Always, there are characters who come dancing across the page with a smile and a youthful "aw shucks," and one of them is Steve Wenner, who showed up in the boonies knocking on my door on Sunday afternoon with his wife Brenda.

They had been out in the forest along some trail where his father's ashes had been scattered some years ago.

Just as soon as he walked in the door, Steve said, "You know what? I discovered that I'm a direct descendant of Vladimir the Great of Russia - my 32nd great grandfather."

How'd you find that out?

"On Ancestry," he said excitedly. And I'm thinking, Who the hell...