“If it were you, would you pick up the weapon?”

But really, I could trace my ancestry back to Eve and it wouldn’t mean a thing if the only thing I wrote down were the begats upon the begats, if it were only their names and dates without any clues or mysteries. I love more than anything finding actual quotes, newspaper references, pictures. Or even the specific lack of an answer that makes it more interesting to imagine. Why did she migrate back to England when only two generations before her grandmother had fled from it? Why did he give his name as that on the census when he always went by this? Why did they never marry?

 

A third-great-grand-uncle, Sylvanus Fiske, had an inspiring view of traveling:

”I desired to see something of the world that I lived in. When the eighties arrived I began to see a chance, and followed it up for eight years... It was always natural for me to gather all I could of nature's fine things. In crossing the fields my pockets would fill up in spite of me, but my general work of gathering commenced about the time I saw that I would be able to see something of the world."

Source:
Our County and it's people [sic!]
A descriptive work on Genesee County, New York
Edited by: F. W. Beers.
J.W. Vose & Co., Publishers, Syracuse, N. Y. 1890

 

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, my sixth-great-grandfather had two stone posts erected in front of  his house. They bore the admonition:

“Who speaks about me and my folks, he goes to his home and he sees his own folks. When they are without fault, he may speak about me and my Folks.”

Jannis Butin has been described as a large man with a dark complexion. He was said to have had an iron mind; he was not easy to handle and sometimes he was in trouble with his neighbors. This may account for the admonition on the gateposts.

Source:

The Butins in America by Quist, Oval. Des Moines, Iowa: unknown, 1971, 58 pgs.

Genealogy Thursday!

Well, apparently I’m in no position to mock “Stanley” considering some of the names in my own ancestry. “Quasha Ruth” always comes to mind as an example of ‘what were her parents thinking’. “Tubman Mankin” if he lived today would invariably be nicknamed Tubmankin. That poor girl “Delorma Bruce.” And then there’s Elder “Hatevil Nutter” who lived up more to his family than his personal name.

 

And then there’s the epithets. I am fond of epithets. In fact I think everyone should have one. Feel free to suggest what you think mine should be.

Through the “Alice Freeman Connection” (Why are there so many / sites about Freeman? What’s on the other side? ♪) we are connected to a bunch of epithets, which means we are connected to a bunch of nobility. Because nothing says blue blood more than a usually slightly demeaning word attached to one’s name for all eternity.

So, we are descended from such remarkables as:

Aethelred II "The Unready"

Eochaid "The Venomous"

Pippin “The Short” and his wife, Bertha Broadfoot

Elias “Boy” Giffard (who lived almost 70 years, and probably really hated that nickname by the end.)

Richard I "The Fearless" (I bet people pulled pranks on him all the time. “Ha! You totally flinched! Not so Fearless as all that, eh?”)

Heinrich I “The Fowler,” so called because he was checking his bird nets when they came to tell him he was to be king.

We are also descended from his wife, St. Mathilda. Call me naive but I hadn’t really thought about Saints having descendants. Though I suppose they have to find something else to occupy their time other than being Saintly.

“Those who forget the past.”

I thought I wouldn’t make this post at first, as it can be of no interest to anyone that isn’t related to me. But as most of my reading audience is related to me, perhaps it will be of interest to some of you. Like my mother and other members, I have an interest in our genealogy. I haven’t done much research for a while – obviously I didn’t cart the information I had with me when I came – but for some reason a couple of weeks ago my interest was renewed. Maybe it’s something about being in a country with no history of my own that makes me want to remind myself that yes, I do have it, and one to be proud of.

 

To start with, my mother had traced us back to Alice Freeman. She was born in England, married John Thompson and had several children, then emigrated to America with Robert Parke whom she later married. Following her line both forward and backwards came up with all sorts of interesting things.

For starters – we come from Alice’s daughter Bridget Thompson, my 11th great-grandmother. If instead you go through Alice’s daughter Dorothy – the second Dorothy, the first it seems died in childhood – you come to Lady Diana Frances Spencer. This makes Princes William and Henry twelfth cousins to my mother.

(That second Dorothy, by the way, married her step-brother. There are at least three other instances where our ancestors have married cousins of some sort. I’m pretty sure they did this on purpose just to drive their future genealogy-obsessed descendants crazy.)

That’s pretty nifty, I thought, but we’re not English anymore. I didn’t even know who Princess Di was until she died (I was very confused the day my elementary school principal interrupted our gym class, sobbing) so it would be hypocritical to suddenly find an interest now. But wouldn’t it be awesome if we were related to Obama?

This took a bit more work. Starting with his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham (…Stanley?!) I literally opened every branch of her family tree in different tags, looking for a name that sounded familiar. Finally, way back, I found Gilbert FitzRichard, Lord of Clare and Tonbridge, born circa 1065. Through his son Baldwin and his daughter Alice respectively he was both my and Obama’s really-great-Grandfather, making me the President’s 31st cousin. I’ll be expecting that Christmas card any day now, Barry.

(The line from Alice de Clare to us passes through Alice Freeman again – in genealogical terms, she gets around.)

So those are some interesting sideways connections – I’ll look into the past in a future post.