Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog

This isn’t going to be some “because I’m good enough, smart enough, and goshdarnit people like me” thing where I talk up my virtues to make myself feel better. That part is a daily struggle with the aspects which I know are good versus those that need a whole lot of work. Tonight, I merely refer to the fact that no one else has the same name as me.

It is a long-held family “fact” that anyone with our last name is related somehow, because there was only one Doudna that came over from the Old World. Maybe you remember him—the kidnaped ship’s swab. Based on the results from this website, it doesn’t look like we’ve been the most prolific clan there ever was. Hmm. I reconsider. That’s 442 active (living) Doudnas (2000 Census). Okay, maybe that’s not bad for an unusual name that’s only been here since 1804.

I remember the first time I ran across my last name out in the wild. I was reading Discover magazine and saw a citation for Jennifer Doudna, a microbiologist. I just looked her up and it seems that in the intervening years, she’s become very accomplished in her field.

If you do a search on me, everything that comes back will be about the person writing to you now, though I’m not nearly as high-powered as Jennifer. But I’ve got one thing she doesn’t—uniqueness. There are two of her.

March 3, 2011