King Rat

The first image is a screenshot from The Fighting Lady at 6:55.  The subject at that moment is the maintenance and operation of the ship's gun.  My grandfather was the Assistant Gunnery Officer.  The photo below is from his file and is date a year or two earlier.  I think there's a resemblance between him and the man in the middle of the screen shot.  They both have the chin dimple.  However, neither image is clear enough for me to be sure.

Last summer my aunt requested the military file for my grandfather.  It finally came through last month.  I scanned all 600+ pages a couple weeks ago and am now going through it.  It's mostly pretty boring. Lots of medical reports and service evaluations.

However, buried in it are some gems.  For instance, his 1944 fitness report lists the naval operations he participated it.  The first one listed was simply "Truk Islands, 16-17 Feb. 1944".  Looking that up, it was Operation Hailstorm, a major operation to attack what was termed "the Japanese Pearl Harbor" although the Japanese were in the process of evacuating it when we attacked.

The Wikipedia rabbit hole leads me to the Navy documentary The Fighting Lady, which was about the U.S.S. Yorktown leading up to that attack. That was the carrier on which my grandfather served. Time to review it in detail to see if George Weiss shows up anywhere in the footage.  He was an Assistant Gunnery Officer and and Supervisory Deck Watch during this period.


If the embed doesn't work, The Fighting Lady can be found at Archive.org.

As the Facebook people know, tomorrow I am off to Copenhagen, Stockholm, and several other places in their countries.  I am 90% packed. My electronics are charging.  I've only minor things left to do like purchase a couple more ebooks to load up on my reader (I'm not sure my ebook stores will sell if my IP is not American) and get some emergency cash to bring with.

I'm bringing my laptop, so I will be updating Facebook and possibly here.  Photos may wait until I return to get posted, depending on down time and internet speeds.

Little known fact about me: traveling anywhere alone except the US and Canada scares the hell out of me.  I'm sure I'll be fine, but I am still filled with dread.

With the new job, I decided to splurge on a genetic test from Ancestry.com, hoping to see if it matched me up with anyone. As a bonus, they guess what your ethnic ancestry is from the results.

I don’t actually trust those ethic results much, but they still didn’t surprise me to any great degree:

Region		Approximate amount
North Africa		< 1%
Scandinavia		39%
Europe West		24%
Ireland		21%
Europe East		4%
Great Britain		3%
Iberian Peninsula		2%
European Jewish		2%
Finland/Northwest Russia		2%
Italy/Greece		< 1%
Caucasus		< 1%

In map form:

I’m not surprised at all that it predicts my ethnicity is from Scandinavia, Western Europe and Ireland. That’s pretty much what my genealogy says. However, it has a higher percentage of Irish and lower percentage of Western European than my genealogy indicates.

Now, either my genealogy work is wrong, their estimates are imprecise, or the genetic mix of a large portion of my Irish and Western European ancestors is too diverse to accurately classify. Barring an instance of the milkman being my ancestor instead of a documented parent or an unknown adoption, I’m reasonably certain of my tree out to my third great grandparents’ generation. There’s always a possibility of someone schtupping someone they weren’t married to though. I suspect the discrepancy is a combination of items 2 and 3. The 25% of my ancestry that is Swedish can be traced back hundreds of years, and it’s all Swedish. But the Irish, German, and Danish? Well, that could easily be pretty mixed ethnically.

But this analysis isn’t why I took the test. I’ll write about genetically matching people in my family tree in another post. That was far more useful.

Originally published at King Rat. You can comment here or there.

It’s been years since I got to participate in a 401(k) retirement plan. Last time was when I worked at Expedia. I put the amount in that would maximize the employer contribution and didn’t pay much more attention. The first thing I looked at this time was which investment options were index funds. There’s one index fund option for large-cap funds and one for small-cap funds. Out of 24 options, only two are index funds. That’s deplorable. To illustrate why, I dug around to find the expense ratios for the fund options. It wasn’t as easy to find as I would like, but when I did Fidelity showed it quite nicely.

Name	Category	Gross Expense Ratio	Shareholder Fees
COMPANY STOCK	Company Stock	–	Commission on stock trades: $0.029 per share
MAINSTAY LGCP GR R1 (MLRRX)	Large Cap	0.87%	No additional fees apply.
MFS VALUE R4 (MEIJX)	Large Cap	0.68%	No additional fees apply.
SPTN 500 INDEX INST (FXSIX)	Large Cap	0.05%	No additional fees apply.
ARTISAN MID CAP INST (APHMX)	Mid-Cap	1.03%	No additional fees apply.
ARTISAN SM CAP VALUE (ARTVX)	Small Cap	1.24%	No additional fees apply.
VANG SM GR IDX INST (VSGIX)	Small Cap	0.08%	No additional fees apply.
FID DIVERSIFD INTL K (FDIKX)	International	0.81%	Short term trading fees of 1% for shares held less than 30 days.
DODGE & COX BALANCED (DODBX)	Blended Fund	0.53%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2005 (FFKVX)	Blended Fund	0.50%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2010 (FFKCX)	Blended Fund	0.54%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2015 (FKVFX)	Blended Fund	0.57%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2020 (FFKDX)	Blended Fund	0.59%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2025 (FKTWX)	Blended Fund	0.62%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2030 (FFKEX)	Blended Fund	0.67%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2035 (FKTHX)	Blended Fund	0.68%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2040 (FFKFX)	Blended Fund	0.68%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2045 (FFKGX)	Blended Fund	0.69%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2050 (FFKHX)	Blended Fund	0.69%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K 2055 (FDENX)	Blended Fund	0.69%	No additional fees apply.
FID FREEDOM K INCOME (FFKAX)	Blended Fund	0.45%	No additional fees apply.
MIP II CL 1	Bond Investments	0.56%	No additional fees apply.
PIM TOTAL RT INST (PTTRX)	Bond Investments	0.46%	No additional fees apply.

