[Constitutions Grandchild]

Oh, darn. I thought I'd just won the lottery. ;-) That's what they used to call Grandpa's family - Newcomers. They'd only been here from the late 1600s, early 1700s. Well, at least you knew where you were. I didn't even know that. Thank you for the extension of such gracious generosity. I defer to your superior credentials and accept with overwhelming gratitude.

[AuH2ORepublican]

The thing is that, if one goes back to 1530, that’s like 20 generations. Knowing one ancestor 20 generations back means that one knows just one of one’s 1,048,576 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents (of course, going that far back, some of the 1,048,576 names are certain to appear more than once in one’s family tree). Genealogy is interesting and fun, but it really puts in perspective how much one *doesn’t* know about one’s exact ancestry.

BTW, are you partly of Native American descent? I ask because stories of Virginia Dare’s possible descendants usually point to her having married a member of one of the Indian tribes around NC. If you have Native American ascent, then you can call *everyone* a newcomer. : )