The Queen is dead; Long live the King

As with almost everything else, my thoughts on Queen Elizabeth II are complicated

This was in my living room when I moved back to Long Island. My paternal grandmother loved the Queen.

I think all my opinions are complicated. Life is complicated.

My ancestry

A few years ago, my mother and I sent our DNA to Ancestery.com. Truth be told, if they could not tell we were related, I would know they were full of crap. Luckily, they could tell and my faith in the service was restored. When I first got my results, it showed three percent African. It didn’t say where in Africa but I was super excited because that sounded more interesting that the English/Scottish/Irish mix I had always heard about.

A few weeks later, they sent me a revised report showing what I thought all along; I may be the whitest person on the planet.

My father’s family was always really into our English heritage. This had its own irony as my grandmother, Verna Gill, worked at the Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, New Jersey. One of the most famous things that happened there was the Hessians were attacked by George Washington on the day after Christmas. That battle was seen as a turning point…