Here's a Sign of Something We Sometimes Do Wrong

There's a story in the news in Delaware this evening about a request that the state regulate who can perform marriages (Officials want list of clergy who can perform weddings). It includes this interesting paragraph:

The state used to keep a list of clergy who were registered to marry people. But when the employee who maintained the list left her state job, no one picked up the task.

That's a typical mistake that we make, and I'm sure it's not just state government. In almost any organization, there are things that get done just because someone started doing them. And they can become integral to the mission of the organization, or important to a partner.

But if they are not made a part of the regular business of the whole organization, there is a risk of failure when that one  person leaves.

If there is something worth doing in an organization, it must be documented and made an official part of a job, not just a person's approach to that job.

Meet Cousin Arthur

Astonishingly, I have found a connection, albeit a very distant and tenuous one, between my family and that of one of my cultural heroes: Arthur Adolph Marx, known professionally and with great affection by millions as "Harpo."

As I'm sure I have mentioned in the past, I use geni.com to manage my genealogical research. Geni allows users to create databases of their family trees and is set up to allow linking of trees that have common members. In that way, family trees grow via crowd-sourced genealogy.

And Geni posts daily featured profiles of popular figures from history or popular culture. Users can check to see if there's any connection between the family trees of those personalities and their own.

This weekend, they posted the profiles of four of the five Marx Brothers. Since I am a huge fan, I clicked-through to check. I was shocked to find a connection.

I discovered that Harpo Marx is my first cousin nine times removed's husband's seventh great niece's husband's ex-wife's ex-husband's ex-wife's ex-husband's ex-wife's sister's ex-husband's brother.

As I said,"very distant and tenuous."

The connection goes back to my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother on my father's side, Wibroe Griggs, who was born in 1593 in Buckinghamshire, in England. Wibroe's  niece, Sarah Pierson, was my first cousin, nine times removed. Sarah's husband's seventh great niece was Frances Seymour, a New York City socialite and the second wife of the movie star Henry Fonda. She was mother, by the way, to Peter and Jane Fonda.

This is where the connection depends on the serial marriages of Hollywood folks. Henry Fonda was also married to the actress Margaret Sullavan (Later married to a Kenneth Wagg) who was also married to the agent and producer Leland Heyward who was also married to the socialite Nancy "Slim" Gross who was also married to the Director Howard Hawks who was also married to the actress Dee Hartford whose sister the actress Eden Hartford was once married to Harpo's brother Groucho Marx.

I realize how absurd this "connection" really is, but I have to say I have always felt an affinity for the Marx brothers.

Looking at Villanova

church at villanova (edited)
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

Last weekend we were in Massachusetts to look at Boston University. This weekend it was Pennsylvania to look at Villanova. Colleen needs to choose between these two for her next four years.

Friday, she had a chance to sit-in on a class and we attended a fascinating presentation on teaching philosophies by a panel of professors. And we ate dinner with three students; we tried to ask them as many questions as we could think of.

Today was a huge "Candidates' Day" with a few thousand potential students and their families wandering around campus. There were more presentations, and discussions, and tours.

This will be a tough choice for Colleen. Both Villanova and Boston University are great schools. We can't decide for her, but we are very proud to see her making the choice.

Looking at BU

Looking at BU
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

We are just back from a lightning trip up to Boston to let Colleen visit Boston University. She's deciding between BU and Villanova; we'll be up on the Main Line next weekend to visit Villanova.

We drove up after work and school on Thursday and spent Friday listening, talking and walking around campus. We had a fine meal Friday night at an oyster bar/restaurant in Kenmore Square -- Eastern Standard. There I found Narragansett Beer which we used to drink when I was at Colby College, in Maine, 30 years ago.

A Delaware Population History

I went all geeky for the Census. Not that that was really a change for me, of course. My default approach is geek-lite, as you well know.

In any case, in the run-up to Census Day (this past Thursday, in case you missed it), I ran a daily series of Census history tweets, reporting facts from each decennial Census and reporting on the counted populations of Delaware and the three Delaware counties.

I also created a Google spreadsheets table of those census counts, adding a decennial Census' results each day. The table above is from that spreadsheet.

A very cool by-product of all of this is a collection of links to scanned copies of the Delaware portions of historic Census publications back to 1790 (the first US Census).

These are fascinating glimpses into the official, and the bureaucratic, history of the nation. What was important? Who was counted, and how?

This exercise has helped me to better understand the joy that historians must feel in digging back into the past through documents and artifacts.

Know Your U.S.A.

I've been tweeting a Census history series lately, reporting on one decennial census each day through census day (April 1). I got to 1940 today and found three promotional films posted on YouTube. They encourage 1940s USians to be counted as a civic and patriotic duty.

Let me recommend the Census Bureau's Through the Decades web site, it makes fascinating reading. I particularly enjoy the scanned historic Census publications they offer.

And I've been posting a decade-by-decade record of state and county Census counts for Delaware. I'm including links to the scanned publications that cover Delaware.

Golf in 2010: Game 1

Plugged
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

With the weather on the warm, it was time to head out and play golf again. Andy and I went to Old Landing Golf Course to play this afternoon.

The course was still quite wet. In some places, any ball descending at all would plug into the ground, limiting bounce and roll.

I didn't play particularly well, though I should bear in mind that it was the first game of the year. I scored a 116.

Thank You, Alex Chilton

Alex Chilton passed away today. His first hit, The Letter, was a perfect pop tune. And his later work has always appealed to me. For some reason, though, this song has always been a favorite.

Sounds of spring

early peepers, late woods
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

Yesterday evening, i did some driving around on small roads north of Georgetown while daughter #2 was at her dance class. I found myself on a winding road through a very wet woodland and listening to many many peeping frogs.

It's one way we know that springs is on the way.

Here's Something I Think You Should Do

Take a moment and go to the FCC's broadband web site and use their broadband testing widget. That will help them build a map of broadband access around the country.

A part of the overall stimulus package is funding to improve Americans' access to the internet via broadband -- to ensure access to rich content, audio, video, and really fast data transfer. To spend that money wisely, the feds need to have a clear picture of where there is strong broadband and where there is not. They need a detailed map of broadband access. They need geospatial data about it.

Think for a moment about the pissing match between ATT and Verizon in those annoying cell-phone commercials. It comes down to dueling versions of maps of  "3G" access. Which one is right? Can we really take ATT's word, or Verizon's word? Not really.

That's why we need independent information on what is the true broadband picture. Where is wired access? Where is wireless?

Many of the states (including Delaware, over at DTI) are working on broadband mapping using federal grants to gather data from providers and work with the public. In support of this, the FCC has created, and this week released, a widget that combines collection of "where" information (the geospatial part) with existing broadband speed testers (the data part).

I heard an announcement of the new widget at this week's mid-year conference of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), in Annapolis. The new Geospatial Information Officer (GIO) at the FCC is the former GIS coordinator of California, Mike Byrne, long a respected NGSIC member. He announced plans for the widget on Monday and sent word on Thursday that it was live.

I've written different versions of this post on the NSGIC blog and on my State of Delaware GIS coordination blog. But this widget isn't just meant for GIS geeks, it's meant for all of us.

So take a minute or two and test your speed. Help the feds use actual data to spend our money wisely.