Genealogy Can Be Cool

OK, so I've always had an interest in genealogy. Way back in grade school I did an ancestral chart that is still used by my family as pretty definitive and gets dug out every time a relative has to do a school project.

So anyway, I'm dicking around on the net the other day and happen across all this genealogy stuff. I had tried to do some genealogy online years ago, but there was really not much at the time. NOW it's a little different story. There's census after census, actual images of the hand written pages, transcribed documents, search-able databases... just a ton of shit online.

Charlemagne

So I start verifying what I've always had, start adding my wife's family etc thinking someday this will be great for my son and then my dad drops this HUGE surprise in my lap, a chart made by my Grandmother years ago. Suddenly I have 10 or so generations on her side. Now, what's great about that is the more generations you start to go back, the more likely another relative of one of those people might have done some research at one point or another. For example, who would ever research my dad? Me or my brother, that's it, but who might have researched my great great great great great great grandfather when he had 300+ descendants? Get my point? Find that common thread and research over generations and years can suddenly tie you into a tree that is already researched, proven and that might go back 100's and 100's of years.

So I start at it. From my grandmother, to her father, to his father, to his wife etc etc etc and suddenly after about 12 generations and countless Arcadian records (reading stuff listing how many cows, guns etc they had in 1700 in my distant grand-whatever's house is just really cool) I hit a magic name that just blossoms in to generation after generation.

I can't believe what I'm finding, so I go at it again, verifying EVERYTHING I can find anywhere and run the tree as if I was starting with nothing.

So it all checks out...

In about 1621 a prince in France has a child that leaves around 1652 for the New World (for what ever reason) and seems to start a new life, meet some hot chick and stays. Now I can trace my roots 13-14 generations back to this guy with no doubt, and the beauty of that is that royalty keep, and always have kept, insanely detailed genealogy records..... So from that point on, tracing things becomes a breeze.

And suddenly I'm tracing things back to 6 B.C.... You read that right... 6 B.C. (a guy named
Clodius II (Clodie) King Of The West Franks). Direct lines back to The Emperor Of The Byzantine Empire, Charlemagne, Louis XII, King of the Franks, King of the Germans etc... it all gets a little insane thinking about all this. I can't wait to print it all off and be able to sit back and take a good look.. But that has to wait, because although I'm 2000 years back on one line, I'm barely 6 generations back on my wife's side. Which goes to show, if you can't find one person, everything just stops. (I'm working on it.... reading Newfoundland Wills right now)

Moral of the story... genealogy can be really cool and I now let my son get away with everything since he's descendant from Charlemagne.

Gratuitous Hot Chick