How many times have you stumbled across an old box of pictures, letters, or documents only to find them too brittle to handle? If you haven’t yet, believe me, you will and then what do you do?

The basic problem with old documents, especially those stored in low-humidity environments like an attic, is that the paper itself dries out and becomes brittle. Just opening a letter or document can destroy it. Photos, in particular, should never be unfolded or uncurled without some TLC. And by TLC, I mean the use of a humidification chamber.

Just when I thought I’d have nothing notable to report this week, my Ancestry DNA test results came in…

“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….