John Burkholder

For quite some time now I have been searching for my birth parents. I have some clues in my search like my place of birth, my birthday, a letter from my adopted mother about some of the information she had, and now my DNA. So now what? Where does someone go for the little information I have. Ancestry.com is a good start. Fortunately, they have a database of all of the births, death, marragies in California. Then simple logic kicks in. According to my letter, I was given the name "Stone" by the adoption agency. So in my search of births in Los Angeles County, California, I found Baby Boy Stone born on the same date. Coincidence? I think not. Especially since that was the only "Baby Boy" birth certificate. This means the child was not named for the birth certificate as a replacement birth certificate would be assigned later. The birth certificate had the birth father listed as L R Stone. The birth mother was Ashlock. Back to the letter from my mother: She states

As I am rebranding myself, I started thinking about what I will be like in 5 or 10 years. Chances are... not being a SharePoint expert... at least not in the same form I am now. One of the reason I teach others SharePoint is because I want to make sure someone can do the job once I move to my next phase in life. There are of course other reasons I teach, but as my wife puts it, I teach myself out of a job. I do. That is my mission. I digress, where will I be in 5 to 10 years? I may move more towards a management role, or maybe kick off one of the myriad of other businesses I still haven't given away. I could also go to college and... oh, who am I kidding, that will never happen. I could put a little effort into Squeaky Clean Soaps (but I would likely ruin it for Andi). I could teach full time... which is not a bad idea. So why not continue doing SharePoint? There is an age ceiling for technology professionals. I don't think it is right. I have seen people age past the ce

I may have mentioned this before. I am adopted. So because I wanted to get to know myself better, try to find blood related family, and find any risks in my health, I decided to send in my DNA to 23andme. All of my life I have been told I am Native American (1/2 Lakota, 1/2 Cherokee). Granted, the information came from my mother who wrote it all down once she heard it from the adoption agency in San Bernadino, CA. I looked Native American. I have the same body type and proportions as most Native Americans. Come to find out, I am not nearly as much Native American as I believed. It appears I am mostly European. Yep. This is a bit of a shake up. My whole life has been a lie! Well at least my heritage. But nonetheless, I am coming to terms with the fact I am now a white person (googles becoming a white person support group). Granted I do have some Native American, but not a majority. Several things have happened since I received the report on Friday. First, I had to tell my k