I posted in Medical about my 80 y/o mother having weird sxs 40 yrs ago. And my grandfather died of Parkinson Disease.

We all spent much time in the woods on a lake in Penna. Lots of deer, mice, rats...

I lived in northern PA until the early 70's. When I moved to the SE part I was shocked by the number of ticks down here.

The first recorded case of what is believed to have been Borrelia burgdorferi infection was in Germany in 1883 identified by Dr. Alfred Buchwald.

In 1909, Dr. Arvid Afzelius presented a report to the Swedish Society of Dermatology an illness that came from the bite of a tick. This illness was referred to at the time as Lipschutz's Syndrome, Afzelius's erythema, & Lipschutz' erythema.

My great grandmother was Felona Clemmons. She was Sam's niece.

The only thing I can tell you about him was that the Clemmons family was ashamed of him and denied they even knew him (much less were related to him)!

Here is a photo with 2 of my relatives. Helen Keller (from my father's side) and Samuel (from my mom's side).

Wow Kara!

i'd guess if anyone claimed kinship they would've been ostracized.

For one First Night, in montclair,nj, i saw an impersonator,who could have been his clone, with the white hair, white suit, and twain's voice,and the cigar. the guy did a few of his works. as i recall, the guy even adapted twain's assessment to the then current events.
he was good.

Researchers tested the ticks' DNA, found that they were the same tick as those being called Ixodes Damini ( which some in Research thought was a totally different, possibly new tick)

They also found the DNA of Lyme-bearing spirochetes in the collected tick's gut.

That is why Ixodes Damini is no longer used as the name of a tick. In taxonomy, first come gets the name for eternity. So the black-legged tick is known as Ixodes scapulari east of the Rockies, and Ixodes pacificus on the West coast.

The ticks were in a collection that had been in the Smithsonian since the 1800's. That collection was examined by Jim Oliver, an entomologist hero of mine, at the U. of Georgia (I believe.) Somewhere I have his paper on those studies.