Family Ties -- Not Always Positive
Cousin Johnny Ever see those Ancestry commercials where someone is searching their heritage and runs across some relative who held an important place in history or who was a leader in or part of some important historic movement or struggle? (Wow, that's a tortured sentence. Forgive me. I may go back later and try to clean it up.) Or maybe you've watched Finding Your Roots on PBS. I've never seen an episode, but the plugs they run on the show tend to follow the Ancestry pattern: Oh, hi, celebrity person. I've researched your family tree, and I found these spectacular people. Occasionally the host finds someone scurrilous up the tree, but I don't see those often. Of course, once you start looking at family history, you hope you find those heroes. It's not just about bragging rights, though. It shows that you come from good stock. That's why I was excited to find that I'm related to members of the English peerage and possibly to a couple of English kings ...