FriendBurst Blog

Given the tremendous influx of European immigration to the United States in the latter decades of the 19th Century and early decades of the 20th, like many Americans, I can trace my ancestry back 5 or 6 generations, but there it pretty much stops. From there back, my heritage essentially becomes countries of origin; names of people replaced by nations. I know my ancestors came from Germany, Poland and Ireland and a small handful of other nations, but when I try to use genealogy to answer Stuart’s question of “Who Am I?”, what insight could examining this diffusion of nationalities, each somewhat different from one another, possibly offer me? If I want to understand my own personal culture, my heritage shaped by the cultures and circumstances of my ancestors, if I am 9/16th’s German, 5/16th’s Polish and 1/16th Irish, does that mean my individual heritage is influenced along those same proportions? Am I going to need a calculator to figure out who I am and where I come from? Such is the challenge facing a Diffused American.

It all began several thousands of years ago. A mythical Abraham moved into the land that is now called Israel. He lived in peace with his neighbors. Several generations later a famine struck and his mythical descendents moved to Egypt where they were treated a lot better than most Egyptians. After several generations in Egypt […]

Hey
Check
This
Post
Out.

Pardon me
For the
length
Of
My
Entry
On
the “Explore Blogs” function…
BUT

Since
I figured out
how
to do it.
Might As Well…

Tour d’Joko – RV Edition

Visit the IUCN website here: http://iucn.org/

CORRECTION!!!  I  DON’T KNOW HOW I MISSED THIS!  IT WAS IMJUSTPEACHY WHO WON THE UKRAINE VERSION OF THIS GAME! MY MISTAKE! Congratulations to Weissdorn Imjustpeachy who was the first to reply with a correct answer in last week’s NAME THAT COUNTRY CHALLENGE! The winning response was The Ukraine Now, on to the next challenge! Can […]

Today on Good Morning America, correspondent Lara Spencer did an interview with 8 year old Britney Campbell and her mother, Kerry. Little Britney is an aspiring beauty pageant queen and her mom is doing everything she can to make her a success at it….including injecting Botox in her daughter’s face to remove her “wrinkles” (just […]

I want to thank my friend and adversary Bill Gillen for inspiring this blog. Lately he has shown his more human side and I respect that. We sit back and type on our laptops and PCs and based on our political wing either left or right rant about the evil that the other does. Our […]

Congratulations to DustUp224, for winning the inaugural Name That Country challenge here on FriendBurst. The answer to the first challenge: THE MALDIVES… an island-chain nation just southwest of the tip of India.  Dusty had a bit of an advantage in that he had actually been to The Maldives. Now, here we are on Part TWO! […]

Islamic Gay Mexicans in Solar Powered Wheelchairs… (inspired by LaBrea’s remarkable blog) I had to make the poster version too.