Saturday, June 23, 2012

My Family Tree @Ancestrydotcom

Remember making a family tree when you were younger?  It went up to your grandparents, maybe your great-grandparents.  People you may have met in your lifetime.
Cousins?  Anne Boleyn (source)

For years, some of the older relatives on my Dad's side of the family have maintained family trees and records.  Having lost both of Dad's parents in the past few years, and spending months scanning all of the old family photos, I decided to hit up Ancestry.com to see what I could find about my roots.  I was able to use a lot of the lineage constructed by my relatives (and try to weed out the dead ends I found) and create lines that dated to before the Middle Ages!  It was pretty incredible to see some old census records and other finds.

Some interesting (possible) relatives to note:
  • 28th Great-Grandmother who was mistress of King Philip I of France, then became Queen Consort as his wife when he imprisoned his other wife for being too fat.
  • 25th Great-Grandfather was King Henry II of England, descendent of the Plantagenet line.  He was apparently pretty ruthless, but he had red hair... just like my Dad.
  • 18th Great-Grandfather who died in the Crusades.
  • Anne Boleyn was my 4th cousin, 14 times removed.  (My 18th great-grandfather married twice, so we are descended from his separate branches.)  And that makes...
  • ...Queen Elizabeth I of England my 5th cousin, 14 times removed.
  • My 5th Great-Grandfather came from Scotland but served in the American Revolution as part of the militia in North Carolina.  Hopefully this means I can trace my lineage to join the Daughters of the American Revolution!
I don't know how accurate these family trees/records are online... I was pretty careful in my connections, but you can't always tell which direction you should go.  There are marriage and birth records, but sometimes there are many names in common.  So when in doubt, I ended the line.

On the Korean side, I'm still working.  I found an actual passenger list from when my Korean grandfather came to the U.S. in the 1950s to attend a course at Fort Still, Oklahoma.  He was part of a group of officers sent over, and he has always been so proud of that trip.   I was able to e-mail him a screenshot of the list, and he loved it.  But beyond that, I don't even know who my great-grandparents are on that side of the family.  I've got a Korean dictionary and a website to get started, but I'm hoping my Mom will help me out a bit to start!

Have you ever looked into your family history?

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