A Brief History of Family X The following is a chapter in a series about the evolution of family X. This story begins with a young lad from a poor English background, around 15 years old. He was the son of an unwed mother in a poor agricultural area in Suffolk County at the bottom…
Category: Genealogy
The Sins of His Father
To prove Christians, particularly Catholics, are creatures of the New Testament, the new Pope has proven to be exempt from some of the important constraints of the Old Testament. Numbers 14:18 says: “The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of…
The Adam and Eve of New Amsterdam
When my genealogical research began, my first inclination was to focus on my Y chromosome and surname. While researching the arrival of my 7th great-grandfather from the Spanish Netherlands, I noticed his wife’s maiden name was Rapalje. I found the name interesting but was more interested in my direct male ancestor. Years later, I returned…
Showalter Rebel from Pennsylvania
I was surprised to discover a Northern Rebel from my mother’s family. Almost all of my mother’s family either refused to fight in the Civil War or fought on the Union side. However, one Confederate soldier departed from the Showalter fold. Despite arriving in America as Mennonites in 1750, one of the descendants of the…
Those Lucky Sharks
This article is about the relationships between children and their parents. Human parents typically spend years raising their offspring, unlike shark parents, who do not care for their young after birth. Sharks have different procreation and parenting practices. Male sharks impregnate females quite aggressively, and the females have the scars to prove it as the…




