Billions of years ago, as primitive lifeforms were becoming more complex, a selfish genetic component became a sort of genome colonizer. Using a copy-and-paste mechanism, this pernicious bit of code replicated and inserted itself again and again into a variety of genomes. Over time, all eukaryotic organisms inherited the code—including us. In fact, this ancient …
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Revealing How an Ancient Genetic Invader Inhabits Our DNA
Billions of years ago, as primitive lifeforms were becoming more complex, a selfish genetic component became a sort of genome colonizer. Using a copy-and-paste mechanism, this pernicious bit of code replicated and inserted itself again and again into a variety of genomes. Over time, all eukaryotic organisms inherited the code—including us. In fact, this ancient …
Why Your Family Name Was Not Changed at Ellis Island
The New York Public Library is the latest organization to publish an article about the myth of “the family name was changed at Ellis Island” and then describes exactly one exception. Almost every genealogy writer in the US, including myself, has written about the myth before. It is nice to see someone with the authority …