Don't look now, but Friday of this week is Friday, the 13th of the month. That is an especially bad day for people who suffer from a phobia famously called triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13. Any Friday that falls on the 13th of the month is especially bad, causing the fear of Friday the 13th, called paraskevidekatriaphobia, from the Greek words Paraskeví (meaning “Friday”), and dekatreís (meaning “thirteen”).

In the Christian world the number 13 has long been associated with many bad events. Jesus had 12 disciples, which meant there were a total of 13 people in attendance the evening of the Last Supper, with Judas being received as the 13th guest.

On Friday 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered Knights Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The Knights Templar were charged with numerous other offenses, such as financial corruption, fraud, secrecy, denying Christ, spitting on the crucifix, idol worship, blasphemy, and various obscenities. The soldiers arrested and imprisoned all the Knights Templar they could find. Most of those imprisoned were tortured until they died. Many in France were burned at the stake, including Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Only a few Knights Templar survived, mostly those who were in distant countries at the time, and they went into hiding.

The German Luftwaffe bombed Buckingham Palace on Friday, the 13th of September, 1940.

Hip hop star Tupac Shakur died on Friday, September 13, 1996, of gunshot wounds suffered in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship crashed off the coast of Italy, killing 30 people, on Friday, the 13th of January 2012.

In 1907, Thomas W. Lawson published a novel called Friday, the Thirteenth, with the story of an unscrupulous broker taking advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th. The novel became a best seller of the time.

Then, of course, we have the hockey mask-wearing killer named Jason in the movie Friday the 13th, released in 1980.

How many Friday the 13ths have you survived? A calculator embedded in an article by Philip Bump in The Washington Post gives the answer. You can check it out at: https://wapo.st/2GE9u1Y.

In spite of these misfortunes, there is no truth to the idea that Friday the 13th is unlucky. Still, I am not taking any chances. You won’t see me this Friday as I am taking the day off and staying in bed.

Here is an interesting recent twist to use of public DNA databases by New York law enforcement agencies: such a policy will put some people under greater scrutiny by law enforcement simply because they are related to a person who has been convicted of a crime.

Dave Pollock, a staff attorney for the DNA Unit at the Legal Aid Society of New York, which represented the plaintiffs, said familial searches unfairly target people of color.

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3wl5fPZ.

Over the last few decades an increasing amount of our lives has been moved online. With the advent of social media and cloud storage, things that were once analog or physical have become digital. In most ways, this is terrific: we can share and communicate effortlessly, creation has become simpler and more powerful, and we can represent ourselves with a few mouse clicks or taps of our finger. The days of mailing out paper resumes on fancy paper are long gone, for example—nowadays we spend our time building awesome LinkedIn profiles and portfolio web sites.

But as more and more of our lives winds up online, the question of what will happen to it all when we move on from the earthly realm begins to loom. This goes beyond asking your buddy to delete your porn stash when you die unexpectedly—your digital legacy includes just about every aspect of your life these days, from the photos you have on your phone that you never get around to naming and organizing to the social media followings you worked hard to build (and possibly monetize). Some of us put so much effort into our Facebook pages they remain powerful monuments to our lives, complete with photos, correspondence, and major events, and you might want your kids or grandkids to have access to the record of your life, the same way you have an ancestor’s photo albums or journals. There’s also the question of the stuff you paid for—from music files to digital movies to cryptocurrency. Who controls those when you’re gone?

One thing is for sure: We’re all going to die someday, and that means we’re going to leave behind a mountain of digital files and online accounts. Spending a little bit of time planning what happens to all of that will spare your loved ones (and your lawyers) a lot of trouble

You can read more in an article by Jeff Somers and published in the Lifehacker.com web site at: https://bit.ly/3N2UQze.

Given how it’s often discussed and described, particularly in the more brazen and annoying ads for puzzle-based app games, you’d be forgiven for assuming that intelligence is something well understood and easily measured, like your weight or height.

The truth is far more complicated, confusing, and even controversial. For one, while the dictionary definitions are fairly straightforward, describing intelligence as, for example, ‘the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills’, the scientific consensus on what intelligence actually is, regarding how it should be defined and assessed, is still disputed.

You can read more in an article by Dean Burnett and published in the BBC Science Focus magazine at: https://bit.ly/3Nbh4PH.

The following announcement was written by the Allen County Public Library:

EVENT SCHEDULES

Due to ongoing precautions during the COVID-19 Pandemic, events may be subject to changes, attendance restrictions, or cancellations. Please check with the event host and or venue for any events you are planning to attend. 

A Civil War soldier from Maine finally has a gravestone in his home state more than 150 years after his death.

Thanks to the efforts of two brothers in Buckfield, the Veterans Administration issued a gravestone for their great-great-great grandfather Atwood Young.

Last weekend, Philip and Jamison McAlister held a ceremony at the cemetery plot on their family farm.

“Makes you feel proud. We got something done that should have been done 158 years ago,” Philip McAlister said.

The brothers say it should have been done in 1864, when Young, who lived near Bingham for most of his life, was killed on a beach at the Battle of Fort Wagner in South Carolina.

You can read more in an article and watch a video available on the WMTW web site about this man who had lied about his age to enlist at 50 years old at https://www.wmtw.com/article/civil-war-soldier-gravestone-maine/39948274.

The Brazos Valley African American Museum in Bryan, Texas and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have partnered to establish a family history and genealogical research center inside the museum.

The Pruitt-Sadberry Genealogy Family History Search will be unveiled to the public on May 10, 2022, and will be available for use by appointment only.

Appointments are available in one-hour time slots on most Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and include one-on-one assistance from family history and genealogy-trained volunteers.

In a joint statement, the Brazos Valley African American Museum board said, “We are very excited to offer this free service to the community. This is a resource that can benefit adults of all ages.” No previous experience with family history research is required to use this service, but the more information a patron brings to their first appointment, the more successful their experience will be. The volunteers who will be assisting at the center are trained in genealogical research.

Patrons will be able to schedule an appointment at www.bvaam.org or by visiting the museum beginning May 10.

I often highlight articles in other publications that I believe will be of interest to genealogists. Here is another example of that:

"You may have a flatbed scanner at home or perhaps one of those 'all in one' printer/scanner/copier machines, but did you know your smartphone’s camera can also double as a flatbed scanner?

"It’s not only fast and convenient to scan something when away from your computer, but the quality is surprisingly good, thanks to much better camera sensors and smarter software.

"Your iPhone or Android device is also ideal for digitizing old photos (in photo frames, albums or hanging on the wall), documents (menus, contracts, vaccination proof), notes, business cards, whiteboards and receipts (ideal for expense tracking or reimbursement) – and then storing those images for when you need them or sending them to someone else, if desired, via email or text."

I have used my smartphone many times to take images at local archives, of microfilm, and even of taking images of old family photographs when visiting a distant relative's home.

Today's "interesting article was written by Marc Saltzman and is published in the Yahoo/Finance web site at: https://yhoo.it/3whslXR.

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman. 

While discovering the names and life details of our ancestors can be challenging, we can easily determine how many ancestors we have, right? We all have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and so on. To determine the number of ancestors you have, all you have to do is grab a calculator and determine how many generations you wish to go back. That should be easy. Or is it?

For instance, here is a simple chart showing the number of ancestors you have, assuming an average of one generation every twenty-five years:

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