Journeying into the past to find the present

In 7th grade I was given a simple science assignment to graph out the genetics of blue eyes in a family. Both of my parents had brown eyes. My brothers, sister and I all had blue. The odds that 2 brown eyed people (Bb) would have one blue eyed child are approximately 25%...My parents had 4! The odds of that happening are about 1/4 of 1%. My father's family were immigrants from Italy. My father and his brothers and sisters were first generation Americans. By the time I was wondering about the odds of all this, both of his parents were gone and in the time honored tradition of the Italian vendetta, most of his family was not speaking to each other. I was never able to do much sleuthing there but my mother's family...that's a different story. My mom's father had brilliant blue eyes and considering that my own sons have blue eyes in spite of the fact that my husband has brown (as do a good number of my nieces and nephews) they must be some determined genes.

In any case, that simple assignment opened up a world of wonder for me tracing my families' roots to find where I got my wings. I took a break from this for the past 3 years or so but am now back again searching and making tiny little discoveries. It is infinitesimally harder now though because the further back you go, the more difficult it is to find and or substantiate information.

Anyway, I thought I would try blogging some of this to see if anyone needs something that I have dug up (which may or may not) relate to my search and maybe someone will have something I can use. As I run across things that I feel may be of interest I will post them. Frustrations and przes alike!