Relations

So this was all started when Clare and I were planning our trip through New England. I decided I wanted to visit my relations buried in the Hartford Ancient Burial Ground.

Then Melissa got the bright idea to take a short day trip to Doylestown, PA where another of my reputed relatives (by adoption) lived. Off we went to the James A. Michener Art Museum to see if we could find the direct link between him and my grandmother, who is also a Michener.

The curators shook their heads when I asked, and we visited the library next door and could find no direct link. So what does Omouse do when she is confounded and wants to know more? She uses the Googles.

Here's the summation:

Out of the number of people I'm supposedly related to:
David Crockett (dismissed long ago by Bruce Crockett)
James A. Michener (Grandma said)
Ulysses S. Grant (Dad)

Total found lurking in family tree? : Zero.

Other random people I'm related to:
Geoffrey Chaucer
Jane Austen
Queen Elizabeth II
Georgia O'Keefe
James Barrie
Andrew Johnson
Mark Twain
John Locke
Bette Davis
Humphrey Bogart
Henry David Thoreax
Emily Dickenson
Lucille Ball
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Laurence Olivier
Robert Louis Stevenson
Gregory Peck
Willa Cather

And the following First Ladies
Laura Bush
Jane Pierce
Anna Harrison
Elizabeth Truman
Edith Roosevelt
Florence Harding

Coolest

I guess having my 18th Grandfather as Chaucer has to be pretty cool. The rest are just mostly cousins.

After tracing back the lines, I found the Mathis's go back to 1680 Virginia. The Crocketts don't go back that far at all. Most of the higher connections are through Maude Hanks, who is my Mom's Great Grandmother on her dad's side.

This information set off a chain reaction, and Mel wanted her tree done as well. We found her line all the way back to Sviede the Viking and Alfonso the Slobberer.

We do take this information with a grain of salt... knowing that we rely mostly on the work of others when we get way back. It's actually rather easy once you get back before 1930 and you can troll the census data and the other people's trees to pull in information.

Right. Soon to be off to Ikea!