“Shirley, Shirley, Bo-Birley, Banana, Fanna, Fo, Firley… Shirley.” If you remember the original song lyric, you are officially an antique. And you now have an ear worm. You’re welcome.

Shirley Ellis and Laura Branigan not withstanding, very few of us enjoy playing the name game that comes with researching multiple generations of ancestors with the same given names as their predecessors.

Which William, which Silas, which Mary? Argh! Can’t you people come up with an original name?

I’ll be the first to admit that I have the social skills of a mole. Once I start digging, I’m blind, deaf, and (some would say) dumb. So you won’t find me hanging out on Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace for any great length of time. My Friends List is more like a footnote.

How-EV-er, I’ll also admit that when LNU (Last Name Unknown) becomes my most immediate obsession, I will go to any lengths to reach that OMG (Oh. My. God.) conclusion. So I’m willing to give social networking, aka Genealogy 2.0, a try…

DNA testing, if you believe the hype, is one of the hottest things going in family history/genealogy today. I’ve been approached more than once about contributing a sample to one database or another. So I finally decided to look into it. Guess what I found.

First off, you all know that the DNA “science” we see on the sixteen versions of CSI/Law and Order is mostly crap, right? You won’t get your results in half an hour, they won’t tell you whodunnit, and the chances of finding a long-lost relative are practically nil….

Independence Day is nearly upon us (or is wa-a-a-y off in the future, depending on when you read this). And what kind of Leonard would I be if I didn’t take note of our illustrious Revolutionary War ancestors?

As we celebrate the outcome of the Revolutionary War, let’s just ignore the fact that the Star Spangled Banner was written during the War of 1812, shall we? It’s our patriotic duty to go along with the star-spangled theme…

Lookin’ for sumpin’ to do in SW Pennsylvania next month? Cousin Polly informs me that the Whiskey Rebellion Dinner is coming up July 17th.

Sponsored by The Bradford House and none other than Jim Beam himself, the event will honor an early staple of the Western Pennsylvania economy… Whiskey. (Okay, okay, so Jim Beam has been dead a while, but a direct descendant, Frederic Booker Noe III, will be there in his stead.)