Chosen Family

 

If you've been working on genealogy for any amount of time, you have probably employed the FAN research strategy.  (FAN is an acronym for Friends, Acquaintance, Neighbors.)  Basically, if you get stumped while trying to find information about one of your ancestors, you start looking at the folks in their life.  No man is an island, after all.  Even if these FANs aren't identifiably blood relatives, they still moved in the same circles.  And it's possible they generated records that mention your mystery ancestor.

I am such a genealogy geek that I often find myself working out the ancestry of my own FANs, to see if we might be (at least distantly) related.  I have been pleasantly surprised on more than a few occasions.

Here are a few:

• My college roommate and I are both descended from William and Elizabeth (Littlebury) Worsham of colonial Henrico County, Virginia.  That makes us 9th cousins, 3 generations removed . . . not exactly "close family," but, hey, it counts!
• One of my mother's longtime friends also turned out to be my 9th cousin, 3 generations removed.  We both descend from a French Huguenot named Robert Brasseur who settled in Maryland in the 1600s.
• The mistress of ceremonies at Pine Castle Pioneer Days (a local heritage festival that I help organize each year) turned out to be a slightly (very slightly) closer relative: my 9th cousin, but only 1 generation removed.  We both descend from a lady named Catherine Hubbard (1660-1706) by her second marriage.  Interestingly, by her first marriage, Catherine is also the ancestor of the comedian Oliver Hardy.   

It's kinda cool to think these people we have chosen to be a part of our lives are also distant cousins!