Quote:
Originally Posted by desertgrandma
Really? You aren't shiteing me? I envy people who have family histories. I have none other than knowing my grandparents were from the Nashville area. so sad. No names, no history. Oh, my mom did like to use to tell me her grandmother was a Cherokee princess. Usually while she was drinking. Like 90% of the people claiming partial indian heritage today don't say the same thing......  |
Oh, hell, DG .... I can go back to about the year 100 for family history. However, it's a long single root at that point rather than a big bunch of them.
Cerdic, King of the West Saxons is my (100th??) great grandfather;
William the Conquerer is my (50th??) great grandfather
I lose my direct royal descent at Edward III, however .... such a pity.
I was really excited when I found out I was actually the descendant of a king!! Whoooo hooo!! Then, I did the math. I realized I've got about as much genetic material from William the Conquerer as I do with the next stranger I meet on the street.
In fact ... approximately 25 percent of English people living today are descendants of William the Conquerer. They just can't prove it .... I can.
I've got a PDF of my family tree ... it was created in about 1930 and sits in one of the family homes, Woodlawn Plantation, in Alexandria, Virginia. The really odd part is that they have my mother down as a son ... but ... we can't all be perfect.
My mother was a Lewis ... of that wonderful family that gave us Meriweather Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition. We're also descendants of the Warners of Warner Hall ... which makes me a sixth (??) cousin of the current Queen of England. Sadly, cousin Liz has never once invited me to Balmoral for the Christmas holidays.
But no .... I'm not kidding about any of it. It's just my family history. Those are my relatives ... both recent and distant. I find it interesting ... it makes history, as a subject, more personal. However, sometimes it bothers me that every damn king in my direct line is portrayed as a homicidal looney.
Ah ... such is life.
Back in the 70s, when I was working as a clerk at UCLA Medical Center, I worked with a guy named Al Freeman. He was/is black, and the last name is pretty much a dead giveaway that he is descended from slaves in at least one line.
So, "Roots" came out, and Al got all excited about trying to trace his lineage. He came into work one day looking like the cat that got the cream. So happy.
He told me that he had actually found the ship the carried his ancestor over to America (as slave cargo). AND ... that he had been sold to a plantation owner that had KEPT all of his family until the Civil War!!
The name of that plantation?? Woodlawn in Alexandria.
I said, "Ummmm, Al?"
"Yes"
"I don't know how else to say this ... but, my family owned your family."
Then, I took him out for a steak dinner, we had a good laugh (about how our families would probably be rolling over in their graves if they saw us laughing over dinner). And .... we sort of put the whole nasty slavery thingie behind us and got on with our friendship.
I lost track of Al after I left UCLA. Nice guy.
