I'm Officially 18 Years Old

Today's post will be a little different from most of my other ones. It is scheduled to post as exactly 7:50 pm EST on March 17th of 2018, my 18th birthday (and, of course, St. Patricks Day). So I thought I'd share a bit about what other familial events occurred on this day, certain aspects of myself which I have found other ancestors share, as well as a bit about these past 18 years.

On This Day In Family History

My birthday is by no means the only one in my family to occur on this March 17th. Here are some of the known births, marriages, etc. which also occurred on St. Patricks Day. 

1. March 17th, 1854, My 3rd great grandpa Henry Patrick Dwyer is born in Illinois, USA
2. March 17th, 1857, My 3rd great grandpa William Franklin Byers is born in Illinois, USA
3. March 17th, 1861, The husband of my 2nd great-grandaunt, Joseph M. Belina is born in Dlouhá Trebová, Lanškroun, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia
4. March 17th, 1872, My 2nd great-granduncle Gustaf Albert Teodor Gustafson is born in Adelöv, Jönköping, Sweden
5. March 17th, 1893, The wife of my 2nd great-granduncle Wilma A. Laughrey is born in Mitchell, Kansas, USA
6. March 17th, 1901, My 2nd great-granduncle William Benson Van Wert is born in Beach Lake, Wayne, Pennsylvania,USA
7. March 17th, 1917, My 2nd great-grandaunt, Effie Eleanor Ekeberg marries Gustav Reginald Freedlund in the Swedish Evangelical Church of Aurora, Illinois, USA
8. March 17th, 2000, My twin sister, Nicole Caroline Schmidt, and I, Renée Joanne Schmidt, were born. 

The Family's Twins

While my sister and I were the only twins born in our immediate generation, we are by no means the first in the family. Here are the other twins in my immediate/close family that I have found in my searches.

1. 26 Dec 1729, my 7th great-granduncles Jacob H. Gardenier the 2nd and Andries H. Gardenier were baptized in Kinderhook, Columbia, New York. They were born to Hendrick H. Gardenier and Marguerita Van Woert.
2. 8 May 1785, my 6th great grand-aunts Syntie Gardenier and Sara Gardenier were baptized in Kinderhook, Columbia, New York. They were born to Petrus H. Gardenier and Experience Holmes.
3. 10 Feb 1788, my 6th great grand-uncle and aunt Peter Gardenier Jr. and Lydia Gardenier were baptized.They were born to Petrus H. Gardenier and Experience Holmes.
4. 6 Mar 1789, my 6th great-grandmother Rozina Schiman and her brother Řehoř Schiman were born in Pištín, South Bohemia, Czechoslovakia.
5. 8 May 1791, my 6th great-grandaunt and uncle Lydia Gardenier the 2nd and Jabez Gardenier the 2nd were born in Kinderhook, Columbia, New York to Petrus H. Gardenier and Experience Holmes
6. 24 Sep 1899, my 2nd great-grandaunt and uncle Winnie Bell Byers and Wilton William Byers were born in Jewell, Kansas to William Franklin Byers and Susanna Nees
7. 25 Feb 1905, my great-grandma Lillian R. Penas and her sister Helen C. Penas were born in Minnesota to John J. Penas and Rose Tesař.
8. 18 Jun 1905, my great-grandfather Reuben Everette Van Wert and his unnamed twin were born in Aldenville, Wayne, Pennsylvania to Forrest Everette Van Wert and Carrie Blanche Smith.
9. 17 Aug 1905, my 2nd great-grandaunt and uncle, Ruth Turner Byers and Richard Dixon Byers, were born in Ionia, Jewell Kansas to William Franklin Byers and Susanna Nees.
10. 29 Sep 1933, my 1st cousins twice removed Kathryn Segerhammer and Kathleen Segerhammer were born in Colorado to Carl William Segerhammer and Alva Ruth Elizabeth Gustafson.
11. March 17th, 2000 my sister and I were born in Virginia.

Luck of the Irish

Being born on St. Patricks day, I get asked on occasion if I am Irish. The answer is yes, in fact, I have a fair amount of Irish on both my dad's and my mom's sides of the family. It even shows in my DNA, as according to FTDNA, 33% of my DNA resembles those native to the British Isles.

My FTDNA Results

In fact, here is a map of all the countries my paper trail has shown me to be from:

Map of all the countries my paper trail thus far has proved me to be from

Recent Years

Now that I've discussed the family a bit, here's a bit more about what has happened in my life over the past few years or so:

Freshman Year

4 years and some months ago I entered Marshall high school as a transfer student with the intention of completing an IB Diploma (IB stands for International Baccalaureate-- It's basically AP with more essays and requirements). My goal was to finish high school with an acceptance letter from VCU, where I would major in the Visual Arts.

