I've never done an in-depth study on my family background.

You know, the kind of in-depth study where I find out who my great-great-great-great-grandparents were and whose theirs were and so forth and so on back down the line.

In fact, I know very little about where the Slone family comes from, or for that matter, where the Collins family stems from. Collins is my mother's maiden name.

I know that a twig of the Slone branch of my family tree, the twig that I stem off from, are descendants of Native Americans. At least, that's what I've been told all my life. I think the last 100 percent Native American in our family was my dad's grandmother or something along those lines.

Anyhow, Slone itself is a Slavic name. It means "soldier." There are a couple of countries that almost have "Slone" in them. Slovenia and Slovakia are the closest examples. Slovenia is geographically squeezed in between Italy, Croatia and Austria.

Slavs account for more than 200 million of the world's population. Slavic people include Russians, Poles, Ruthenians, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, Slovenes, Ukrainians, Bulgars, Montenegrins and others.

Then there's my mother's side, the Collins.

Collins is both an Irish and an English name. The most famous Collins, of course, is Michael Collins -Ê"the man who made Ireland." I have no idea if he's any relation or not.

Because of family facial features, I'd guess that the branch of Collins my mother's family stems off from is Irish. Of course, I don't think one can judge a family's roots on the human body. An Italian-American friend of mine when I was in college thought I might have some Italian heritage, but I simply don't see it. That doesn't mean it's not so, I just don't see it, is all.

However, any guesses I make as to the lineage of my family tree are just stabs in the dark at this point. Until I do an actual background investigation, I'll never really know who I'm related to or where my ancestors came from. For all I know, somewhere along the line I could have Asian or African ancestors. Maybe an ancestor made up the name Slone when his real last name was Jones or Presley.

There are, after all, different ways to spell Slone. There's Slone, Sloan and Sloane. The last figure I saw on how many Slones were in the United States, with all the different spellings, was about 44,000. The figure was released about 10 years ago so I'm sure that has grown.

Collins is pretty much unchangeable. I don't know how many Collins exist in the United States but I'm going to guess there are just as many Collins as there are Slones.

Without proof, though, there's no certainty.

What's got me thinking about my line, especially the Slone side, is the bombing in Kosovo. The majority of the people in that area of the world are Slavic. Some could even be related to me, distantly, but nevertheless related.

People talk about the United States not having any interest in that part of the world. The region doesn't affect us, some say. Well, considering that the majority of American ancestors came from somewhere else in the world, I think there is an interest, no matter how distant.

The chance of me being related to those people in that part of the world is great, and to me, that is a reason to have an interest in them. Yeah, some of my ancestors were "original" inhabitants of the United States, but some were also Slavic. And I'm not the only person in this country with ancestors from another land. There would be no U.S. without the immigrants.

The only thing that really separates citizens of the United States from Europeans, Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, South Americans and Australians is the oceans. Our blood is the same. Our roots trace back to one another.

For those who believe in God, it is said and written, we are all His children. For those who are atheists, we all came from the same amoeba in the water. There's got to be a start to everything and we're all connected to the first person, amoeba or ape.

Just because we are not the same color, same shape or live in the same part of the world does not excuse us from not being concerned about our "brothers" and "sisters."

Growing up and going to church, the Christians in the church always called one another brother or sister even though law may not recognize them as being so. Their last names could be Taylor and Thompson, but they called each other "brother." One could be an African-American and another would be as white as snow, but they called each other "sister."

Why? Because they, as Christians, believe they are all the children of God. And Christianity isn't the only religion that believes so.

So, in that sense, the men and women in Kosovo, Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and wherever else there is conflict are our brothers and sisters and that alone gives us reason to be concerned about them.

Until we all trace our roots and realize we are all the same family, conflicts will continue and nations will continue to think of themselves as one country, instead of a one-world family. [[In-content Ad]]