Genetics are crazy!

When Janelle was diagnosed with a genetic condition I became very interested in everything genetics. I sometimes thing I have as much knowledge as a genetic counselor. This was never a subject I thought I would get into, but now I find it all so fascinating. I mean to think that one little spot of DNA being altered in any way can change so much about a person. I was just watching a documentary where a scientist want to bring back the Woolly Mammoth  by altering the DNA of an elephant egg. Can you imagine the possibilities that the future of genetics holds when they are able to do things like that?

That's not really what this post is all about though. This is more about how genetics is passed down in families even over periods of hundreds of years. Now it's common to have parent children look alikes or siblings with the same features. My one daughter got in trouble at a park because an old friend of mine caught her doing something bad and though he'd never met my child knew she was mine because she looked just like me when we were kids. Yeah, freaky right! I want to share with you something I discovered while I was doing my family genealogy.  

On Feb 23rd 1881 My great great grandfather was born in Jefferson County, PA. My mother was named after his mother. Benjamin died in the 1960's almost 20 years before my birth. Now my son was born in 1998 117 years after Benjamin. Below find their pictures side by side. 

Kind of spooky right? I am in the process of finding more pictures to compare how genetics is passed down. I can find relatives with the same eyes, nose, hair, but none quite as similar as these two. I often wonder if their personalities are similar as well. Was he an introvert like my son? Did he love to read like David? I know these are questions I most likely will never get answers to, but it's kind of cool to imagine them as very much alike. 

Have you looked back in your family tree and found any hauntingly past to present pictures?