Once again my west coast brother has provided me with an interesting day to ponder. Today is "Family History Day." I could go on and on about my family history but the problem with family history is that nobody really cares about it except the family, and they may not care much about it either. We did have one ancestor who arrived in the colonies in time to fight in the Revolutionary War, and somewhere in our family tree we are related to the Wright brothers, which may explain my love of flying, but that's about it. Here's an interesting fact though. I had always been told (family tradition) that when my great grandfather and his two brothers arrived on Ellis Island, their last names were spelled three different ways as they were checked in, Bair, Bare, and Bear, and that all of the families in the US with one of these spellings are related. Maybe? But recently I was watching an episode of 'Finding Your Roots.' one of my favorite shows, when Henry Louis Gates, Jr. responded to a similar claim by one of his guests by saying this was a myth. The names weren't misspelled on arrival, all the lists of names actually came with the passengers from their points of departure. So why Bair, Bare and Bear? I don't know.
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