genealogy

2010.10.29 (updated : 2021.06.30)

Thanks to my Oma, who had to prove to the Nazi government that my Opa was not Jewish, I have a substantial block of genealogical data for my Opa's family. Sadly, I don't have such information for my Oma's family. Because I lost it, to my shame: the only thing I've ever really regretted losing. Happily, I have quite a bit of information about my mother's family because her father compiled quite a lot of dates and names over the years. Some day I'll work out how to put this all online in a cogent fashion.

Here are some articles my family has unearthed during our genealogy research. The family names include Werneburg, Johnston, Hunte, Blott, MacKenzie, Mainzer, Fretz....

Neil MacKenzie 1821-1921

2010.10.29
This is a newspaper article about Neil MacKenzie, a hard-working pioneer ancestor. Think you have it tough? Read on....

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton