Side note: I am, and always have been, fascinated by family history. I love to create ideas, pictures, and stories in my mind about what my ancestors may have been like.
It's just so romantic to me to think about these people who lived way back when and share my blood!
Anyway, D and I were talking with Nana and Poppa and it was so fun to hear their stories about what they remember of their own grandparents.
Eventually, Poppa jumped up from the table (well, he didn't really jump - but he eagerly got up and walked away) and came back with a huge scrapbook. Apparently my mom and aunt have spent a lot of time researching our family history.
On my grandmother's side of the family, they were able to go back to my great-great-great-great-great grandparents!! How amazing is that?!
On my grandfather's side of the family, they were able to go back to my great-great-grandfather, who came to America from Belfast, Ireland.
They even found out that we are related, by marriage, to Samuel Clemens. You know... Mark Twain?!
See the resemblance? ha!
So amazing.
Unfortunately, Mr. D's family history doesn't go back that far, because one of his great-uncles or great-grandfathers (I can't remember which) was abandoned by his family as they crossed through the midwest way back in the day, and the young boy (named Charlie) was adopted by Mr. D's ancestors. So Charlie is the stopping point because no one knows anything about Charlie's blood family.
I find it all so fascinating. What do you know about your family history? How far back can you go??
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2 comments:
That's so cool you're related to Mark Twain! I also love family history. We have a book written by a very distant cousin of ours that basically is a compilation of our family's ancestry. We can trace my dad's family as far back (in the book at least) to our ancestor in Luxembourg who came to America only a few years after the Pilgrims and settled in what's now New York. My mom has a list of our ancestors going all the way back to the ones who emigrated from Spain and settled in Latin America over a hundred years ago.
I apparently missed this post. I find family history fascinating as well, as does my grandmother. For one of my wedding gifts, she gave me a family tree of my dads side (she did my moms side too, but wasn't able to go back that far due to not having much info) that went back to my great-great-great-great grandfather. It included OLD pictures (scanned in, of course), scanned old handwritten family recipes from my great-great grandmother (alot of them were for alcoholic beverages... apparently I come from a long line of drinkers-- LOL), different stories she had dug up on people through family history websites, etc. It was amazingly incredible and one of my most cherished possessions.
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