Family reunion

[Le Chuck]

My 94 year old paternal grandfather is the oldest member of our clan.  He has summoned us all to a hotel in Baton Rouge for the weekend to celebrate our family legacy, share some words of wisdom, and give us all a chance to catch up since there hasn't been a significant reunion for twenty years or so.  I think he's also using this as a platform to say goodbye since it isn't likely he'll see most of us again at the next reunion. 

I think several hundred will be in attendance and I know approximately seven of them by name and only three more by sight - and that includes my parents and siblings. 

What's interesting is that my grandfather spent 40 years researching our family legacy - traced our lineage all the way back to the Nicene Creed, a remarkable feat that resulted in three books, and several hundred year gaps being filled in for other families around the country that he had to research as well as they crossed our line. 

Several of us, including myself, have been assigned presentations on our lineage to lecture the clan on Saturday.  When I told my wife I was conducting research on a Texian Ranger that died in 1842 at 29 she couldn't stop laughing and asked why the hell I wasn't just going to introduce myself and tell all these strangers who happen to be family who I am and what I do for a living?  I had never realized it but for years my family has focused on those who went before us at the expense of the living.  In a way all that history has insulated us from the effort of getting to know each other - which is a blessing as most of us are antisocial as all hell anyway I imagine, clearly I wouldn't know.   

Any way, any of you yahoos know your family lineage?  Got any Kings and/or Arsonists back in the wings a bit?  My line not only has conspirators of John Wilkes Booth but also Romanov princes and even a nobleman about a thousand years ago that was a crusader which is especially poignant for me considering the amount of time I've spent on that half the world fighting radical jihadists so to say there are parallels would be an understatement. 

[yotsuya]

It's cool you know that info. I've always wanted to but never have. 

[jdbailey1206]

My uncle went all the way back to the 1400's.  The only interesting thing I can remember is we are related to Benjamin Bratt.  If thats really anything to brag about. 

[hypernova]

I've never felt compelled to do that.  It seems like people who do that tend to harp on it whenever they can and proclaim their lineage like an accomplishment.  I also believe if you look hard enough, you'll find a bunch of famous (and infamous) people you're related to or descended from.  And Kevin Bacon.  He's in there somewhere.

So gramps assigned you some homework, eh?    I agree with you and your wife.  This world's for the living!

[yotsuya]

I'd love to do it to satisfy my love of history

[Generic Eric]

For us, the living.

I'm from a group of "most likely fur traders" but "most definetaly, car dealers, roller skate rink owners and military men."  Our ancestry is traced from France, to Canada to the Northest of Michigans, back to early to mid 1800's.

My wife's family is traced back to Germany in the 14 or 1500's.     I'm gonna double check that...that doesn't seem right.

Nothing of consequence though.  We both work to spoil our children.  I make an effort to be the cool uncle (and father, obviously.)  That is about it. 

[dkersten]

My grandmother on my father's side spent some time before she passed going back through her lineage and I have a binder lying around somewhere with a whole lot of information that is pretty much irrelevant to me.

There is some interesting story in it though.  My grandmother was always making sure everyone knew that she and my grandfather were "Proud Germans".  Of course I had no concept of what that really meant to her, but she was very proud of her heritage.  I guess to the "High German" farmers in Nebraska (who owned a massive amount of farmland there before the great depression), lineage was pretty important.  They owned the farms and they were the "upper class" in their area.  There were different classes of people based mostly on where you came from, and the Dutch were the lowest class of farmer to them, undesirable.  For someone of pure high German blood to date one was a scandal, and to marry one back then was an offense that could result in being disowned.  But it turns out my grandfather was Dutch, so she took great pains to hide it and to reassure everyone for the 60 years she was married to him that he was German.  None of us knew any of this until about 10 years ago when my father stumbled upon some lineage from our last name.  I would really like to know the real story behind it, how it affected her standing with her family and all that, but she hid it from everyone and whatever interesting drama there might be was lost when she passed.

I guess her grandfather and his brother were from a very large and very wealthy family in Germany (Loewe) who decided to take their part of the family money and move to the U.S.  They bought up a large chunk of Nebraska's farmland, but ended up losing most of it during the depression.

Otherwise I don't know much else about my family history, nor do I particularly care.  My mom has some family that owned a large chunk of Amsoil, but I don't ever anticipate getting a check one day from a distant second cousin who passed away and left me a few hundred million dollars..

[Le Chuck]

Reunion went surprisingly well - forgot how much I hate Louisiana weather tho.  Holy ball sack batman that place is humid!  Got some nasty looks from the TN cousins (foot washing baptists) when my neice and I started doing shots at Boutin's but other than that pretty good.  I won the family history quiz, OMHFG there was actually a quiz, on day one - mostly thanks to the fact that it was very 1800 Texas centric and I had to speak on a relative from that era so it was kinda cheating. 

Met some family I didn't know that I didn't know and actually got on well with some of them.  Ran into my first cousin, Ransom (family name),  who is only 6 years my senior.  Hadn't seen him in no ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- 25 years.  Turns out he lives like an hour from me so we're going to get together soon.  That was pretty much worth the trip.  His wife is peruvian and makes awesome soup or something so I'm psyched.