Tag: genealogy

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More Genealogy Silliness – Presidents

What triggered this latest round of silliness was that I was watching a Wondrium (formerly Great Courses) course, America’s Founding Fathers. On the class about one of my early idols, Thomas Jefferson, it mentioned that his mother was Jane Randolph. The brother just younger than me is named Paul Randolph.  The Paul is after our Uncle Paul of USS Carr fame.  I am not recalling the provenance of his middle name right now, but my father’s side of the family will occasionally use the family name of one branch or another for a middle name.  For instance, my father’s middle name was Marrs.   All this started me wondering about a connection to Jane Randolph and sent me to FamilySearch.org, the genealogy site ran by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints aka the Mormons. Stayed tuned.

A few thoughts before I delve deeper. 

First, this blog posting will most likely be of more interest to the handful of my relatives that read my blog.

Secondly the Mormon genealogy site is very well administered.  I am sure that the Mormon portion is meticulous in its research. The portion open Continue reading “More Genealogy Silliness – Presidents”

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My 11th Great Aunt – Pocahontas

A while back I signed up on the Mormon genealogy site, FamilySearch.org.  It is free, and has a ton of contributors.  Of course, like any crowd source data, it is not free of errors…and on occasion I have thought wishful thinking.   However, both sides of my family have been in this country since Europeans first step foot on these shores.  This is especially true on my father’s side that has many tentacles traceable to very ancient European and British Isle ancestors.

I had stumbled across this connection by myself, but FamilySearch sent me an email about connections to famous people, including Continue reading “My 11th Great Aunt – Pocahontas”

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Family Reunion Time???

I recently joined FamilySearch.org, a genealogy site ran by the Mormons aka The Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-Day Saints.  It is really a wonderful genealogy tool and free… at least I have not stumbled across anything I need to pay for.

Several genealogy sites/organizations have joined together and are having a RootsTech conference, both physically and virtually March 2nd and 3rd. I have been receiving emails about it with the  snippet above from one coming in yesterday.

While the vast majority of my cousins are wonderful souls, 14,626 might be a little overwhelming! And given my semi-hermit introverted nature, ¡Ay caramba!

The derriere you see running away from the mass of 14,626 is mine. Insert your favorite smiley face here.

And so it goes.

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Genealogical Craziness

Richard Austin Of Titchfield

This may be of more interest to family members than others, but here goes.

My first name, David, is after my father, who is also a David.

My middle name is Stephen, as in Stephen Fuller Austin, one of the founding fathers of Texas for whom the state capital is named.  The family legend was that he was my great, great… uncle. However, no hard evidence had ever been presented for this relationship, and years ago I chalked it up to family mythology.

During his retirement my father starting doing genealogy, not only on his side of the family, but also on my mother’s.  Turns out there is Continue reading “Genealogical Craziness”

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Genealogical Conundrum

For reasons unclear to me I had my y-chromosome and mtDNA tested, reckon I found some money laying in the street.  I had had my autosomal tested a while back which was interesting, but did not tell me a lot.  Given that my immediate and personal DNA dies with me – my DNA is nothing special, so no big loss to humanity- I am not quite sure why I am so interested in the genealogy. Probably the history fascinates me.

The autosomal DNA is just general DNA.  Y-chromosome is specific for the paternal line. mtDNA is specific for maternal line.   For me, the y-chromosome shows mostly British isles  followed by Germany and Italy.

Almost immediately after they ran  and posted Continue reading “Genealogical Conundrum”