My Heritage and then a Note

Our French penpals were learning about American immigration (in their English class), so their teacher told them to write to us and ask us where are families are from and such. I thought that it's not a bad thing to document anyways, so I roughly translate it here and give it to you, with parts that don't really make sense taken out.

Most Americans are not of American origin. Some are of American origin because they are Native American. Most have somebody in their ancestry who was an immigrant. I am a citizen of the United States, but I have many different sorts of heritage. I am almost half English, Scottish and Welsh. On my paternal grandfather’s side, I am Scottish and Welsh, and on my maternal grandfather’s side, the family is mostly English. But somebody on my paternal grandfather’s side married a woman who came from a Cherokee tribe. Cherokees are a tribe of Native Americans. On my paternal grandmother’s side, the family is German. I am almost a German eighth. On my maternal grandmother’s side, the family is Danish. I am almost an eighth Danish as well. The other parts of my heritage are Swedish, Norwegian and Dutch. For an American, my family has been in America for a long time. The line which was in the United States for shortest and the side of my maternal grandmother. There are three generations since immigration. The others? On my dad’s side, the family helped found the state of Michigan. There are the cities in Michigan with the name "Russell" and there are streets in Michigan called "Russell". I have ancestors on both sides which were on the "Mayflower", which is perhaps the first boat with European women and children to go to America. I have ancestors on both sides who fought in the revolutionary war of America. The majority of my ancestors went to the United States for opportunity. The ancestors on Mayflower went to the United States because they had the ideas which were not popular in England. My Danish went to the United States because they converted with the religion of "Mormons", and they wanted to be with other with the same beliefs. My German ancestors went to the United States because they were Jewish or had a Jewish name, and Germany did not accept the Jews then. My name, Russell, is Scottish, and it means "the redheads of Scotland". But there are also English Russells, and the meaning of that name is "wrustlers" or robbers. I never went to the countries of my heritages, but perhaps I will go. We preserve some traditions of my heritages. Some of the people on the Scottish side still eat haggis, but we’ve mostly decided that that’s disgusting.

Part II

We all know that Apple beat Microsoft when it comes to audio technology. If you don't know that yet, you need to clue in. The "Zune" or whatever is no match for the iPod, and everyone knows it. iTunes is superior to Windows Media on so many levels. Where else did Apple win, hands down? Two or three words. AppleWorks Database. A few years ago, when I was teaching computer applications (to seniors citizens who didn't really even know how to hold the mice, so it was never really that advanced), I became acquainted with Apples, and I learned one thing for positive: I'm in love with Apples. Everything on an Apple is more intuitive, everything is more user friendly and computer applications are much smoother. Admittedly, complicated programming is difficult on an Apple, or so I've been told...I don't really do complicated programming. And the big one: Apples are significantly more expensive than PCs. I'm working currently on an acer, because that's what my laptop is. It's not a bad little model at all: The Acer TravelMate 2480. I'd recommend it to anyone. However, back to the topic. As I worked with Apples, I discovered the wonderful program known as AppleWorks. At first I took it for its face value: the Macintosh's version of Microsoft Office. That's what I thought until I discovered AppleWorks Database. This little feature is a program that creates lists, databases, et cetera. Any kind of database you want. They can be simple or complicated. Yes, Excel has some features that carry over, but they do not measure up to AppleWorks Database at all. If I could take one thing from Apples and put them in Windows, it'd be AppleWorks Database, baby. I fell in love with it.