www.itowler.com - Ian's Home on the web

OK, its the end of the First Quarter of the year (how did that happen??).  At the start of the year I set a number of goals, lets see how I am doing on meeting those goals.... Red means still have work to do, Green means I am on track to meeting the goal.

In a previous post I indicated that we would be returning to Childrens Nationwide Hospital so that her wound Vac can be changed.  Keira's initial surgical site appeared to get infected, so on the second surgery, they did not close the wound, rather they placed a wound vac on it.  The wound vac "process" involves placing a sponge in the wound, and an additional sponge on top of the wound.

Some time ago I had my DNA tested for use in my genealogy research, and I have even blogged about it in the past (Here, Here, Here and Here).  I used familytreedna.com for my testing and they offer 4 levels of Y Chromosome testing, 12, 25, 37, and 67 marker testing.  The more markers, the more detailed the "picture" you can get.  At the time in 2008 when I had my testing done, there were not that many Toler / Toller / Towler's that had completed the DNA testing.  Three years later, in March of 2011 there are still not that Toler / Towler / Toller's that have taken the test.  When you first signup with familytreedna.com they ask if you would like to share your results with others, including those you may not know.  If you elect to share, every time that someone takes the test and has results that are a close match to you, you are notified by familytreedna.com.  I have taken the full Y-67 DNA panel test and recently I just got notified about some more matches.  

Its been a long couple of days.  My daughter Keira has been in the Hospital and was very sick.  It all started on the Tuesday the 8th, when day care called and let us know that Keira had been doubling over in pain.  We picked her up from day care and went to see the pediatrician.  There were a few things that were talked about that could be causing the pain, but we decided to wait it out and see how the night went.  The night did not go well, and we ended up in the Emergency department of Nationwide Childrens Hospital.  After a lengthy wait (5 hours) in the wai

Some of you may know that I am an active member of the National Society Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR).  To be a member you must be able to prove direct descent from an individual that either fought for or in some other manner supported the American cause in the Revolutionary War.  I became an approved member on April 12, 2008.  The patriot that I used to join with is Joseph Towler.

One of the shows that I like to watch if I get the chance is the American version of “Who do you think you are”.  It’s a show that traces the family history of the subject of the episode.  The American Version of the show to date has focused on celebrities, and the subject of this week’s episode was the actress Kim Cattrall (Samantha from Sex and the City).

I have been doing genealogy for around 6 years now, and one of the most important tools in my research has been the internet.  One important aspect of the internet is the ability to get to sites like ancestry.com or Footnote.com at any time of the day, as long as I have an internet connection.  Another aspect of the internet as a tool for genealogy is the ability to share and get the word out.

The last two evenings I have been watching Jeopardy in particular to see IBM's new supercomputer dubbed Watson.  The 3 night event pitted 2 of the all time greatest human Jeopardy players against IBM's new supercomputer, Watson.  The 3 night event, that honestly looked kind of like a paid advertising event for IBM, was interesting to watch.  As you might expect Watson beat both human players with ease.  While watching I found it interesting to see which questions Watson answered incorrectly, and which ones he missed altogether.

After reading a blog post on Dick Eastman's website (EOGN), I was interested to see where my database sits in comparison.  The table originally posted on Mr. Eastman's Blog is slightly different than the one have posted below.  Mine is setup to include myself (or yourself) in the calculations.

I will preface this post with the following:

So this is a minor gripe in the big picture, and I am sure that it is all my fault.