Never know what my family research will turn up. Last week I reached out to someone via Ancestry.com after my DNA results had indicated she was an "extremely likely" 2nd cousin.

(When I initially got the DNA results, Ancestry indicated there were about 35 people who were possible relatives. Of those, about 4 of them were ranked as "extremely likely" while the others were more distant relatives...3rd or 4th cousins... or who only had a "good" chance of being related. It's up to you to take it from there. So I contacted via Ancestry email the top 4, and this person was the only one who replied.)

I've been corresponding with her daughter ever since.

What we've got so far is this:

1. Her mother shares the same first name as one of my grandmother's sisters. She also shares the family last name of my grandmother.

2. My grandmother's family and this person's mother's family both lived in the Germantown neighborhood of Philly.

3. Her mother was born in NYC in 1944, the same year and the same general location where my great aunt moved to before giving birth. (Dad said my great aunt, who was not married and living in Philly, wanted to avoid shaming her family with an out of wedlock pregnancy, so it was arranged that she live in a back room behind a deli some friends of the family owned in NYC.)

4. Finally, we have DNA evidence.

5. Also in common is the first name of a younger brother and a sister, both of whose names came up on their end when she was trying to find her birth mother. She actually hired a company to do some research and talked on the phone with the younger brother mentioned above, who by that time resided in a nursing home.

We're wondering if this woman's mother is the daughter of my great aunt.

What still doesn't fit is that my dad told me grandma's sister KEPT the baby and later married the father, whereas the mother of the woman I connected with on Ancestry was adopted and has tried in the past to track down her parents.

If it wasn't for the DNA, I might chalk up all the other details to coincidence, but with the DNA, I'm convinced we still just haven't figured it out yet.

I have to ask Dad more questions.

In other news...
I belong to a local neighborhood Facebook page where people often ask for recommendations for one kind of service provider or another. Recently, someone was asking what local garage/car repair place they would recommend, and a lot of people raved about one particular local garage I had never tried.

So I needed an oil/filter change (and new wipers) and decided this would be a good time to try out the new place. I mean, how badly could they gouge you on lower priced services like these?

Umm, a lot, it seems. I wound up paying $61 for the oil/filter change (compare that to the $49 the Honda dealer charged me) and the wipers cost $47.

So I paid $121 for an oil change and wipers???? Yes, to my chagrin. I won't be going back there and I got my revenge by posting in detail on the same site about these charges. I could not find the special brand of "beam blade" wipers they put on, but on amazon the highest price for beam blade blades in general was $25 for a set of 2.

So I do feel gouged.

I went over to the library this afternoon to talk with the genealogist there to see if he could help me with any of my "dead ends," and well, the answer is no, he wasn't really helpful.

I got paid $175 for some freelance work I did and am expecting another check for $72 this week, along with a check for about $300 for an art sale last month.

I sent in the mini test assignment for the educational website job. I had asked her to clarify the payment becus they sent me a contract with nothing in it as to the rate. She told me the pay varies from .09 to .13 a word, which is acceptable to me. I won't really be sure how much that would come out to on an hourly basis until I do it, but for just this little mini assignment it came out to about $33/hr. I spent more time figuring out all their instructions, which I'm sure would come more easily to me with time.

Am hoping they like what I did becus I don't actually have the job yet. The editors will review the copy and make a decision from there. I don't think they're looking for Pulitzer Prize winning content, just something that's friendly and clear.

I've started watching the Mercy Street series on Amazon/PBS and it's pretty good.

Tomorrow I have a 9 am training session/Q&A with the registrars for the upcoming Election Day work. My biggest concern is getting up around 5 am.