Up a Tree

I decided to switch to Sharon's side of the family with a certain amount of misgiving because, though I had found some interesting episodes in the Reagan family history, much of the time I ran into dead ends in the branches of the genealogy, especially with respect to her father's part of the tree. I decided to be a little more systematic with my research and tumbled onto a branch of her father's genealogy that went all the way back to the 16th century, and to my surprise, that part of the family came from France and the Netherlands. Sharon's family has deep roots in Ireland but France and the Netherlands? Even she was surprised when I told her.  As I began looking at the branches and limbs, I found historical connections to the Huguenots, whom we'll discuss in a coming post, some of  whom fled to America in the 1600s, and to the American Revolution, in which some of her ancestors fought alongside others of her ancestors, some at the same important battle. I wouldn...