More than a scientist — I have been a writer for as long as I can remember. We had creative writing projects in Kindergarten or 1st grade, where we’d color in the car or some other general object and then write three sentences about it using the new words we’d learned for colors and shapes…

The puzzle pieces of her story don’t make the way things were seem like the Good Ol’ Days — I’ve been working on expanding on the Lincoln chapter from My Lineage from the Roots Up, vol. 1. This process has included the children and grandchildren of my Lincoln ancestors’ siblings. …

Overeating and its effects on the human body — At Thanksgiving, and other event or holiday-associated meals, we tend to eat more than usual. Eating a lot in a short period of time is also called binge-eating. When you overindulge in rich foods or higher quantities of food, you give your body more than it is used to handling…

Capturing the rise and fall of ancestors in snapshots — While writing the lineage books on my family, I noticed an interesting trend. It’s actually a pretty old story. Someone who is poor works really, really hard and their grandkids end up with lots of land and money. Or the opposite, someone who is really rich makes some really bad…

Recently recognized genetic abnormalities — First described in 2005, Loeys-Dietz syndrome (LDS) is a genetic syndrome named after Dr. Bart Loeys and Dr. Hal Dietz at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. It was originally thought to be a vascular disorder. Then it was considered to comprise anomalies of both the skeleton and vasculature. …

My ancestors’ roles in trade and colonization — Several of my ancestors were tradesmen and involved in commercial ventures that directly affected the establishment of the American Colonies. But some of their families could trace their merchant roots back hundreds of years. These ancestors are part of My Lineage from the Roots Up, vol. 2 (Aliconia Publishing, 2023). The Livery Companies …

An overview of natural pigment accumulation — Pigments are compounds that reflect specific wavelengths, creating color. Human cells can accumulate pigment granules — membrane-bound vesicles containing pigments or their precursors — as a natural byproduct of metabolism (i.e., waste products) or for specific functions (i.e., UV protection). Three major pigments accumulate in the cytoplasm of human cells…

The bane of genealogy — I’ve been visiting family the last two weeks, which inevitably led to talking about other family members and telling stories. I’ve been able to talk about gaps in the lineages I published, such as one of my uncle’s marriages that was overlooked, and share sources for information that had been…

Aicardi syndrome is a rare genetic disorder in which the brain does not properly form — specifically, the corpus callosum, the connection between the two halves of the brain, is at least partly missing if present at all. …