Why Twocaledonias?
Howzitgoin, Hen?
I was born in a Scots expat community in northern New Jersey, nicknamed “Little Paisley.” My maternal family, mostly Glaswegians who arrived in the early part of the 20th century, spoke with accents that got thicker with whisky. There were chip shops and Rabbie Burns suppers. My great-grandmother and grandmother would sail home to the ‘old Caledonia’ and bring back dolls in tartans, and lollipops with a sour dipping powder. The extended family would vacation down the shore, in Ocean Grove’s South End. By the looks of it, they must have taken over Mrs. Sturgeon’s inn annually.
In 1945, my paternal grandmother boarded the U.S.S. President Polk, a Naval transport ship, in Noumea, New Caledonia, bound for San Francisco. With my 2 year old dad and his 6 month old sister in tow, they traveled (we’re not sure how) to the Bronx to reunite with my grandfather, a Nuyorican soldier who had served in the Americal Division, headquartered in New Caledonia, for the duration of WWII. After strech in Yonkers, the family relocated to the seaside ‘paradise’ of Ocean Grove in 1953. In the late 1950s, my parents met there, and here I am. I grew up with Tales of the South Pacific, fully believing that the family was French and Polynesian.
What a trip to the truth of two Caledonias it’s been…
About Me
Naturally...
My father’s unknown paternity – and subsequently, that of his biological father’s father – spawned my interest in the possibility of DNA to help answer questions about family history and unknown persons. After Dr. Spencer Wells, then director of National Geographic’s Genographic Project, collected my first cheek swab for a documentary and delivered the results on camera in 2012, I was hooked. I tested on every consumer DNA site known, and set out to verify the paternity of my father and his three sisters.
My own family research led to several other unknown parentage cases, which furthered my interest in genetic genealogy. I began taking on casework – either for my own DNA matches seeking answers, or as an authorized ‘search angel’ through the well-known Facebook group, Search Squad – for those seeking birth parents and coaching searchers through the process of contacting newly found family.
Additional specialties include research in French departmental archives and French overseas territories, as well as Scottish records. My genealocial research interests also include Vietnamese, Indonesian and Oceanic ancestry.
Alas, none of this pays the bloody bills. My paying gigs came after my educational background in anthropological archaeology, with fieldwork in the United States (New Jersey, South Dakota, and Wyoming) and Central America (Belize and Guatemala), including dissertation research at the ancient Maya site of Tikal. After teaching for a bit and deciding it wasn’t for me, I begain working in musuems around the U.S. and in the Middle East, ultimately overseeing collections and curatorial departments and serving as a director. Cataloging things comes naturally and is a bit of an obsession.
