"I am indifferent to genealogy" Topic

I only knew my grandmother on my mother's side. All my other grandparents were dead before I was born. I would have a hard time coming up with their names, to be honest.
This annoys some of my relatives, who are very much into "tracing the family tree". I am not.
I believe we have some family legends that one g-g-g-father was a canal boat pilot on the Susquehanna River. He brought his wife the first sewing machine in the area. Maybe. That's nice, but so what?
Another ancestor may have fought at Gettysburg. Again, nice, but again, so what?

I respect all people who care about this, as I respect most hobbies. Good for you, if you can trace back to the Mayflower. But, please do not be puzzled if *I* do not share your enthusiasm. My interests are dfferent. YMMV

As a wargamer does that make me odd? (My indifference to genealogy, that is. I already know I'm odd.)

To me, genealogy has all the aspects of academia I love – research, history, questions – and all with the possibility of explaining the milieu of yourself. That being said, I don't expect others to be interested in why certain phrases were used by my ancestors. Maybe some would be interested in family connections to wars. My colleague is a McCoy (of the Hatfields and McCoys). She has some great stories.

If you believe the Irish genealogists, I am a descendant of Macbeth and the mother of William the Conqueror (along with some badass vikings).

Steve
cavalcadewargames.com
nycjadie.wordpress.com

If you believe the Irish genealogists,

Well, that is it in a nutshell for me.
My elderly aunt, the nun, claimed any and all Carrolls who were famous.
This grafted us unto the Carrolls of Maryland, who included:
1) Charles, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, and star of "National Treasure".
2) John, the first Catholic bishop of the USA, brother of Chas.
3) Daniel, Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Cousin of John and Chas.

Unfortunately for Sister Philippa's theory, our branch did not come over from the Auld Sod until the early part of the 20th C. (As a testament to my indifference, I do not know when.)

I was adopted at birth… so, as far as I know, I've never met any blood relations… no clue of family medical history or if I'm descended from Russians, English or Jews.
I've never had much interest in finding out either.

I think that 20% or more of Irish share the DNA of O'Neill.

I like it, but I'm not fanatical about it.

But your genes aren't indifferent to you :)

I lack the time and inclination to bother. My father's family are Irish, and my maternal great-grandfather was a German Jew who married a gentile here in the UK in the 19th century.

It would probably make interesting reading…

I'm allegedly of Dutch-Austrian-Belgian-French-Spanish-and Yugoslavian ancestry, related to playwright Molière.

My family on my Grandmother's side had the first electric light in the village and one of the last V bombs fired at Antwerp landed in front of the cigar factory they owned.

I've never really been curious about my ancestry.

Montgomery Gentry put it best for me:

I come from a long line of losers
Half outlaw half boozers
I was born with a shot glass in my hand
I'm part hippie a little red neck
I'm always a suspect
My blood line made me who I am

Yep, family traditions are not facts.

My grandmother maintained that she had a plate which had belonged to Flora McDonald (she of the Bonnie Prince Charlie on the lam story), passed down through a forebear whom I haven't been able to place in our family tree. As there are precious few Scots in our tree, it seems most unlikely. My mother's and grandmother's genealogical notes refer to some Maxwell woman who had owned it, but with no indication how she is related. It's a damned ugly plate, too, so I wish my cousin who has it well of it.

Nanny also said that family tradition held that our Brown Bess musket had been carried in the French and Indian War by a grand-something-or-other, who with his seven sons, were known to the Indians as "The old devil and the seven young devils". The fact that the musket is an India Pattern Brown Bess, not produced before 1803 (and this one was subsequently modified with a percussion lock), presents a problem.

Then there are the two conch shells, supposedly used to call the men in from the fields to the blockhouses in case of Indian attack. That there were no blockhouses in our part of southern Maine, and that we didn't get there until after the Revolution (the farm was a grant for service in same), and that Nanny used to spend winters in Florida collecting seashells, makes me wonder. They make a very nice sound, though.

Elder William Brewster was on the Mayflower, and we *can* trace a clear line of descent from him, so there is that much. So Mayflower descendants and service in the Revolution we can legitimately claim. (Also, through her family, Nancy is qualified to become a member of the Damned Annual Row, or DAR, should she choose, which she doesn't.)

