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23 March 2006
My famous forebear. You got any? (Fame isn't necessary: cool forebears will suffice).
HUGH! When you walk around and stuff, does that fiddle music follow you too?! That would be COOOL! He he. That surprised me. I forgot I had speakers on.
My great-grandparents did the Oklahoma land run in 1898. We have a picture of her standing on her new 160 acres weilding a shotgun to shoot claim jumpers while he went to go register with the county.
(Not famous, but I just like the thought of Great-Grandma blasting some miscreant Missourian.)
Also, Selma Blair is my cousin's cousin. Not actually related to me, but not out of the scope of possibility to appear at a family function, I suppose.
On my mom's side we have The Donner Party - yeah, that one, with the ill-planned journey and the getting caught in the pass with winter and the supposed (but now often deprecated) eating of dead people and all that.
On my Dad's side, my grandpa worked at Bell labs, helping invent radar and was on the project team for the solid state transistor.
It's just a clear indicator I'm supposed to invent human-flesh eating computerized radar-eyed zombie robots at some point in my life. Yes, that's a warning. Flee while you can. Ro-bits are hungry for hu-mon flesh!!
I have better info (should anyone care -- I think someone did this site as a school project) than the above website but I was just so excited to contribute!!!
A few of my made up famous forebears are
Jon Jon Baccardi, inventer of the 2 dollar bill. Ruckus Tailfeather, inventer and later unsuccessful surpressor of the Bat-tussi.
Emilio Von Vandilderronken, inventor of the stap on face dildo known popularly as the "Chinundator", but to him as "My Dearest Elsa."
Finally Admiral Chester Hotsauce who was famous for leading the first revenge mission against Japan (not the justly more famous Doolittle air raid), Great Unk Chester left Montauk LI in a motorized bathtub just two days after Pearl Harbor, waving a fishing gaff and promising to "split at least seventeen nips from asshole to appetite!", he was found eleven months later in Mistic, Conn, trapped in an elm tree, he had eaten both of his own ears.
Also, Fris, myself and a few others need to get together and kick Hugh's ass... on behalf of our forebearers!!!
Why? That makes me feel bad; I'm proud of him.
It's a joke, right? Why can't I talk about being proud of a man who, like Ethan Allen or George Washington, fought with daring, skill, and cunning to establish my country? Because he's just another Indian-killing white man? Because he fought the Cherokee? While he was still a Brit, and the Cherokee were allied with the French, and the fighting of the Seven Years' War had died down everywhere but the American South?
Francis Marion did not seek to exterminate anyone; he didn't knowingly hand out virulent blankets; he left no legacy of genocide. He fought, during a war, against a military force. An enemy allied, I might add, with a high command that decreed his and his men's lives and property forfeit if captured.
That great atrocities were committed by white men in that time and others does not mean all white men of that time and others took part, or were culpable beyond the guilt-by-association that goes along with mass movements of people.
It may be a joke. It's an easy one to make because American Indians were indeed victims of a horrible genocide, fueled by bigotry and hate as well as economics and technology. But it's not a fair one. I didn't put his name up there to be pissed on; I put him there because I'm honored to have a man who made such a difference to my country, in my blood.
My forebears owned slaves, too, until a Quaker carpenter went down to Alabama, eloped with the daughter of the plantation, stole seventeen slaves as a dowry, set them free in Indiana, and settled down to sire my great-great grandfather, among others.
Makes my history shameful to some. I don't care; I know who my kin were, what they did, and what they meant. I'm still proud.
As always, my dudgeon gets the better of me -- thanks for the hugs, guys, and I love you both. I just have a few touchy nerves here and there. Sorry -- I'd hug you guys forever if I could, really.
My 57*great-father was kicked out of Norway for killing a whole bunch of people. One of his son's, my 56*great-uncle, was then kicked out of Iceland for killing a whole bunch of people, and subsequently settled Greenland. His son (my forebearer's nephew) was probably the first European to settle in North America at l'Anse aux Meadows. We have a family saga that details every generation back to the settlement of Iceland.
More recently, one of my great-uncles, was the inventor of the automatic transmission.
Thomas West, who the state of Delaware is named after, is my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. As the family line is traced back, it goes directly to William the Conquerer, but at this point I suspect that a good number of people of European descent can claim the same.
More recently, my grandfather was one of the engineers who designed the space shuttle. He was an asshole, but it's still pretty cool.
Hugh, honestly, I have some deeply mixed feelings regarding the person I posted. Pride isn't the first word that comes to mind when I think of him, then again, family stories are the kinds that don't always make it to print, are they?
