Sitting Under The Family Tree

“Where ‘ya from, babe”? When someone asks me this they usually don’t say “babe” and I usually answer “Philadelphia”. But ask the same question to some glassy-eyed genealogist who has just spent the better part of a day staring at a microfilm reader screen and they just might answer “I can trace my family back to Princess Nose in the Air and the Earl of Dirt”.

Does it really matter who your ancestors were? Really?  On my Dad’s side I come from a long line of blacksmiths and dirt farmers on one side and shoemakers on the other. My Mom’s side has some German merchants on her father’s and on her Mom’s side they really did have a few Earls, Ladies and Lords.  There’s even an Earl who fought in the Crusades, was killed in Jerusalem and his body was buried there but his head was sent back home to Garendon Abbey near Loughborough, a house endowed by his wife’s family.  That must have smelled good by the time it got there. Yuck!

My husband’s children from his first marriage can trace their ancestry back to Thomas Wyatt the poet, reported to be a confidant of Anne Boleyn. Thomas himself was eventually beheaded by Henry the Eighth but not for fooling around with Anne. Apparently he was a bit of a radical and didn’t see things the same way Henry did. From there they go back to Edward the first.

The major advantage to finding royalty in your lineage is that there’s literally tons of genealogy research already done and it’s just sitting out there waiting for you to come along and claim it. Also, since Thomas Wyatt was a published poet, I was able to get modern copies of his books for the boys for Christmas. Other than that I don’t see the advantage but I’m sure there must be some. Perhaps it just makes your tree bigger.

The Volz boys, shoemakers all

Personally, I just love my dirt farmers and shoemakers. They were hard-working folks. They settled in parts of the country that needed strong individuals and I’m proud to be their descendant.  But I sure wish they had left some written record of their daily lives. Putting some flesh on the bones would make me downright goofy.