Mother was a Hutchinson, and there were supposed connections to both Thomas (royal governor of Massachusetts) and Anne (Puritan heretic); that we are related to both, or even either, seems highly unlikely, but that was the claim.

Anne's only surviving daughter (after the family was wiped out by Indians) named Susanna married a Cole, and obviously that line produced Coles, not Hutchinsons. Thomas returned to England after the Revolution, and "our" Hutchinsons were already on the ground in New England afore him.

The problems arise because there are similarly named male and female Hutchinsons in both the early c.17th and late c.18th, and I believe there was a conflation of unrelated individuals. For example, an Anne Hutchinson unrelated to the one who got herself booted out of the Massachusetts Bay Company also had a daughter, also named Susanna, who also married a Cole, and like the heretic's daughter, settled in Rhode Island. The name pool was sufficiently limited that you see the same Christian names and surnames occurring again and again, frequently with these sorts of coincidental connections. Nanny was a bit too quick, I think, to latch onto one name with an historic or romantic connection, without doing due diligence.

If I live long enough, I'll get it sorted out eventually. If not, I'll leave it to the kids to pursue. As it is for Steve, it's an enjoyable exercise in research and problem-solving.

Allen

I am indifferent, as well, with one exception – how my grandparents died. I would like to know if there is a medical history I need to be concerned with.

I enjoy genealogy, as Steve said, for the history and research aspects, and I know quite a lot about my ancestors. That being said, no matter who I am related to it doesn't pay my bills or put food on my table.

I have zero desire to join the Mayflower Society, Sons of the American Revolution, etc., etc. My sister joined the DAR, but quickly became disillusioned and quit.

Genealogy does have some effect on this hobby for me though, because if I'm going to build an army for a given period I'll always start with one in which I had an ancestor, and I'll sometimes avoid getting their opponents (I've got Yorkists for the WOTR, but not Lancastrians for example).

My favorite ancestor was the guy who was the first person thrown in the stocks in the Plymouth Colony – for not attending church and being drunk and using profanity on a Sunday.

Because highlandcatfrog is out here in SoCal as well, it reminds me that I need to do some work on my great-grandfather's two brothers, who moved out here in the land rush of the 1880s and bought a rancho in what is now just about downtown Los Angeles.

I have some of their letters, which tell how wonderful the crops were, but no-one ever documented what happened to them subsequently.

Great-grandfather was an odd bird. Married three times. The first produced a daughter; mother and daughter show up in the census at one point. No idea what happened to them.

Then he married again and produced a son. That wife got fed up with him, left with the boy, and moved to the Napa Valley to join her uncle (an earlier California pioneer; once a Mormon, but lapsed, he had made a pile in San Francisco selling pans and shovels to the '49ers, and then established the spa resort of Calistoga); their descendants are still around.

And then he married again, and produced our line. Great-grandmother was apparently grim and determined enough to put up with him, and in her photos she sure looks it.

Allen

Drunks and Poor White Trash….

When you come across an entry reading "Mother Mazie Fenwick occupation common prostitute" in the records it kind of finishes the male part of that line.

x42

I've got early Mormon roots in one line of my family. They took to genealogy in a big way. The only thing is, those husbands sure married often and had a lot of kids. Several years ago, I found a journal that a collector transcribed online. It was written by my great-great-grandmother and her journey on the Mormon trail. She was married off and left alone on a farm. The husband would visit every three weeks or so, when he wasn't busy with the other wives. The woman had a terrible life. She ended up giving birth to her children without assistance and many of them succumbed to malnutrition, disease and weather at an early age.

Had another ancestor who was the sole survivor of an Indian massacre in the northeast. They scalped her head and she had huge scars for the rest of her life. A book was written about her. I finally acquired a copy thanks to the internet.

I have an interest and I've been lucky to receive lots of information from relatives who have done research. The earliest known relation is a great-something-or-other-maternal grandmother born about 1690 near Trondheim, Norway. Research that old in Norway is challenging: few surviving records, no family surnames, and apparently little imagination when naming kids! The above grandmother was named Anna. She had a sister named Anna (and no the name wasn't reused after the first Anna died; they were both alive at the same time.) That feature was reused several times over the years.