My freshman year, when I wasn't playing tennis, I would hang around after school or go to the library next door. On one of these such days, I heard an announcement over the intercom advertising the cybersecurity club's interest meeting. I didn't really have anything better to do so I figured I'd check it out. It actually sounded pretty cool, and I added myself to the list of members.

I ended up completely forgetting about the next meeting, where they were going to form teams. Thinking I had lost my opportunity to participate, I stopped showing up. Luckily, one of the female upperclassmen noticed I had stopped coming and reassured me that it wasn't too late. It's safe to say that the direction my life took thereafter was entirely due to her encouragement on that day. At the time there were close to 100 members of the cybersecurity club and less than 10 were girls. Of those girls, most were freshmen so we formed Marshall's first ever all-girl team together to compete in Cyberpatriot. At first, I was on windows, but the girls on Linux decided they wanted to switch. I was interested in learning Linux anyways so I offered to take over for them. I spent the week before the next competition combing over an old Linux textbook my dad gave me and wrote out a checklist. We did decent, not great but decent that year and made it to semi-finals in the silver tier. It was around this time that I started seriously teaching myself python as well.

Me with the 2015 Girls Varsity Tennis team. I'm in the oversized uniform in the front row 3 from the right.

When I wasn't at cyber, I was playing tennis. I tried out for our school's Varsity Tennis team that year, and although I was a bit worried when over 50 girls showed up, I managed to make the team. It was pretty fun and I think it's pretty safe to say I ate more gummy worms and bagels during that season than during the rest of my life combined.

Sophomore Year

Not much changed this year from the previous one. I was still teaching myself python and I once again made the Tennis Team. I rejoined cybersecurity and ended up with a near completely different team than the last time. We did better this time, making the gold tier (which is one tier higher than Silver.) It was also about this time that senioritis struck for me and the combination of stress/apathy would make the school year all the more difficult.

Junior Year

Me at one of the cybersecurity competitions. I now have many many more stickers on my laptop.

This was the year my Cybersecurity team finally made platinum tier (the highest tier/and the top 30% of teams). This was also the year I quit tennis. Before I stopped growing the top of my spine decided it didn't want to grow straight anymore. That shifted things around and made my shoulders not fit in their sockets quite right. The popping sound they made whenever I tried to hit a ball was cool and all but didn't feel so great. I had to go to physical therapy instead and had to stop playing the violin for a bit as well. I ended up realizing that I really enjoyed having the extra time to work on programming and other hobbies, so I stopped playing tennis completely. I am still quite happy with that decision and didn't try out this year either. This decision is also what gave me the time to start pursuing genealogy, so it worked out on all fronts. On March 25th, 2017 I was able to make my first blog post. In fact, I was having such a good time with genealogy, cybersecurity, and programming, that my grades started to drop. I quit the IB diploma that year (although I still take some IB classes). That also allowed me to have more electives my senior year. You see, the IB Diploma has so many requirements that you quite literally can not take all of the required classes in a regular school day. IB students, therefore, have to stay after school every other day to take a class called 'Theory of Knowledge'. The final monumental life-altering decision that I made that year was my decision to not go to VCU and not major in art. Rather, I decided I wanted to go to Marymount University and major in Cybersecurity.

Senior Year

This is the year I was able to shift my focus from school to my own outside pursuits. For the first time, I was able to take computer classes. Previously I had spent all my electives on Art, Orchestra, and Spanish. I quit orchestra due to myself losing interest, and dropped Spanish because I already had more than the required language credits (where I live we take high school language and math in 8th grade) and felt I had a good enough grasp on the language to get by should I ever have to use it. I did, however, keep art in my schedule because I still really love painting. Speaking of which, this was the first year I won an award in the scholastic art and writing competition. Specifically, I won a Gold Key for my painting of my Uncle Blaine, shown below:

My oil painting "Uncle Blaine"

My electives this year are: computer science (which is actually a math but feels like an elective because it teaches Java Programming), A+ computer systems (a hardware class), Studio Art 4, and a period where I work as a tech assistant in my school's technology office. Besides those, my only classes are History, Science, and English.

My cybersecurity team this year also made it to platinum again. We placed 18th in the state which we were proud of, but only the top 13 or so go on to semifinals. And I met some pretty special people there who have made my year all that much better.

As far as college goes, I am pretty set about which school I will be attending next year. I only applied to one college, Marymount University, and thankfully I got in with enough scholarship money to actually go.

Through the Years

I thought that it might be cool to make a photo morph of the last 18 years of my life. Here is the resulting video.

Closing Statements

I hope you enjoyed this somewhat-different-than-normal post. I guess this means I'm officially an adult now (although whether or not I act like one is debatable). And thanks as always for reading my blog, sharing your thoughts, and coming along with me on this genealogy journey. I foresee good things in the future.