DNA dead end

Honey>Herb>Wesley>George>Orlando>George>Jesse. Virtually every source for 50 years has declared George’s father was Jesse who married Rebecca Howard whose line went back into English nobility and through the London Tower 3 generations in a row, 2 of which lost contact with their heads. Great story! Nothing to do with us after the DNA project showed that George and Jesse could not possibly be related.

Here’s Mom

Sorry Mom. You were right. The haircut was not the best you ever had. We have to remember that cutting hair at all was a new thing in the 20’s — not a lot of professional training. But you were pretty.

1907, a baby boy was born

Welcome to Earth, Elmer Russell Murphy, February 12, 1907, 10 1/2 pounds at birth, 6’2″ as a man.

Not from around here

No body is from — anywhere but is from everywhere.  That was the one lesson that genealogy has taught me. Even our native Americans crossed on a land bridge from Asia.  And if civilization began at the Euphrates, so did the African continent originate other than the African continent.

Everyone is at some point interested in their ethnic background if only as an answer to a question in a casual conversation.  My maiden surname is Murphy therefore I am Irish.  Well, yes, some my ancestors lived in Ireland for a few centuries.  Before that, there are many possibilities.  In fact, my mother’s people came from Holland before it was The Netherlands.  So, I am a larger percentage Dutch, also Pennsylvania Dutch which is really German descent, but REALLY Dutch.   So, then I’m half Irish and half Dutch.  Not quite, says Dad.  Mom says her grandmother was an indentured servant from England who settled in Canada.  Is Canadian ethnic?  Dad’s paternal grandmother’s name was Nelson.  His mother’s heritage goes deep into England back to 1250 including 2 knights. So, I’m 1/4 English.  Not so fast. Scotland and Wales had a part.  In my clickings, I have uncovered (not literally) about 600 to 700 years worth of ancestors in England in more than one line.  And they bred like rabbits with no cable TV.  A click or two later, I’m looking at addresses in France, Spain, Iceland, Scotland, Wales, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Prussia, wherever Ivan the Great sat, Germany, and if the information is trustworthy, Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, and Israel.

So, I’m a mutt.  Exactly!!  We’re all mutts.  Viewing our ancestral lines from a very high ladder, they were nomads, albeit very slow nomads, and every time a descendant moves, we remain nomads.

Talk about diversity!  Apparently there aren’t too many customs I can’t celebrate or a costume I can’t wear.  That’s why I don’t get all mushy over the DAR, of which I could be a member at least twice over, or the Mayflower Society, all puffed up over the boat that was originally headed for Virginia where some of my people had already been for several years.  My lines include knights and kings, consorts, and at least one high sheriff around Robin Hood’s day. My list of famous cousins is not only impressive, it’s embarrassing.

It’s back to the internet to untangle the multiple lords and ladies in France circa 1000 AD.  (Rabbits, I tell you, rabbits — people most in need of cable).

The Mayflower

I have researched a line in the family that others have declared to be a line to Francis Cooke, a passenger on the Mayflower’s first voyage, a pilgrim who signed the compact, a man of stature who, with his son and others, braved the Atlantic to a new world in order to escape religious persecution.  I have pages of typewritten script detailing lineage and Revolutionary War records, and family stories of Valley Forge and settling the American wilderness.  I take the stories at face value but alas,

…..we are not descended from Francis Cooke, a Mayflower passenger.  And I don’t care.  In fact, in my rebellious Baby-Boomer American pride, I am proud to say I do not aspire to the snobbery of the Mayflower club.  And I’m just as American as they think they are.   One of our lines landed in Virginia before the Mayflower which headed for Virginia, got lost and landed in Mass…. Masses….. Plymouth.

Francis Cooke had a brother named Phillip.  He’s our ancestor.  Apparently, he and his line stuck around England during said persecution before emigrating around 1700 for whatever specific reason.  As for the rest of the Mayflower passengers, I have that list and can look up their lines to see if we are indeed descended from the Plymouth landing … but if we don’t,  pfffft.

During the investigation of that line, I did find out that we are cousins to Lord Bacon, Thomas Cromwell, and his great grand-nephew, Oliver Cromwell.  Neither is this a thing to be shouted pridefully from the housetops except to say we, in our decency as common and good, rose above their reputations.

As for Francis and Hester Cooke, bravo for their courage and bravery.  If one stops to think of it, eveyone else who boarded a rickety wooden ship to cross the Atlantic under those conditions, are also brave and courageous, not the first, not the last, not less than either.  However, the Mayflower should be singled out as one of the few that was headed for the soft climate of Virginia and got lost instead.

I found Mary!!

I have been looking for this woman for 20 years, ever since Herb gave me the obit from an Orlando Brock, a man clearly too old, uh, maybe not tooooo old, but unlikely to have fathered Herb’s father, Wesley.  But nothing in the paperwork he gave me nor did his memories give Clue One about who was in between Herb’s father and Orlando. 

The Wayback Machine

otherwise known as Ancestry.com.  I am impressed.

Many years ago when Dad entrusted me with the family Bible and even before that, I was entranced with who was way back where.