I’ve spent a couple of years tracing my family tree, and have traced back to my greatx5 grandfather, who was born in Crainfeld, Germany. My greatx4 grandfather (and his sister) both moved to America, landed in Baltimore and both settled in Missouri.
Their surname was Cuntz. LOL. Thank god I didn’t end up with that one. I guess it’s better than Fucker.
My great grandfather had a total of 5 wives (not all at once…he outlived them all, except for the last one) and 19 children. I guess he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Thanks to him, my family reunions are loaded with dozens and dozens of relatives.
While tracing my family tree, I’ve discovered that my family is pretty ordinary. No tales of long gone relatives who were famous bank robbers or celebrities, which is somewhat disappointing.
I am related to Secretary of State William H. Seward who agreed to purchase Alaska for seven million dollars in 1867. My grandmother always said he was one of those “yankee” Sewards.
I have one of those ugly names that make it difficult to track down ancestors (Meredith). All I know is its Welsh (originally Maredydd) for “sea lord”, and several non-related people seemed to have taken it for their surname. Its like Baker or Smith, only kinda cooler.
What makes it doubly difficult is my paternal grandfather was black sheep of the family, so I know none of my extended relations there.
On my mom’s side, I’m distantly related to Matthew Fontane Maury, who charted a lot of the ocean currents. Not that that’s too terribly exciting, but it’s better than nothing.
My great grandfather married his first wife and had some kids then they got divorced. Later he married his second wife and had some kids and then they got divorced. Then he remarried his first wife and then she died. Later he remarried his second wife and then he died. All of this was spread over 65 years.
Oddly enough, I was just telling someone, earlier tonight, that there’s a castle in England, or the ruins of one, anyway, that bears my mother’s name. We’re direct descendants of the folks that built it.
It may have been one of my ancestors that hanged her. They were the first settlers of the Beverly/Salem area.
Genealogy holds no lure for me (as will become apparent*) but my great aunt documented direct descent, umpity times, from Somebody Morris of NY, a very rich guy who sank–and lost–everything he had backing the continental government and forces during the American Revolution.
*I’m kind of ashamed, because this question has come up before and a few kind Dopers actually recognized the man. He sounds like a thoroughly admirable person. You’d think the name would stick with me but it doesn’t. His achievements and sacrifices were entirely his own.
I’ve got a pretty straight line back to Sam Morse (inventor of Morse Code) on my mom’s side. The only way we know this is that we have the promotion papers for his son from the Civil War (aka War Between the States, War of Northern Aggression, etc) that has somehow been handed down through the generations. It has Lincoln’s sig on it and everything!
Zelda Popkin in an ancestor of mine. Never heard of her, you say? She was the first female mystery writer to write full length novels featuring a female detective. Many people erroneously believe that Agatha Christie was the first. This misconception might possibly be related to the fact that Zelda’s books usually sold just a few thousand copies, while Christie achieved slightly higher sales totals.
Robert Morris, not to be confused with his distant relation Gouverneur Morris. And he is a fascinating guy. (Bit of trivia for you: In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein has an offstage minor character modeled on him.)
My relatives are of no particular fame, although my great-great-uncle was a developer in Rochester NY back in the early days of the century, and there’s a street named after him.
What gets really interesting is if you can tie into one of the lineages that cross the Atlantic and trace yourself back into the Middle Ages. I have two great-great-grandmothers for whom I can do this, and I seem to be descended from about half of the names in European History prior to about 1400 as a result.
Priam, if you can track down a birth record for Grandpa Meredith, you’re on the road to success if you want to follow that up. Welsh lineages were usually carefully preserved (with the resistance to surnames, they had to – their identity was in the linkage of "ap"s that followed their given name). Odds are that you are descended from a Maredudd whose son took that as a surname, as my Rice ancestors did from the Rhys in their lineage.
My grandfather’s grandmother was the granddaughter of John Quincy Adams (I may be missing a generation… I’m not quite up on the family geneology).
And I have a great grandfather who was born in Corleone, Sicily. Still have a great-great-aunt living there, in fact. It’s on my list of places to visit someday. As far as I know, nobody on that side of the family did anything especially noteworthy, and without the famous movie, that town would still be an easily-overlooked village of goatherders
Thanks, Poly! You were probably the alert and erudite Doper who nailed this the last time. ::blushes:: After a few zillion more whacks it just might sink in. For some reason, even though the man’s related to me by blood, he’s not related. Gene drift, anti-hubris or something…
Sorry for the hijack. Just grateful for the footnote, especially the Heinlein riff. It’ll be fun to re-read it just for that.
