Genealogy

My mom is a bit of a genealogy nut since she retired fifteen years ago. The latest thing is to prove that we're related to Barack Obama (I presume on his white mother's side, not on his African dad's side). Obama's mother has people with the last name "Overall" in her family, and my dad's birth name is Sidney Overall (he's adopted into a much better name, thank jeebus). So my mom found an alleged common ancestor in John Overall, born 1701 in Virginia. She also found two common ancestors on her mother's side of the family (Williams) born in 1607 and 1647.

My point is, um, my mom has a lot of free time. And vote for my 97th cousin Barack!

She'd better have gotten me an autograph...

Oh, and my sister testified in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in a hearing titled NCLB Reauthorizations: Strategies for Attracting, Supporting, and Retaining High Quality Educators, which is chaired by Senator Kennedy and also has Senators Clinton and Obama (and obviously many others). No word yet on whether any of those people were there or whether she was just talking to a wall, but still... Read her testimony here: http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2007_03_06/Maguire.pdf

Edited to add: Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, the ranking member of the committee, also released a press release that mentions my sister! http://help.senate.gov/Min_press/2007_03_05_a.pdf