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What's New for August 2001

Well, I gotta tell you, the above photo had me laughing so hard I just had to put it on my website. No offense George, but you gotta admit it's pretty funny.

Hi to all. Yes, I'm really alive and well. I haven't abandoned the site. I have been loafing lately I admit it. It's summer and it's beach time. And, besides that, I have been busy working and going to school full time. However, after a few emails I started to feel a bit guilty for not being busy on the website. So here I am back again. Thanks to those who prompted me... I need that every now and then.

As far as updates go, I don't have to many actually. The latest genealogy file update is posted. I hope you all are able to navigate all right. If not send me an email and I'll try to answer your questions.

Let's see, there have been no additions or subtractions in our family branch since the last update, non that I know at least. I guess that is a good thing. No doubt there must have been others in other family branches, but I heard of any.

My father and I were at the archive libraries Waltham and Boston, Massachusetts to do some research on July 26th and 27th. We found some interesting information on some early Goonans in New York, Pennsylvania and found three Goonan boys who were in the Army during the U.S. Civil War on the side of the Union in the Army Register of Enlistments. I'll be posting that information in the next update after we sort it all out.

I have also posted information from the Annals on a separate page in the Irish History pages. As I find more references I will annotate the Annals so it is easier to understand what in the heck they are talking about. A lot of it, like the names of people and places is written in the Irish language.

I read a few interesting books in the past couple of months, "Beethoven's Hair", "Body of Secrets - An Anatomy of the NSA", "Patriots - The Men Who Started the American Revolution". I would recommend them to anyone who is interested in a wide variety of subject matter, like me. 

Here are my quick reviews.

Beethoven's Hair is a very cool story about how a lock of the great composer's hair travel from his head when he died to a collector of Beethoven's manuscripts in Arizona, and how DNA testing was done on some of the hairs a couple of years ago to try to find out the source of Beethoven's deafness and other ailments. It's an intriguing tale of mystery and suspense that includes the lock of hair traveling with Jews escaping from the Nazis in WWII. Their conclusion is fascinating.

Body of Secrets and the NSA. What can I say. It is a fascinating expose of the biggest and baddest intelligence agency in the world from its origins to the present day. You will understand what they do and what they are capable of doing after reading this book. It is both fascinating and creepy. It makes you want to get some encryption software and a firewall for your computer right away. I mean they do listen to everything folks. They do have the capability to suck every packet of data off the entire Internet as well as every microwave dish, satellite, radio, telephone, telegraph, undersea cable and cell phone anywhere on the planet.

Patriots is the story you didn't learn in history class when you were a kid. It is the real stories of the American Revolution in all it's faults, blunders and cruelty. But it's also the story of its heroes and victories. I'd say it's a must read if you want to know how and why this country got off it's feet. And yes, my hero, Major General John Stark from Manchester, New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Militia were instrumental in us not speaking with a British accent today. General John "Johnny" Stark, as he was called in another book I read, coined the New Hampshire State Motto and it expresses the bold attitude of free people everywhere nicely, "Live Free or Die".