POLL: Do you believe that Alan Turing was autistic?

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Yep.....and I know the ship, too.

They came here in 1910. My great-grandfather was already there; he had an apartment in Manhattan. All I know is his name. I also know that my grandmother had a brother who passed away rather young, and two sisters who lived until the 1990s. One of them had a Yiddish accent; the others a Bronx accent.

My grandmother changed her first name three times since she arrived here, I found out. She didn't attain citizenship until 1936.

Ouch. Name changes are rough without hints that might suggest a birth name (or, at least, a parent's name). From this evidence we might presume that her birth name didn't mean much to her (unlikely inheritance, or other legal reasons; even a personal avoidance of her parents or relatives after a falling out).

One of my great-grandmothers might have murdered or conspired to murder her husband. Nobody in our family knew this until the 1980s when my father learned that she had been incarcerated at the Idaho Penitentiary in Boise. Wondering why, he visited the now closed penitentiary where the docents explained the reason she had been incarcerated. It took years for us to learn her second marriage name; we learned that she ended up moving to Butte, Mont., and died there. My friends and I have several "brick-wall" or "missing" ancestors.

So, I guess I am suggesting that you just keep trying to solve the mystery. Genealogical information is always getting updated and improved. What seemed a dead-end last year could be a trove of evidence today. Keep trying. Meanwhile, you do have some knowledge of your grandmother's life. Some family historians fill in the temporary gaps like yours by describing the details of the communities where their ancestors were born or lived. Doing this tends to give a sense of communal personality of their own ancestors.

Good luck.

Truthfully, I feel like it was an attempt to "Americanize" herself.

I don't recall the Yiddish name. She was Jeannette during the 1920 Census. When I knew her, her name was Jean.

Her sisters, ultimately, became Bella and Fay. They had Yiddish names on the boat. I remember seeing Bella and her husband when I was six, and not again until shortly before she passed away. She had an excellent, eccentric sense of humor. Her husband dressed like Ed Norton to a tee. Even the hat! I remember he had a similar voice to him, too.

Fay I must have seen as a young baby--bu I have no memory of her.

There was lots of discrimination against Jews...and against Yiddish names. You couldn't bring up certain things with my grandmother. I wouldn't be surprised if she became Jeannette on Ellis Island.

In 1920, at least six peopl lived in one household--Jeannette (my grandmother) was the youngest sister. She was a student. All the others were in the haberdashery trade in some capacity. I get the feeling the father owned a store or something.

My mother has painful memories of her childhood in the Bronx during the Depression and World War II. Bringing this stuff up would invite trouble.

Yes, I forgot to mention that many surnames were Americanized (by choice or force).

China, during the 1930's and 1940's, was having a dramatic upheaval, the disintegration of the Kuomintang by the new communist party. Many Chinese citizens were killed during the Chinese Civil War, including those who had become addicted to opium just after the Boxer Rebellion. Many escaped with their lives. Those who made it off the mainland changed their name (just in case) once they landed in Malaysia, the West Indies, New York, etc. My grandfather was one of them. What my real last name is, then, is a mystery. My grandfather's since been long gone.

I know too many people for whom genealogy is a painful affair.

Surnames.....and first names.

A former partner told me that he neither knew the name of, nor met, his maternal grandparents. He suggested that they ended their relationship with their daughter when she married a black man. My partner did say that they had completed much of the grandparents' genealogy depsite the rift. I didn't press the matter further.

So, I guess that there are many reasons to lose ancestors.

We will probably never definitly know. Expert retro diagnosers like Attwood say things such as "likely Autistic" , "many traits". All of this was he or was he not?, and how the film dealt with his "Aspieness" takes away from the central message of the film

When discussing Turing or Einstien or Gates that is the important thing. I have no problem saying people who did great things had many Autistic traits and some of them were Autistic.

A quote from an old Rolling Stones song is relevant

I'm all with you!

That's not the only method we should use in building a Spectrum Rights movement, but it is one pretty good method. For example, the LGBTQ community has done something similar with Walt Whitman, Leonardo de Vinci, etc.

Now, if the person is still living, it's their choice whether they choose to come out or not. Perhaps the most we should say is, "a unique, creative person who marches to his or her own drummer."

And when a person dies, maybe there should be a period roughly analogous to the baseball hall of fame. Well, we can't do five years, but maybe six months out of respect? And then we can discuss whether or not we can elevate the person to the Spectrum Hall of Fame.

========

and the next level in activism is to point out, hey, I shouldn't have to be famous in order to be treated with respect and courtesy.

I think that's an excellent idea: a Spectrum Hall of Fame.

First induction: Isaac Newton

When I read things on the internet like, "Oh, there's Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Too bad they suffered from autism."

I immediately think:

"Oh, there's the great pugilist Muhammad Ali. Too bad he's suffering from negroism."

or

"Oh, there's the great pianist and songwriter Elton John. Too bad he suffers from homosexuality."

It may very well be that the intrinsic properties, and society's management of, Muhammad Ali's blackness and Elton John's gayness were paramount to their success.

But I could be wrong.

Obviously, I can't tell if Newton was autistic.

His "odd" singlemindedness probably led to the promulgation of his theories, though.

I support the idea of a Spectrum Hall of Fame. WrongPlanet.net comes close to the ideal whereby nominees can be discussed into the future.

^ So if I list the things I've accomplished over the years I stand a chance to make the Spectrum HoF?

Well, on a smaller scale, wouldn't it be cool to have a book published where every (short) chapter is a description of common autists? Sure, the book would also include a list of famous autists, but I would be far more interested in people like us.