I’ve highlighted the index fund for large-cap and the option with the next lowest expense ratio, and the same for the small-cap index fund. Those percentages indicate the amount the fund managers skim off the top every year. As a retirement saver, you never even see it because they don’t list this percentage in how much you make. They could do this (examples use a 1% expense ratio for arithmetic convenience):

Investment		$10,000
Increase		$500
Fee		-$105
Total		$10,395

Instead, they do this:

Investment		$10,000
Increase		$395
Total		$10,395

Notice in my example, the fee is a percentage of the total, not of the increase. An average fund manager might make the investor $500. An extraordinary fund manager might make $700. The average fund manager charges $105. The extra-ordinary one charges $107. Now, you might think you are getting a steal of $200 for only $2 more, but the real travesty is that the average manager gets $100 for very little work. To see that, look at an index fund.

The small-cap index fund I highlighted uses CRSP US Small Cap Growth Index to benchmark. Compared against their own benchmark, they lose over the last three months but just barely: return of 1.58% vs. the benchmark return of 1.6%. They compare very closely because all an index fund does is buy exactly what’s in the index.

For comparison, the actively managed fund uses Russell 2000 Value as it’s benchmark index. Compared against that, the managers lost 0.28% vs. the index’s gain of 1.78%. These managers are trying to beat the index by picking better investments than the index, charging for their “expertise”, and losing.

Now, that’s a short period of time and perhaps at other times the actively managed fund does better. But over time, index funds have better returns than actively managed funds. There are exceptions, but those options aren’t pertinent to the broad market investments that are available in a 401(k).

So basically, those investment options I have? I’m giving away $60 (for the large cap fund) to $115 (on the small cap fund) every year for nothing (on a baseline portfolio of $10,000). If I’m saving money every year for retirement, that amount grows every year, and cuts into the compounded interest every year.

All of this stuff is pretty well written about all over, but regular people don’t pay attention for a variety of reasons. I’m not naming my employer here, but they really should be doing better by their employees.

Originally published at King Rat. You can comment here or there.

One of the questions I have about Patrick Parker and Mary Murphy is when they emigrated from Canada to the United States. Their family appears in the Canadian census in Blanshard township, Perth county, Canada West on 11 Jan 1852. The next recorded place I have for them is in Glen Haven township, Grant county, Wisconsin on 1 Jun 1860.

I can narrow the time of emigration by looking at his son James Parker. James requested his first papers in January 1859 in the Grant County District Court. James married Ellen Neagle in Jun 1857 in Middlesex county, Canada West, just across the county line from Blanshard township. James has two sons in the 1860 US Census, John Patrick and Napolean. John Patrick’s birth was likely in July 1858 in Wisconsin. If correct, James emigrated to the United States between Jun 1857 and Jul 1858. More likely than not, Patrick emigrated with his son.

One record series I thought might confirm that is the series at the Family History Library, Blanshard township property tax assessment rolls, 1851-1899, specifically the film covering 1851 to 1866. I ordered it back in December, but a new job and other life issues kept me from reviewing it until this past week. Luckily, I remembered to renew the rental before it expired in February.

This is what I found. In 1851, Patrick Parker appears paying taxes on lot 16 in concession 9. This is the same lot and concession where he was recorded in the 1848 Canadian Census.

Blanshard Tax Roll 1851 – Patrick Parker

The microfilm is missing the years 1852 through 1854, but luckily Patrick shows up in 1855, 1856, and 1857, all for the same lot and concession. (Images below don’t include the second page which shows the concession/lot.)

Blanshard Tax Roll 1855 – Patrick Parker

Blanshard Tax Roll 1856 – Patrick Parker

Blanshard Tax Roll 1857 – Patrick Parker

In 1858, Patrick Parker is not to be found on the tax roll. Instead, a James McDonald owns lot 16 on concession 9. And the roll for 1857 has the name J. McDonald to the right of Patrick Parker in a column headed, Owner. I believe this means the land had been sold to James McDonald prior to the time of the assessment, or possibly it was a notation put in after the fact when James McDonald did purchase it. This narrows the sale of the property to late 1856 or 1857. The tax rolls appear to be filed in the spring of each year.

Blanshard Tax Roll 1858 – James McDonald

The sale of his property matches the dates of emigration for his son James, making it even more likely he emigrated about the same time. The next place to look is to see if any records show him purchasing land in Grant county Wisconsin about that time.

Lastly, based on plat maps of Blanshard township, here’s the location of the farm today:

Location of Patrick Parker’s farm in Blanshard on satellite

Originally published at King Rat. You can comment here or there.

FOGcon has been not as interesting or enjoyable as i had hoped. The panel with Seanan McGuire last night was interesting, but the rest have been people bloviating. For instance, a panel on Tim Powers magic systems turned into a panel arguing what is magic and what is technology. I left early.

So now i'm skipping stuff and reading.

I don't know what to say. You were a big part of my life for 3 years.

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