My first thought in reaction to Lola's comment was along the lines of finding an opportunity to scrap any sort of absurd ancestral acrimony, of which there is oh-so-very-much in both of my bloodlines, get down to the good stuff of living well amongst friends. Little sneaky mebbe, but well intended. No bruisiness or disrespect meant.
I know, Frisbee Girl; I started my response long before previewing, and understood that it was a joke from the start. But a funny thing happens on the way to the forum, y'know?
It's like if I told someone my last name, which is German, and they cracked wise about killing Jews. Or if frisbee-like implements had long ago been used for cutting the testicles off of political prisoners, and someone lobbed a funny about the Frisbee family and all the torturers in it.
I guess those are a little stretchy.
Anyway, I realized no harm was intended by the time I posted but I wanted to let youse know how my thoughts played out -- a flare of anger at the presumption of guilt, an unjustified guilty urge to explain how wrong that presumption was, a bafflement at why I would catch such shit, and eventually a realization that I'm among friends, and that I don't need to be so tender, unless I'm showing you my heart, which I should do more often, because you're wonderful, and I should keep it lighter.
Hugh, I understand and disagree on a number of things.
Being amongst friends means that you don't have to keep it light. It means that you get to be honest and open without fear of backlash or punishment. I couldn't give a shit about ancestry if I tried. If everyone had held their racial/cultural ground in a segregated manner, I would not exist. Most of us wouldn't. I understand the value of history but place little importance on it in terms of ancestry and personal identity. It's not much more than a genetic lottery and in such a sense, drawing lines is nothing more than a waste of time and precious energy.
However, regardless of intent, learning to be sensitive and see new points of view is a wonderful thing. It's nice to be afforded the opportunity: thank you.
Unfortunately, I have too few words to spare in order to share many more thoughts, observations and laughs right now. My resources are running low. But someday, my friend, should I ever make it to NYC or Queens, then many, many words will be exchanged.
Grandad built this bridge which you might have seen as a glamour shot the last time your local NBA team smoked the Kings. He and his siblings pooled some cash and got this camp named after great-grampa and let me tell you how happy the local Scout council was to find me living in the area...
But to read that he fought the Cherokee reads to me the same way Andrew Jackson mounted a horse and went after the Creeks (my ancestors).
Am I sensitive to it? Not really.
But where you have pride, I have pain too. The things that happened to my Grandmother and my Great Uncles and Aunts in the 20s and 30s is disgusting and I remember her recounting them on her death bed ravaged by cancer and finally speaking her native tongue that had been beaten out of her in missionary boarding schools.
But do I hold you or your ancestor accountable for this.
Not in any way.
I was more commiserating with others who stated their Native heritage.
Most of the Cherokee history has been so rewritten. One of the smallest nations, they enroll based on lineage not blood quantum -- so ask many people what nation they trace their heritage and invariably it is Cherokee.
Still, I respect your history but I have a hell of a lot of pride and respect for yours.
So, I didn't joke to piss on your ancestor in the least. It was a good natured joke made in a split instant.
But after your narrative, if I go back and think about it -- do I want to villify those of the past.
No but I do wish for some justice.
Justice that will never be had.
And while my Great Grandfather is respected among the Muscogee (Creek) he was a frickin' executioner.
omg, y'all are genealogy geeks... I absolutely adore you. My favorite ancestor is Joanna Wakeman, convicted adulteress. She was a mess. Had a child out of a love triangle. Was saved at the gallows by a soldier and then had the nerve to petition the court to make him marry her, and won! She must have been really hot. Wonder if I got her legs :)
After researching my pre-pilgrim American ancestors, I realize now what they teach you in our history books is pretty random considering there were plenty of people here before they hit that rock in 1620. Consider this as well... if you double the number of ancestors every generation, at some point you exceed the population of the planet. We are all marrying cousins...
Thanks, Lola_G. Big hugs when next we meet, and a clink of glasses to the general turbulence of generations, and the specific men (and of course women, but in this case men) who came to us as a blend of blood and lore, pain and pride, past and present; who they were then is mixed with who we are now.
Another of my forebears was a blacksmith in New Bern, North Carolina, who was kicked in the head while shoeing a horse and never recovered his wits (the kick robbed him of speech). His brother, formerly his assistant, took over the business and moved in with his wife and children, as was common practice; my brain-damaged forebear lived another thirty years, assisting at odd jobs around the forge and working the bellows, silent and incomplete.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
