You discover the strangest things when looking around in family history. I knew that I had possible family in VA, told to me by a Prof at UA, who looked remarkably like my Uncle Alma.
I started some research out of boredom and found that a branch of my family settled in Christ Church in 1636. That was a surprise, seems that there at a lot more Little Bills out there than I though.
One DOES discover strange things!
There has always been a legend in our family that we had some level of Native American blood. Our heritage, from my paternal Grandmother’s side, has been very well documented by my genealogist Aunt, way back to England, and to the house of Plantagenet.
But we don’t know much at all about that Granny’s own paternal side - her father was an Irish orphan in Virginia.
I don’t know if the native “legend” developed because, at a certain point, some of the FFVs thought it a proud thing to claim Indian blood; or if someone, at some point, KNEW something - and it came down as oral tradition.
But I was shown some pictures of ancestors, and I know what my Granny looked like...and it does make one wonder.
It never really hit me though, until an African American man in my apt. building looked at me curiously, and asked me if I had Native American blood.
I’ll never know; back in the long-ago day, a lot of men ‘went native’, and anything could have happened.
Another story my Grandmother told me: in her mother’s house, there was a chest or “dresser”, with a drawer that was locked, and nobody could find the key.
Something ‘rattled’ in that drawer, when lower drawers were opened; but nobody ever found out what it was, because they never broke into that drawer. (I would have taken some tools to it, to find out what the damn rattle was! but they never did.)
So, we’ll never know what was in that drawer.
(One last thought: Genealogy is very interesting, if it gives you an interest in history; but it is only as accurate as the women were honest! ;-)
- JT (who is absolutely NOT Elizabeth Warren :-)