Reggie Mark-Hansen has a recessed red-head gene from his Great-Great-Grandfather Hansen from Scandinavia and is from the Republic of Ghana (West Africa between Ivory Coast and Togo).

Ghana was under British control from 1874 to 1957 and became a Constitutional Republic in 1961. Ghana is non-aligned with English as an official language, and a free market economy that is growing at 7%. Reggie’s father was a band leader and mother a tough-love hostess. Reggie graduated from college in ’89 and has worked in HR (human resources) Management for oil companies in Ghana and the US.

He plans to start his own HR firm and says the object is to make the employees the best they can be. The Rotary Four way Test is the best business code. He has been married for 17 years.

Heather Calvert, Marketing Executive at ScotlandsDNA, which can trace British and Irish DNA lines back 3k to 10k years. Humans started in Africa; went to Saudi Arabia; and branched to everywhere else. Each of us inherits 6 B letters of DNA from our parents (3B each).

Occasionally tiny errors of copying are made in reproduction and it is these minute changes that are called “markers”. Geneticists can locate marker’s origin and date its creation. By looking at its frequency in modern populations, they can also track the movement of a marker across the face of the earth. Examples of markers are “Jewish” and “redhead”. For those interested, go to website www.scotlandsdna.com.

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last week Robert C Plumb reviewed  his book, YOUR BROTHER IN ARMS: A UNION SOLDIER’s ODYSEY. In the 1960’s his wife’s uncle bought three bundles of letters (marked 1862-63- 64 &65) written by George Pressly McClelland (not related to Gen McClellan) and sent to his siblings, while George was serving with the 155th Pennsylvania Infantry for 2 years and 8 months. Together McCelland’s letters form a perspective and articulate chronicle of his front line experiences in the Army of the Potomac battles: Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Getttysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, the North Anna River, Petersburg, and Five Forks.

He enlisted as an 18 year old private; was wounded in ’64 and came back to his company in 2 months, promoted to Capt and wounded again 2 weeks before Appomattox. His men saved his life by getting him to a hospital in Petersburg (where George’s sister found him 2 weeks later). He lived another 37 years.