I have a great-something uncle that served in the 14th (iirc) Wisconsin Volunteers in the American Civil War. He enlisted at the age of 42 and apparently spent his service guarding bridges in the rear area behind Sherman's march.

Legend has it that the family homestead paper was signed by Abraham Lincoln. But that paper was destroyed when the courthouse burned down around 1900. Oh well.

I think I like the research is that I'm a younger child of a younger child from a huge family. Most of my relatives from my grandparent's generation were deceased before I was born so all I have are stories.

I have a great uncle that was born in a Swiss women's prison.
I think his dad was the warden or something like that.

No sweat John. It's kind of nice to be able to say "I'm connected to so and so by blood" but not essential. I'm interested in my genealogy less for the famous names in my family than for the stories of who they were and how they got here.

My mother, before she died was into genealogy and dug up some interesting facts on my maternal grandfathers's bloodline. His name was Thomas Henry Symons and her research indicated that here was a Thomas Henry Symons going back at least to the 1600's in his family. Interesting. A few years ago I was digging around a Trafalgar site and found one who served aboard one of Nelson's ships in the battle.

On my father's side the only notable name was my grandmother's 2nd cousin, Imre Nagy who was Hungarian Prime Minister during the 1956 uprising. That's about the extent of fame in my family. It's really not as important as the folks themselves and their stories.

My brother did a bit of research on my father's side a few years ago. Didn't get back far. The Lanarkshire community they were from has disappeared completely, no church records although we do believe there were criminal ones.
On a visit to Edinburgh I checked the rolls of honour in the castle. Only 3 or 4 McClumphas died in WWI and one of them was a Geordie who ended up in the Black Watch. By WWII they had learnt how to lay low, not one lost in action.

I'm a Euro-American.

I've really got into genealogy the last year or so.

I've always been fascinated by the story of my direct relation on my mother's side who was a staff trumpeter in Napoleon's 12th Dragoons.

But my more recent research has found a wide range of interesting people, for example the 16th century "poor strange beggars", the female of whom "pretends to be married", the first of my ancestors in the Dutch town of Weert. Then there was the more recent relation who was killed by being hit on the head by a windmill sail – surely a spectacularly Dutch way to go!

But, to a degree, it is indeed just an academic exercise – by mathematical law, thousands of other people also share direct line kinship with that 12th Dragoon trumpeter. So it is nothing particularly special (other than the little frisson of pride it gives me).

I think to a certain extend its the access to your genealogy that sparks the interest. My mother is a genealogy nut and has produced, what I refer to as, the dead sea scroll. This document is a family tree that goes back to 1066 -- probably 30-40 feet long and 15-18 feet wide in places.

There are a lot of dead ends. There are also some remarkable 'connections'. I had ancestors that fought for the Normans (Tancredi) and the Saxons (Williams) at Hastings. The Clinton family and the Williams family (Cromwell -- his last name was really Williams) fought on opposite sides with the Clintons being run out of England for their trouble.

Then, much later, My Paternal Grandfather (a Clinton) married a woman who's Maternal Grandfather was directly descended from Cromwell. An unlikely reunion.

I find stuff like this interesting.

mjc

And I agree … family stories are not real history, as they get so embellished over time.

Take, for example, my above-mentioned dragoon trumpeter relative, Petrus van Dooren. A distant cousin of mine recalls his grandmother telling him stories about Petrus's experiences during the Napoleonic Wars. But with a wargamer's knowledge of this period, you can see how unlikely at least some of these stories are!

• ‘When he marched from Maastricht to Weert Petrus played the trumpet the whole way, among other tunes the 'March of Austerlitz'.

• ‘He was wounded, shot in his right buttocks during the campaign of Paris. We thought we must feel ashamed because Pierre took to his heels, but we were told that the
trumpeter always stood with his back to the enemy to send his signals to the troops!'

• ‘It was said that he was very proud of his period in the French army, and he liked to show everyone the flag from his trumpet.'

