Science, Parascience

Audubon, John James

Audubon was born in what is now Haiti, the son of a well-to-do married French naval captain and slave trader and his Creole servant-mistress. His mother died soon after his birth and his fa... [more]

Bartram, John

Bartram, born to a Quaker family in Pennsylvania, was orphaned when he was 13. He taught himself botany, medicine and surgery while working as a farm laborer. He was appointed Botanist to t... [more]

Brickley, James

Brickley's mother died when he was four and he was physically and emotionally abused by his step-mother for years. When he was 10 his father discovered the abuse and he was placed with his ... [more]

d'Alembert, Jean le Rond

d'Alembert was a foundling , discovered near the church of St. Jean-le-Rond in Paris (hence his name), but he was in fact the son of Madame de Tencin and General Destouches-Canon. His fath... [more]

Foyster, Adelaide

Foyster and O'Neil, adoptive half-brother and -sister, are associated with Borley Rectory, known as "the most haunted house in Britain." Adelaide is the adopted daughter of the Re... [more]

Grey Owl

Note there are several versions of almost everything written about Grey Owl; in the following entry I give alternatives separated by a "/" without any particular preference for wh... [more]

Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard was a religious visionary from early childhood and was an oblate , sent by her noble parents when she was eight to a convent to be raised (she was their tenth child, and consider... [more]

Jobs, Steven Paul

Jobs, with Stephen Wozniac, co-founded Apple Computers, after developing their first machine in a garage. Jobs' company was also the brains behind the first computer-animated film Toy Story... [more]

Kepler, Johannes

Kepler was born in Weil der Stadt, Swabia. His father was a merchant who went as a mercenary soldier to fight in the Spanish Netherlands when he was two. His mother was the daughter of an i... [more]

Kutner, Lawrence

Kutner is a graduate of Oberlin College and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a syndicated columnist, broadcaster and author of five books on child care: Pregnancy and Your... [more]

Little Sun, Roy

Little Sun is a white man, born in Indonesia and he spent the first 14 years of his life there. He claims to be the adopted son of a Hopi religious elder, Grandfather Titus. His position... [more]

O'Neil, Robert Vincent, Jr.

Foyster and O'Neil, adoptive half-brother and -sister, are associated with Borley Rectory, known as "the most haunted house in Britain." Adelaide is the adopted daughter of the Re... [more]

Seki Takakazu Kowa

Seki was born into a samurai warrior family, the second son of Nagaakira Utiyama, but was adopted as a young boy by another noble family, the Seki Gorozayemon. He was a self-educated chi... [more]