Aunt Martha and I had several rounds of phone and email tag before we finally got together, but what a treat it was to finally spend some time with her. She is our family's Historian. She has compiled a bookshelf full of binders filled with historic documentation on our family that goes far beyond "Wells". She has traced our family history through at least 10 different "lines" from child -> parents -> parents -> parents -> and so on for 10 generations or more. This is very interesting stuff to me. Part of my quest in taking a year off from work has been to reconnect with "my people" - and this kind of family lineage brings an entirely new dimension to that quest. It mainly comes from a place of wanting more of an identity beyond my immediate family. Like a big Greek family, or a big Italian family or a big Irish family. It just so happens that my big WASP-y family consists (at least on my Dad's side - and I would imagine it's pretty similar on my Mom's side) of mainly English ancestors, but also some German, some Irish, and a little bit of Scot. And we've been here for a really long time. And that's cool!
Aunt Martha is a past Regent (President) of her Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Membership in the DAR is through blood relation to a patriot who served in the American Revolutionary War. Because she is my father's sister (i.e. - they have the same parents - and lineage is through parent, passed to child) it means that I, too, am a blood relative of all the same people Aunt Martha is related to - because she and my dad hail from the same parents). Our ancestor who fought in the American Revolution is Edmund Williams. We are related to him through my Paternal Grandmother - who was a Williams prior to marrying my Grandfather.
It really puts life into perspective for me when looked at this way. I am directly related to a man who fought for independence of our country. It's something you hear about in obscure terms in high school and college history classes. But to say that my Great x10 Grandfather probably wore a deer-skin coat and carried a rifle and defended against the "Red Coats" - now THAT'S perspective on "where I come from". And it's an honor. To be related to someone who bravely served to gain independence of our country. I mean, if you think about it - Edmund Williams was probably a struggling farmer who was fed up with taxes and wanted to do something about it. Not all that different from today, except without all the modern conveniences.
But Aunt Martha's research goes much farther than this one patriot. We had another Great x? Grandfather who was in the Revolutionary War, who was killed at the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780. His name was Preston Goforth, and his name is visible on the monument atop Kings Mountain that memorializes the men who were killed there, fighting for their country. Every year on October 7, no matter what day of the week it falls, there's a special ceremony to commemorate the battle and to pay tribute to those who fell. And they get dressed up in period costumes to do it. I am going to go with Aunt Martha to that next year. In The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt wrote of the Battle of Kings Mountain, "This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution." And again, I am (we are) directly related to someone who died for that cause.
Digging still further, as it turns out, mainly (I believe) through our relation to Preston Goforth, our lineage also bears membership in a number of different organizations - including Daughters of the War of 1812, and Daughters of the Confederacy (we're Southerners, what can I say?). There are two more esteemed organizations that Aunt Martha is currently gathering documentation for membership in, that REALLY get me excited.
First, the Colonial Dames of America. This is an organization of women who descend from an ancestor who came to reside in British-America between 1607 and 1775, and whose services were rendered through holding public office, through military service or serving in the colonies in some other way. Now, I understand that many people regard these organizations as pure elitist drivel, and I get that. But the historical fact of our familial relations cannot be disputed, and I am honored, or more accurately humbled, to be able to trace my heritage to people of such courage, strength and sense of adventure!
The last of the organizations Aunt Martha is looking into is the Baronial Order of Magna Charta. Now this one is really something to wrap your brain around.
From Wikipedia: Magna Charta is an English legal charter, originally issued in the year 1215. The Magna Carta required King John of England to proclaim certain rights (mainly of his barons), respect certain legal procedures, and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects, whether free or fettered — most notably the writ of habeas corpus, allowing appeal against unlawful imprisonment.
Magna Carta was arguably the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today in the English speaking world. Magna Carta influenced the development of the common law and many constitutional documents, including the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects (the barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. There were 25 Barons who were registered as "Sureties" to the document. The Baronial Order of Magna Charta is a lineage society with membership available to people who can prove blood lineage to one of the 25 Barons, or Sureties. And Aunt Martha is working towards this very documentation.
So in a crazy "cycle of life" way of looking at ones life - you can easily say, "so what?". Big deal - what's it good for now? But that's the thing. It's not that any of these societies can "do" anything for me - but it's a way to honor the past, and my family. It reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting called "Family Tree" - which I have broken all sorts of copyright laws to include here:
This painting has always held special meaning for me. Starting at the bottom, it starts with this grizzly pirate and his Iberian courtesan wife. Then moving up the tree we see several familiar depictions of generations, then we get to the top of the tree with this cute, shiny, squeaky clean little boy - which is pretty much a representation of "now". But don't you know this little boy spent hours playing "pirates" and "cops and robbers" with his little buddies - and didn't even know he came by it honest? I like how that makes me feel! A part of something so much bigger than me, so much larger than my immediate family, and even larger than my imagination can even fathom.
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