• ‘He threw a three-pronged fork at the customs officers, because they laughed at the defeat of Napoleon. The fork stuck in the door of the customs house. He was let off because of age.'

• ‘The most interesting story: when Napoleon marched through Weert, he saw Petrus standing on the bridge over the canal, and called at him, ‘Allo, Pierre, ça va?' (‘Hello, Pierre, how's it going?') When I told my grandmother that the canal was built after the death of Napoleon, she said perhaps the bridge was already there!'

I do not want to denigrate x42's ancestor, but what would an uncommon prostitute be?

And I am also not interested in my kin. Too much trouble with those living.

I've never given a tinker's damn about who is in my family shrubbery. I never knew them and they did nothing for me so I can't be bothered. The NOW is so much more important than the THEN, or even the NEXT…

There are some that say our familial indoctrination is the product of 14 generations of traditions.

I would go one step further and say that educators are the product of 14 generations of educators.

mjc

My paternal side turns out to have been a bunch of Scandinavian Mormons, but my grandfather turned Methodist to marry my grandmother; apart from knowing I'm Swedish and Danish (what a SHOCK in Minnesota! ), that's about it for that side.

My most famous relative on my mother's side, though, turns out to have been this guy!

link

The funny thing is that I have a book about him, and, the pince-nez excepted, look almost exactly like him except for a slightly smaller moustache. Apparently my family disproves genetic drift or something.

My wife got into it. 7/8 of my great grandpaent were dirt poor immigrants. THe last one spent his 18th birthday in Andersonville. Not much on my side. My wife tracked her family to 1600's VA including King Carter, then back to ENgland with one of Elizabeth's Archbishops of Canterbury.

I look at it from a different angle. I have hereditary blindness, so have a permanent living link with most of my ancestors on my mothers side by way of a faulty gene. My father always claimed that we were descendants of Oliver Cromwell but who knows?

Pete

On my grandfather's side, my great grandfather John (Giovanni) emigrated from Calabria Italy in 1912. His name is at Ellis Island. He also fought for the US in WW1. We still have his discharge papers. My grandmother Anna emigrated from the same area somewhat later. We still have her baptism records (all in Italian) from the 19th C! Another interesting bit of trivia, my Great Grandmother could speak Albanian. A little historical research (http://www.initaly.com/regions/ethnic/arberesh.htm) makes things very interesting.

Unfortunately I know very little about my grandmother's side. I know she was Welsh-Irish-Dutch, but beyond that little more. I know nothing of my mother.

Damon.

Growing up next to the same (Mother's side) family farm we've had since 1796 with a great-grandmother present for my first 11 years, I never had to pay attention to geneaology since it was an ever present fact of life. My parents live in the original house now and that sense of who we are and a very clear where we come from is surprisingly, very important to my sons. I'm certain they will pass that on to their children.

My father's family moved a bit more but always kept track of the where and when of the family. No research needed on either side of the family beyond listening to grandparents and looking at family heirlooms and keepsakes.

I read an article in an issue of Smithsonian magazine that argued that genealogy is pretty much a wash past a certain point, as genes mix and intermingle through all the marriages and births as one goes backwards. The author went so far as to assert that statistically, half of the (presumably American) readership would be able to trace their lineage to Charlemagne simply based on DNA! (Old Carlus did get around, but still…)

Oh, what the heck. (Flips a coin.) Heads! I'm descended from Charlemagne!

In researching medieval Ponthievin noble families (that's nobility from Ponthieu), I used the LDS church's family archives. The experience opened my eyes: and I came away with the OFM's attitude. SO WHAT? Genealogy is mostly unreliable (spelled "lies"); at least you can't separate the truth from the fiction. I realized this when trying to decide WHICH family tree to believe: for instance: whose children are they? I noticed a disreputable member of the Ponthievin comital house showing as childless, yet another source says he had two daughters by William the bastard's sister: the pro-Norman genealogy gives the girls to a second husband who bore no stain. All through the middle ages people were making up their family pedigrees (or fudging them to associate with more eminent families; the later Habsburgs were quinessentially egregious at this): and centuries later, family history buffs swallow the popular myths of origins, hook, line and sinker. But why spoil their fun?…