My Seagoing Ancestors

Happy Halloween! It looks more like Christmas around here, and the little delivery robots are laboring through the snow. If there was ever a day when I would want to have a robot deliver some food to me, this was it, but alas, they are apparently still in the testing stage. I did brave the flurries to take a walk on the Lakeshore Path, and almost nobody else was there, so I got to enjoy the winter wonderland in peace.

This is such a contrast to Sunday, when it was warm and we were in the boat. I always assumed that my need to be on the water came from the west coast of Ireland, where a good deal of my DNA came from, but there were other fishermen in my family tree, apparently. A few months ago I was notified that someone was my fifth cousin, and that I was on their family tree. Indeed I was, although two days younger than I actually am. This family tree was very impressive, going back to a man born in France in 1660, but I don't have any French DNA per my genetic test. It did include “Lucinda,” the woman I suspect was part African, and a few branches above her was a man who had no wife listed. “Ah ha!” I thought. “There it is!” I contacted the woman, who told me this man was the son of a freed black slave and a Chicksaw mother. (But I have no First Nation DNA either.) She told me to contact a woman in North Carolina, so I did.

This woman, who I think may have created the family tree I was listed on, was a fount of information. She has even written a book that you can buy on Amazon about that branch of our family tree, but it is only an e-book, and I don’t have a Kindle. Apparently we are descended from the William Hobbs plantation in Virginia, and the story about the First Nation heritage is untrue. I am also descended from African whalers who eventually settled in Virginia, but they were originally from West Central Africa. She found out about all this after being contacted by a distant cousin who identifies as black. So between Nigerian whalers and Irish fishermen, is it any wonder I always want to be on the water?

Famous Hat