Hey, Cuz
by Steve Mitchell
So, I’ve had some luck following the easier internet trails and filling in leaves on my family tree.
I’ve found many of my Mom’s ancestors, as far back as when they first arrived in America from Germany and Austro-Hungary (relatively recently).
I’ve followed several branches of my Dad’s family back to before the American Revolution.
But there’s one specific branch I found which someone had researched heavily and it goes all the way back to one of my 17-times great grandfathers.
Yes.
He wasn’t a Mitchell but he’s my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather.
Presumably.
Unless the interwebs are wrong.
But, that can’t happen.
So, anyhow, doing the math, going back 19 generations, one would have 524,288 17-times great grandparents.
I have over half a million great grandparents at that level and I’ve found the name of one. I don’t even know the name of his spouse, my 17-times great grandmother.
It’s so distant and dilute as to be meaningless.
But it’s still pretty cool.
I wonder how many of his 17-times great grandchildren there are in this world.
Millions?
And how far back do you have to go to find a grandparent common to everyone?
Really, we’re all cousins.
It makes the mind boggle, Steve. It’s an absorbing hobby, genealogy.
It is absorbing, Kate. And the further I dig, the more simultaneously connected and separate I feel!
I haven’t quite sorted that bit out.
How recent did you family come across? Mine got here in ’48. Dad figured if the Americans could bomb his hometown (Bremerhaven) into such a state of rubble, there was nothing America couldn’t do so he headed here. That really was his reason for emigrating. I’m kind of glad it wasn’t the RAF that pounded him. I don’t think I’d like being English – they don’t have the California weather.
Oh, wow. I guess recent is all relative! My Mom’s family mostly came over in the mid to late 1800′s from Germany (I still don’t know where in Germany) and from Burgenland.
I liked England when I was there and would like to go back to visit, but the California weather is hard to beat. And I think the food is better too.