Ancestry DNA

We recently took advantage of an Ancestry site DNA sale.  We have eagerly awaited our results.  Last Saturday late morning/early afternoon John received his results.  Having sent our samples off at the same time, I thought mine would be along shortly.  I stayed up until 10 that night waiting to see if mine would come.  Finally I decided I needed to give up waiting and go to bed.  I did not want to fall asleep in church the next day.  I woke up Sunday morning and checked my email before getting ready.  My results were available and I also had a message from someone who our DNA showed we were 3rd cousins on our paternal side.

I quickly looked at the results and replied to this cousin who lives in England.  We continue to correspond although we do not yet know how we are cousins - we have not found the common surname.  I looked forward to diving into my results after church.

We got home from church, ate lunch and before settling down for a Sunday afternoon nap, I reviewed my results.  What did I want to look at first?  Did I want to see where my family had come from?  Did I want to see potential relatives?  Did I want to see which traits I had inherited from which parent?

I first looked at my family’s history.  Having heard from where family had come to the United States, that was really not a surprise.  The exciting thing was seeing which countries made up my DNA and from which parent those had come.

Then there were the potential relatives - 50,000 on both sides.  20,000+ on each side.  An aunt was listed.  Then a first cousin from each side.  The potential relatives are listed on a card.  Name is on the first line, relation on second line (the aunt was listed as close family), whether Parent 1 or Parent 2’s side, if that person has a tree in the ancestry site, how many people are on the tree and who manages the tree.  

Next I looked at the traits.  This was interesting.  From what I understand Ancestry has given out surveys regarding the traits.  Somehow they put the traits with the DNA.  Most were spot on.  This was the most freeing part of the test for me.  I was not wrong.  I did belong.  Growing up (and still to this day) I have felt like I did not belong.  And being a people pleaser that is hard.  As I was talking to my sister I was in tears as I said, “you don’t know how freeing this is for me.  We do belong.  We are not wrong.”  We both commented we have felt like square pegs being pounded into round holes.  

This was a great experience.  We took advantage of a Father’s Day sale so got the test for a discounted price.  If you would like to do this I would suggest looking at the Ancestry site and waiting for a sale.  You may be able to purchase them from amazon and other shopping sites as well.  There is a 6-8 week waiting period from the time you send off your sample until you get the results, but it’s well worth it.  I think you will enjoy seeing where you are from and how many cousins you may have.

Paper Shredder

This October 19 will be the start to my 10th year at the location I work.  Well I actually started working there the end of July but that was with a temporary agency.  When the contract period was finished, I was hired full time.  

Fast forward 3 years and my office mate had a difficult year.  She was sick at the beginning of the year.  Her mother passed away shortly after she came back to work.  Then she had appendicitis.  She was out for several weeks after her surgery.  After all that was finished, it was decided she would just stay home and not work with us anymore.  I missed her terribly but had learned to do both our jobs while she was out.

Before I came to work there, she had researched and purchased a paper shredder.  Actually the company had purchased the paper shredder.  The paper shredder did not see daily use.  Some days of use were very little.  Others were quite a bit.  Last year we started storing our documents online so I no longer needed to store those documents in folders in the file cabinet to be put in banker boxes at the end of the year and moved to storage.  I started shredding every day.

This year I noticed that shredder was sounding horrible.  I prayed the sound would stop and I would not have to purchase a shredder but the day came that I had to purchase one.  We purchase our office supplies from Quill.  I went home and for a few nights researched paper shredders and looked to see if they were available from the Quill website.  I had John look at ones to see if what I was reading was actually what the product specs were.  With a deep breath and approval from the General Manager I purchased a shredder.  This shredder has an auto feed!  I did not know shredders came with auto feeds.  You can put up to 100 sheets on the auto feed area - it takes 2-3 at a time.  The shredder has a much quieter sound than the other shredder.  The auto-feed does shred a little slower than the previous non auto-feed one but to me the value of the auto-feed outweighs the slow shredding.  I do stay close to the shredder while it is auto-feeding just in case it gets jammed.  It has happened occasionally - usually on a very humid day.

The things that make administrative assistants happy.