I haven't been checking my blog, or reading the blogs I follow for a couple weeks. Sorry! I'll catch up with you all soon. Instead I've been obsessed over genealogy. I've been working on families for a niece-in-law, and for a nephew-in-law.
I finished my niece-in-law's tree. Both her parents didn't know their fathers' genealogies, so that was fun to help them understand where they came from. I'm still obsessed with my nephew-in-law's family tree, and I will be until I've found every bit of documentation I can find going back as far as I possibly can. It's a game. I am so happy when I have a juicy family tree to explore.
His last name is Newton. Of course, Sir Isaac Newton is a many times removed great uncle. He's likely the great uncle of almost all the Newton's in America. Sir Isaac actually helped me with this tree, pointing out to me which uncle of his (Sir Isaac's) my nephew-in-law descends from. Big help.
Apparently when Sir Isaac was being knighted, he provided Queen Anne with a handwritten short tree that proved his connection to some Newton who was his relative. Stunning find.
Amazing the things you can find on the internet these days that help us trace the histories of those that came before us... All of the struggles they had to go through to get where we are today. That is a nice treat that you are giving your family members!
ReplyDeleteThanks, they seem to enjoy it as much as I do.
DeleteWell THAT's interesting. I've heard that most of us have a famous person in our past, given how much smaller the world's population was 500 or 1,000 years ago. I'm supposedly a Mayflower descendant -- that's as famous as we get, as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. Do you happen to know the last name of your Mayflower descendent?
DeleteWow, that's quite the relative to have.
ReplyDeleteMy nephew-in-law was quite happy to hear it.
DeleteThere was one side of my family (related to my maternal grandmother) that lived on the other side of the Pennines - the mountainous spine that separates two constantly warring English counties: our Yorkshire (white rose) and Lancashire (red rose), contestants in the Wars of The Roses which that runs through several Shakespeare plays. My father drove me and my two brothers over to see them - just once. They turned out to be sneering rough-dicks, sons of the earth. Frank to a fare-thee-well. They told my father if he cut down on his eating he'd see his toes more often.
ReplyDeleteFor various reasons I didn't get on with my father but I was suddenly struck by the fact that adults - as well as kids - could be rude to each other. Even more so when related. Much later I reflected on my own life and realised I'd regularly been rude to all sorts of people (some of this tendency spilling over into my blogs). This didn't worry me too much but I wondered whether DNA had the ability to cross mountain ranges
Sir Isaac Newton was arguably Britain's greatest scientist, a man of enormous analytical intellect. He was also very rude - no, scrub that, definitely unpleasant. Before you you push ahead with your genealogical studies, make sure you have the true-grit to withstand the fact that you may be descended from slobs. And English slobs, at that - the worst kind.
I have lots of English (and Scottish, and German, and French) in my genes. I imagine they are all slobs. I'm not sure why I think that's funny, but I do! You and your brothers should have beat them up. Or challenged them to a duel.
DeleteI know very little about my family tree. I don't know anything prior to my grandparents, and I have no curiosity about who preceded them. But if you're into family trees, I'm sure it's a very engrossing hobby. You never know what you might discover!
ReplyDeleteYes, it's kind of like Christmas for me whenever I find something new.
DeleteFascinating
ReplyDeleteIt is.
DeleteGenealogy fascinates me, too. I've spent many fruitful hours looking through censuses and other records, both for my family and for families of friends. I can trace my Norwegian ancestors back for centuries because of the carefully kept Norwegian church and farm records. My German, Irish, and English ancestors can only be traced to the 1700s, but that's so much more than my mother knew about her side of the family. There are two outstanding mysteries that I continue to try to piece together through DNA cousins who seem to be in those family lines. The great grandfather on my mother's side abandoned my grandfather and his mother in the 1870s in Boston and the great great grandfather on my father's side abandoned my great grandmother and her mother in the 1850s in Iowa. Every so often there is a small breakthrough but it never goes far. I'm nothing if not patient with uncertainty.
ReplyDeleteI've got a few of those mysteries as well. I've been searching for the name of my 5th great grandmother since I first started doing genealogy many years ago. I'm not sure I'll ever find her. But what fun the search as been!
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