Ancestors

     A good friend of mine learned today that she has some pretty famous ancestors.  I mean like history changing ancestors.  My friend Deny found out that she is a direct descendant of Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jefferson and a connection to Pocahontas through the Randolph/Rolfe family I think.   My initial reaction was Wow!  You can get married at the Custis/Lee Mansion at Arlington National Cemetery, be in the DAR and the Pocahontas Society!  (Side bar, the Custis Lee Mansion is a beautiful mansion that sits way up on a hill and you can see all of Washington DC at your feet - stunning), and then as we conversed on facebook with another friend who is seriously into history and genealogy she figured out the Thomas Jefferson/Pocahontas Jamestown connection.  Seriously?  I joked that if we continued the conversation we would figure out that she could be a descendant of the French family that is said to be a direct line to Jesus and Mary Magdalene.  (Blasphemy I know.)  It's amazing what you can find out when you start digging around the family tree.
    We were messaging fast and furious and then I mentioned one of my more notorious relatives. Her name was Patty Cannon and she was a kidnapper of free blacks; she'd either kill them or sell them back into slavery.  Nice lady - not so much.  She ended up hanging herself in jail.  I think her guilt got the best of her.  That's just my mother's side of the family.  My father's relatives were bootleggers and horse thieves.  Also a little questionable of character,  although much less violent I suspect. Those stories of Patty Cannon scared me to death when I was a kid.   Turns out Patty Cannon's skull was kept in a box in the public library in Dover, DE and was just sent for forensic testing at the Smithsonian.
      This is what you get when you come from old East Coast families I guess.  Lots of history back there and if you dig around long enough you are sure to find something interesting.  I think I like my friend's ancestors better.  A little more glamorous I suppose but I know there are skeletons there too.  After all, Mrs. Lee's rose garden became Arlington National Cemetery so General Lee could look out the window and see exactly what the consequences of his actions agains the US were.  The oldest headstones in the cemetery back right up to the house.  What a reminder that must have been.  Then there was that whole affair with Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings.  Very interesting twists and turns there.  Jamestown and Pocahontas are just way cool to me.  Wow.
     All I got was a whole lot of hateful.  Oh well.  Like the old saying goes, you can't pick your relatives, especially the dead ones!  Some of us just get luckier than others.  It's all good though.  I'd like to think that over the span of generations my family evolved into nicer people.  I know that I have a great relationship with my Creator and He knows that I'm not anything like Patty Cannon and that's what really matters to me.  I think maybe that's why I feel a great need to leave a legacy of kindness behind.  I want to be known as just the opposite of her.
      What do you know of your ancestors?  Have you dug around your family tree?  I wonder what you would find?  Write to me and let me know if you have interesting ancestors.  Did they sail on the Mayflower, fight in the Revolution or come through Ellis Island?  Our past relatives have amazing tales to tell us if only we would ask them to.  Peace.