Thing was, his beard had been white since he was in his twenties, while his hair stayed naturally dark deep into his seventies.

His Celtic blood, maybe! (In its original form, "Byrne" means "raven". Gotta think that means a lot of ancestors with black hair, not a bunch of bird enthusiasts!)

Sometimes I wonder if they are in any way aware of me -- of their "famous" relative. More likely I vanished completely off their radar when my parents and I moved to Canada

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Do they share the family name? Maybe they've reached fame, too, and you have no idea about them.

You look a LOT like your Dad.

You folk with nuclear families have experienced something quite alien to me. I grew up with all my blood relatives (other than my parents) 6000 miles away. Strangers, for all intent.

(Amusing little "time warp" in the 1982 photo... the woman to your father's far right looks like she could've stepped out of 1962!)

When Dad died, I realized there was no further need for me EVER to return to Calgary! Friends I have who are still there would much rather come here, to visit New York.

Just the other day, I was chatting with a friend and former neighbor, whose mother, age 98, had just died. He noted that as he got on the plane to fly back to Connecticut, he realized, like me, that there was no further reason for him to ever return to his childhood home.

It's a kind of microcosm of life in the 21st Century. Not so very long ago, it was unusual for people to travel far from where they were born and grew up. Especially unusual for them to actually relocate to distant cities. Birth, marriage, children, death -- all happened within a few miles of the same place. Now, I look on my own life, and I'd crossed the Atlantic three times before I was eight years old, zig-zagged across most of North America, and, by eventually landing in Connecticut, returned almost half the distance back from whence I came!

By comparison, my late mother-in-law (born 1911) lived her whole life in the same house!

Interesting. I've lived nearly my entire life in Montreal and from time to time feel the need to revisit (from the outside) places I've lived, gone to school to, or worked at: all on the island of course.

Dunno why, other than I find it comforting knowing I've never strayed very far from my place of birth.