The Story of Me is the Story of Us
Welcome to The World According to Greg! This is my life and my story. I am in my sixties, retired, a husband, father and grandfather. We have a blended family of five kids and six grandchildren, all eleven of which are, like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon residents, far above-average. We have a dog and two cats. I don’t like cats, but I do love my wife, and she likes cats, so we have cats. I have degrees in economics, law, and theology. Over the course of the last forty-plus years I practiced law, pastored a couple churches, worked for environmental NGOs, been a political consultant, was a college and high…
HISTORY AND TODAY
No Longer a Laughing Matter [Updated January 2021]…
On election night 2016, as it became clear that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States I tried to comfort a couple of my adult children, Yes, it wouldn’t be easy by any means, but as a country we had survived a Civil War, two world and countless other wars, September 11, — we had even survived George W. Bush — and, yes, we would survive Donald J. Trump. As time wore on and we…
Continue Reading No Longer a Laughing Matter [Updated January 2021]…
William and Frances
It has been awhile since I posted. It’s been that kind of summer. I’m trying to get back to stories about my family’s history, something that relates our current lives with our past in ways that illuminate our paths. I came across this and I just can’t seem to shake it. William Bousman was my great-great-great grandfather. Born in 1837 in Clark County, Illinois, William was one of seven boys and six girls born to William Delos Bousman…
THE BASICS
Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool, But She May Have Raised a Wilson
One of the things I tell clients and those interested in family history and genealogy is to be prepared for what you might find. Case in point: me. A few months ago I decided to submit to y-DNA testing. This type of DNA test looks at the portion of one’s DNA that is specific to…
Continue Reading Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool, But She May Have Raised a Wilson
At Home in the Universe
“What stories we tell ourselves,” writes evolutionary biologist Stuart Kauffman, “of origins and endings, of form and transformation, of gods, the word, and law. All people, at all times, must have created myths and stories to sketch a picture of our place under the sun.” Cro-Magnon man must have spun answers to these questions: Who…
Just Who Was James Dudymott?
Most of my family tree branches go back several hundred years. The oldest person recorded so far is my 17th great-grandfather Roger de Carruthers, 1st Laird of Holmains, born in 1345 in Holmains, Dumfrieshire, Scotland. The Carruthers line extends all the way down to my great-grandmother Mary Alma Carothers and then joins up with the Penroses.…