Think You Are (dot com)

Brooke Shields, the famous actress and model, grew up in front of the American public. Cast as the Ivory Soap baby at the age of 11 months, Shields is more than just a pretty face. She is a French literature graduate from Princeton University, and she became fascinated with genealogy after the 9/11 attacks and she witnessed many friends in New York lose family members.

Shields is the product of an early broken home. Like the script from a Hollywood movie, her father was the product of culture and upper crust tradition; her mother came from the other side of the tracks, in Newark, New Jersey.

Brooke’s mother Teri had a poor relationship with her own mother Theresa, whom Brooke considered “bitter, sad and afraid”. The actress sought information about Theresa’s past to learn if there was a reason for the unhappiness.

Because Brooke disliked her grandmother, she knew very little about the family. She was aware Theresa’s maiden name was Dollinger and she had a younger sister named Lillian.

Shields located Theresa’s birth certificate at the New Jersey State Archives and learned something new. There were four children in the family, not two. Brooke wondered what became of the two boys, John and Edward, who were included in the family records.

John, she learned, died one week after birth and Edward drowned by accident at the age of 17. Worse still, the children’s mother died young, in 1919, leaving 10 year old Theresa in the role of mother to the children.

Brooke finally knew the reason why her grandmother was so bitter toward her daughter Teri. She may have resented that Teri did not suffer as a child in the way she did. It did not excuse the cruel behavior, but Brooke at least felt she now knew the origin of it.

This is a perfect case where the Family Finder DNA Test comes into action to prove ancestry.

Click this link to go to: Who Do You think You Are Susan Sarandon.

We know her as Phoebe Buffay of the TV sitcom Friends, but in reality, Lisa Kudrow is the product of Jewish immigrant ancestors.

Lisa’s smile and wit belay a tragic family past.  Her maternal grandmother Gertrude emigrated to the U.S. in 1921 and married a man named David Kudrow.  They had three children including Lisa’s father Lee.

As was common in the early part of the 20th century, death arrived early for the Kudrow’s.  The first child was stillborn, another child was hit by a truck and yet another child died of unknown cause at the age of 18.  Only Lee and his mom were left to move on in Brooklyn.

Lee made the most of his abilities, earning a medical degree and working for decades as a family doctor.  He was also a genealogy hobbyist, plagued by some nagging mysteries.

In 1940, Lee met a mysterious figure in the family, cousin Yuri who broke the news that his and Lee’s grandmother Meri, had been killed in t he holocaust.  Lisa set out to learn more.

Armed with a fragile old photograph of her great-grandmother Meri, Lisa travelled  to Minsk, Belarus the last known home of Meri. She met with genealogist Tamara Vershitskaya who provided the startling detail that the population of Minsk prior to World War II was 50 percent Jews.  By the end of the war and the “extermination”, the percentage of Jews in Minsk had dwindled to 5.

Lisa was composed but heartbroken to learn her great grandmother was rounded up with other Jews in Minsk in March, 1942 and forced into a warehouse, naked and trembling, where they were all shot execution style.

It is only because Meri’s daughter Gertrude left for the United States before the war that Lisa was even born at all, a common conclusion among family members who receive sad news about their ancestors on their search for the family tree.

Do tune in and watch the complete episode of Lisa’s story on
“Who do You Think You Are?”

Please check out www.GenealogyDNA.com to take the simple pain free DNA test to find your ancestral information.

Because the warmer seasons are lasting longer, many places in the Northern Hemisphere are having problems with fleas. It used to be that many cities and states were too cold for fleas or, a least, they disapperad in the wintertime. But due to Global Warming, flea season is now year round in many new places.

Are you and your pets being made miseable by fleas? Here is some basic information about fleas to get you up to speed on this problem.

Identification and Important Facts about Fleas - Fleas not only cause an itchy problem for you and your pets; they also can pose a number of health problems if a flea infestation is not kept under control. You know if your pet has fleas by the incessant scratching and biting on their coats and skin. If they scratch and bite enough, the skin will break open, inviting infection. The same principle follows when you are bitten by fleas too. Do you know how to recognize flea bites and the pesky critters themselves?

Description of the Flea – Fleas are very small, usually no bigger than 1/16 of an inch. They are dark in color, usually a reddish-brown, with a flat body. Fleas have no wings but the body is covered with tiny spines and they have long legs perfect for jumping. There are four stages of the flea’s life cycle: the egg, larva, pupa and the adult, capable of biting. One single flea is capable of laying several thousand eggs in its lifetime – the reason why flea infestations can occur so quickly!

A Few Facts about Fleas – Fleas love warmer weather as it is easier for them to survive and reproduce. In fact, in southern regions and newer place, fleas procreate year-round. Over 90% of fleas experience their life stages in the environment of a pet or other animal, rather than the pet itself. For the most part, animals are affected by only the adult fleas that have the mouth for biting and the legs for jumping.

When fleas are a problem in a particular pet, not just the pet should be treated. Obviously the eggs, larvae and pupa of the flea have been laid around the environment such as the immediate yard, rugs inside the home, animal beds, furniture and even curtains, bed linens and anywhere else the animal has roamed. Killing just the adult fleas is not enough. Treating the entire pet environment is necessary to kill the fleas in the other three stages of development.

Flea allergy dermatitis, tapeworm and anemia may result in pets affected by fleas. All three can severely compromise the health of your pet if left untreated. Fleas are easy to treat but with more aggressive cases, you may have to do it several times. There are plenty of effective topical treatments for the pets themselves but you may also have to treat the yard as well as the home with a fogger that will kill the eggs, larvae and pupa that will eventually hatch into adult biting fleas.

Once you can get a flea infestation under control, the preventative maintenance is a breeze. While you or your pets can definitely get fleas from other sources, you cannot control those areas. You can only control your own (and your pet’s) environment.

TN460