I’ve picked up an interest in genealogy over recent years. I’ve been tracking what I find on Geni.com as well as our own family Wiki site.
It’s interesting to track where you’ve come from.
Some interesting folks in our family tree include:
President James Madison, Jr
Wyatt Earp
Gen Edmund P Gaines – Gen. War Of 1812 and man who arrested Aaron Burr on charges of treason
Robert/Richard Gaines – who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence
Continue reading A mixed up family tree
a. We bought a new truck last night
b. I love it, but I think Laurie may be more excited than I am – I think she may try and sneak off with it one day before work and leave me the Xterra
c. Our Community group is finishing up Colossians this week (hopefully)
d. We’re going to start on Mark Batterson’s series Chase the Lion next week
e. I’ve done some real searching today on my family history.
f. Found some confusing information and it turns out, as I suspected, two Strother sisters, married two Gaines brothers
g. Once that was confirmed, everything else started making sense again.
h. While I’m not completely sure on one or two generations, it would appear that one relative on my mom’s side signed the American Declaration of Independence, and another signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Crazy!
i. It may be crazier to think that they were only a generation or two apart.
j. In the meantime, I posted a challenge on our Wiki page – but unless you’re still reading this, I doubt you care anything about my family’s history. But if you do, feel free to join in – or start your own Wiki for your family tree. Maybe we’ll find they connect somewhere in the not to recent past.
From NPR:
Sen. Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney are distant cousins. President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have dozens of shared relatives. Megan Smolenyak, chief family historian at ancestry.com, talks to Alex Cohen about tracing back the family tree.
Looks like Walt Disney is also George Bush’s 13th cousin, once removed… interesting.
Better get back to work on my family tree.
From the AP/NPR:
Though they may spar across the political aisle, Vice President Dick Cheney is close enough to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama to call him “cousin.” Eighth cousin, that is.
Lynne Cheney, the vice president’s wife, revealed this tantalizing bit of political trivia during a television interview Tuesday.
Apparently Cheney’s wife discovered the link while researching her memoirs.
A spokesman for the Obama Presidential Campaign said, “obviously Cheney is the black sheep of the family.”
Gotta love family history. I’ve had a lot of fun tracing our family history back using Geni and other online services. I’m interesting in finding out more about the Pendleton pedigree, which is on my mom’s side of the family.
According to her spokeswoman, Sen. Obama, D-Ill., is a descendent of Mareen Duvall. This French Huguenot’s son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650’s from England, said Ginny Justice, a spokeswoman for Lynne Cheney.
Got any interesting history in your family tree?