COMMANDMENTS

In the law of Moses handed down in the Sinai desert, to the Jewish people who had escaped from Egypt, through the Torah...before 1000 years prior to Christ...there are 613 commandments. These commandments are comprised of 365 "thou shall nots" and 248 "thou shalls". The famous 10 commandments of Moses...adopted by the Christian movement at its inception in the 1st century AD...is a distillation of the 613 commandments of the law of Moses. The 10 commandments were chosen by the early Christians as representative of the "Old Covenant". Christ and his apostles and disciples...including Saint Paul who was born Jewish and became a Pharisee before converting to Christianity...blended these 10 commandments of Moses with the New Covenant of Christ taught as the "Beatitudes" in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) or the Sermon on the plain (Luke). The Beatitudes were a series of about 10 statements that form the basis of Christianity. Because the Christian movement dispensed with about 600 of the 613 commandments of the law of Moses...including the requirements of male circumcision and the various dietary rules and customs and the other rules of Jewish history and tradition...it is not surprising that most of the Jewish people did not convert over to Christianity. Christianity was open first to the Jewish people and then it was opened to the Caucasians in Palestine who were not Jewish...and as it prospered in the Mediterranean theatre it was opened to North Africans and later spread throughout the World. Because it was "open" to any race or ethnicity and because of the strong appeal of the Beatitudes and the promise of an afterlife, Christianity blossomed after the 1st century AD and overtook the Roman Empire after about 300 AD. Judaism remained a relatively small enterprise, in any case, because one has to be born Jewish (like Hindus in Hinduism) and it is not open to conversion from any other race or ethnic population. In the 21st century today, there are over 2 billion Christians and only about 15 million Jewish people.

INTERNET

People out there make the mistake of believing that the internet has official "reference" status. This mistake leads to other misperceptions like "LinkedIn" is an authoritative reference tool...or that uploading audio-video content to "YouTube" is "publishing" the material. Or that content in internet blogs...like "Google Blog"...is equivalent to publication. None of these misperceptions is true...and all of these beliefs are false. Publication happens in primary sources and secondary sources and third-rate sources...and then there is the internet. Primary publication involves a strict peer review process and it goes through professional editing and revising until it is passable as a primary reference...And primary and some secondary sources are archived and documented in professional databases that provide a professional imprimatur or symbol of professional review and professional status to the content. Most of these actual "reference status" archives are accessible only by paid subscription and they are very expensive and only University libraries have paid subscription access to them. "LinkedIn" and "Google Blog" and "YouTube" and "FaceBook" etc., they, all of them, have no editing standards and there is no professional review whatsoever of any of this freely available content, and people can put down whatever they want to...be it true or ridiculous and false on to these freely available internet pages. And the trouble with this situation is that most people believe the internet is a reference tool and they act out or make decisions in their life by reading the misleading pages of the internet and believing in things that are not true. And some idiots create their own false internet pages in an attempt to glorify themselves and make them believe that they are someone important. And to further propagate internet-based myths and misperceptions onward and onward.

ANCESTRY

From the AncestryDNA project, Michael Bucknum is about 61% English-Dutch descent and 35% Irish descent. With traces of 1-2% Germanic and Swedish descent. Michael's paternal grandparents were Joseph Bucknum and Alice Ryan. Michael's maternal grandparents were Edgar Dockter and Mary Falkenberg, A review of the European Mathematical Society's literature archive called "zbMath" (ZentralBlatt Math) shows no Bucknums (except Michael Bucknum) and no Dockter's in the archive. "zbMath" shows about less than 10...and very minor...mathematician entries for the name "Falkenberg". By great contrast the name "Ryan" has over 100 entries, in zbMath, with a number of quite accomplished mathematician's of surname Ryan. Alice Ryan, or her parents, were from the County of Cork in the Southwestern corner of Ireland. Alice Ryan, my maternal grandmother, was where Michael Bucknum likely got his mathematician abilities from (the Ryan mathematics genetics). Alice Ryan met Joseph Bucknum probably in NYC...Alice Ryan lived in Brooklyn, NY for the years of her upbringing. Joseph Bucknum was from Trenton (born in 1882)...of English ancestry...descended from a long line of Bucknums in Trenton, NJ going back before 1830...and before that in Hartford, CT going back to before 1750. The Bucknum line was working class until after 1960, and were mainly ordinary people who nonetheless were soldiers in the Continental Army in the American Revolution (1776-1789) and in the Union Army during the Civil War (1860-1864). Michael Bucknum's maternal grandfather was Edgar Dockter. He probably was descended from Dutch settlers of Central Pennsylvania...and he was from an "Amish" or "Pennsylvania Dutch" background. He was a designer and maker of fine furniture. Michael Bucknum may have likely inherited his pronounced ability to design unique and important patterns (important from the perspective of chemistry) from Edgar Dockter. Michael Bucknum's maternal grandmother was named Mary Falkenberg...the Falkenberg name was originally either Swedish (there is a town on Sweden's south coast with the name Falkenberg) or it may have been Germanic in origin. In any case Mary Falkenberg was from NYC (had relatives in NYC) and she was likely mostly of English descent. Based upon the zbMath archive, as cited above, Michael Bucknum may have gotten some mathematician genes from the Falkenberg line as well. But the "Ryan" contribution to Michael Bucknum's ability to do mathematics was likely the most profound contribution.