BORING.

DO NOT CARE ONE WHIT.  It pales in comparison of what is really profoundly magic.  

This happens to all of us Sai Baba people.  Not only in Channai.   Do you know what atheists would reply?  You guys say something, like who cares?  If this doesn't move you, small wonder that you go looking hither and yon for something your mind tells you might be exciting, like researching who your ancestors were.

I'd rather research why we all are HERE.  Thus, the vibhutti experiences.  I asked God to show me and He answered.

He told me.  Ahead of time, to make a call and find ouit where He was.  So I did. 


That story is very long and I'll leave it out.  The main story is good enough.

It's a miracle with that confirmation all you skeptics seem to cling to no matter that it defies your slavish attachment to logic.


So, I get a message from God in my head to find the Sai Baba Center in Phoenix and go there.   I called the Center and met Carmal Nicks.  She ran the Center out of her house.  We are not ever supposed to go in anything but a place that costs no money to anyone who comes, so we have it in people's homes.  It is a very nice house, but a house that costs nothing to enter.

So, I go there.  Carmal answers the door.  "Oh, Honey," she says, "it's so wonderful that this is your first time here.  Swami visited last night.  He has never done that at this Center."  (I do not have one clue as to what she is talking about by the way, no clue) 


It seems "Swami" is what everyone calls Satya Sai Baba.  This Swami is Sai Baba. Okay.  What does she mean, he was here last night?  He never leaves India.  Everyone knows he is thousands of miles from here.  In Arizona.  So, what does this MEAN?

She takes me into the room where everyone comes on Thursday nights for a circle discussion and songs of prayer.  There is an altar.  There is energy in this room, the likes of which I can still feel.... very intense and blissful and peaceful.

That kind of energy.

So, I look and see Satya Sai Baba's picture.  I was told to come here by Sai Baba.  I was told it had to be this Thursday. VERY IMPORTANT. 

Now the atheist would doubt this story because if I saw the vibhuti manifest in front of my eyes?  Then the atheist would doubt my story.  Because the atheist was not there and couldn't prove my veracity.

But I was told ahead of time to come. 

And you know me well enough to know that I don't lie about stuff and I am not nuts.  This happened and this is not something to shrug off.

This was profound. 

The vibhutti was so heavy and jutted out from the picture.  It was impossible.  There was no way anyone could have manufactured this,  and that was the start of the magic of my life.

My life is magic.  I would pay any price to know what I found. 

May you see your own truth.

You are.



















This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at December 29, 2017 11:10 AM MST

My aunt researched the family and determined that we are descended from Old King Cole, the guy in the nursery rhyme. He was a musician, and was immortalized because he saved a lot of his people by entertaining the invading Roman soldiers instead of trying to fight them. But she also pointed out that being descended from royalty is not a big deal. Members of royal families have always been so randy that anybody with white skin can probably trace their line to one or all of them.

not yet