I got up about a half-hour earlier this morning after yesterday’s bout with the Florida heat. I nearly collapsed on my run after the first couple miles with little shade or breeze and took the walk of shame the last half-mile back home. It was much more tolerable today with the sun not so high in the sky, and I easily jogged the distance. In the time change, I stole a little extra time under the covers and am now just starting to adjust to the change. It also gives me a little extra time to swim and write before my now 4-year old granddaughter soon arrives. 

I spent some time in Ban(n)ister World yesterday, adding a few more names to the Jerry Bannister Family Tree on Ancestry. There was a whole nest of Texas/New Mexico descendants that I tried to sort out, including the author of the William Lawrence Banister 1833-1898 Facebook site. There are several personal DNA links on this side of the family. I was probably inspired by the Harlan Coben book, The Match, that uses some creative ways to search for missing relatives. Genealogical sites often try to protect identity by hiding the details of the living while focusing on obituaries. When you couple this with DNA donors that provide false information about themselves and their whereabouts, it adds to the many mysteries in building a family tree. 

People die with their secrets, as will eventually be the case with my unsolved mystery of life. (See Post #2032). I continue to work with the DNA puzzle of the Ban(n)ister family, knowing that any answers probably won’t change my life. It’s simply a strong curiosity that drives me to search for answers. Perhaps, it’s my animal instincts that have given me a taste of my own blood, something that was missing from my years of living with an adopted family. Even our own dog Tally seems to be attracted to other dogs of the same schnauzer breed. Surely, this is what I’m searching for!