As Smithical well knows (we all laughed when she tagged me), I find most memes silly, so I'm breaking the rules by breaking the chain and not tagging anyone. But I respect her and love reading her blog, so I'll play along a little bit. Besides, it's easier than writing about more important matters, and all I feel up to in the 40 minutes I have before going to the dentist.
Five random and/or odd things about me:
- I grew up thinking that genealogy and family history were unutterably boring, and that anyone who cared about such things must be a snob. About five years ago I discovered that genealogical research is more fun than a World of Puzzles magazine, and learning about my ancestors has made history (once an exceedingly dull subject) come alive for me.
- Make that history and literature. My direct ancestors (nth great-grandparents) include Duncan I of Scotland (think MacBeth), Edward I of England (Braveheart), King John of England (Robin Hood and The Lion in Winter, and the Magna Charta), King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine (Becket and The Lion in Winter) as well as William the Conqueror and Charlemagne. I suppose that makes me one of those snobs I despised, if it counts as bragging to be related to so many scoundrels. :) However, this is nothing particularly unusual; such ancestry is common to many people with early New England ancestors. Eminent genealogist Gary Boyd Roberts (formerly of the New England Historic Genealogical Society) has said, "Living Americans with 50-100 immigrant ancestors in New England (or Long Island), in Quaker (but not German or Scots-Irish) Pennsylvania, or in the Tidewater South (but often not the Piedmont, Shenandoah Valley, or mountainous "backcountry") can expect to find a royally descended forebear."
- Nonetheless, I have not yet been able to find any for Porter, despite his extensive New England ancestry. He has at least three separate Mayflower families in his line, however.
- We have friends in France who live on the site of one of the above-mentioned Henry II's fortifications, and not far from where he and Eleanor of Aquitaine are buried.
- Ancestors aside, We have the best family and extended family in the world! (None of them scoundrels.)
ha ha! you played along! good for you. now i'm tempted to do some geneology of our own - such interesting facts!
Oh, yes, do start researching your family history now, even if you don't do anything more than record facts and stories from older family members. I didn't get interested until all our grandparents and three of our four parents were dead, and have had to work hard and guess a lot to piece together information that would gladly have been handed to me if I'd asked at the right time.
