Genealogy Blog Family History

My New Year’s Resolution: Family HistoryPosted by Administrator on December 27th, 2009

 I saw a funny flier at a local LDS chapel. It read: "Do you get the feeling some dead person is waiting for you?" It was a flier to attend free family history classes at their building. The question certainly caught my attention- it was weird but also true. When we talk about genealogy or family history, we are talking about the search for dead people. This flier and other experiences have prompted me to add another resolution to my always-long list of resolutions: to do more family history work.

I want my kids to know where they came from. I have a vague idea but not enough to give them any definitive story. The more I look into it, the more I realize I don’t know, even in the more recent past. I don’t have the photos or the names of towns. In short, I have a lot of work to do. 

So I’ll be looking for dead people this year. I’ll be spending some time at the local family history library and talking to the older generation in my family. Hopefully, at the end of 2010, I’ll have a better idea of where I came from.

Ancestry.com proves Obama and Buffett CousinsPosted by Administrator on December 15th, 2009

When Warren Buffett was promoting Obama for the presidency, neither of them could have imagined that they were actually related.

That’s right. Reuters released a report today saying that Ancestry.com has found that President Obama and super-investor Warren Buffett are cousins… er, seventh cousins three times removed. Apparently, waaaaay back, their family trees meet at a 17th-century Frenchman named Mareen Duvall. The discovery was made by accident on Ancestry.com by researchers doing work on Obama’s roots. It is just another cool example of how Ancestry.com’s tools can help us learn unexpected things about our family histories.

Ironically, these same researchers found that Obama is also related to Dick Cheney. But something tells me they won’t be having a family reunion anytime soon.

More Family History CoolnessPosted by Administrator on December 3rd, 2009

I am fortunate to have parents who love family history. And even after over 30 years of hearing their stories about pilgrims and Civil War heroes, they still manage to bring up some that I’ve never heard before. I knew my great-grandfather was an outlaw and then an oil man in Southern CA (I guess the oil industry hasn’t changed much:). I knew my great-great-grandmother came as a pioneer from the Hawaiian islands to the desert of Northern Utah. I knew some of our forebears were among the passengers of the famous Mayflower. And still others of our ancestors were closely related to William Wallace of Braveheart fame. But this new goes farther back and may be cooler. 

According to some recent family history by my father, our family ties back to a line of Viking kings. Instantly, my head is swimming with images of men in horned helmets ransacking helpless villages and plundering all the food and loot they can find. At least they’re very manly- there is something undeniably manly about having the blood of Vikings flowing through your veins. And to be related to royalty is pretty good, too.

Then my dad dropped another one on us: we can trace our lineage back to Charlemagne- the Charlemagne. For those who snoozed through Ancient History 101, Charlemagne was the king of the Gauls who was known for his Solomon-like wisdom and his prowess in battle. Oh, and did I mention he was giant for his time, towering benevolently over his subjects. More manliness! 

So I was thrilled to find out just how much awesome manliness resides in my family lines and in my DNA. Kings, warriors,… oh, and pilgrims are cool, too, I guess.