In August 2022, I started exploring my family tree, and although the majority remains unexplored, I have already made some interesting discoveries.
It can require significant effort to trace one’s history before about 1500 A.D., but thus far, I have discovered that I am descended from Jesus (and Mary Magdalene), King Arthur Pendragon, and Pocahontas. I am also descended from at least 16 Roman Emperors, such as Marcus Aurelius and Constantine the Great.
The Queen Mother, and thus some English royalty, are my cousins.
There were 290 voyages carrying 7100 Pilgrim families (a.k.a. Puritans) to America from 1602 through 1638. Based on what I have found so far, I estimate that I am descended from about two dozen Pilgrims, and about 100 others are my cousins.
22 of the 45 people who have been the President of the United States are my cousins. They are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, FDR, JFK, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.
Some noble individuals are my cousins, such as Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Henry David Thoreau, Edmund Burke, Lysander Spooner, Stonewall Jackson, Thomas Edison, Manly P. Hall, George S. Patton, RFK, Princess Diana, Jim Marrs, Paul Allen, and Elon Musk.
Some ignoble individuals are my cousins, such as J. Edgar Hoover, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and Charles Manson.
Some of my cousins are famous entertainers, such as Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Carson, and Kevin Bacon.
Some of my cousins were married to famous people, such as John Adams, Samuel Adams, Daniel Boone, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Karl Marx, James A. Garfield, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Allen Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower, LBJ, and Johnny Cash.
I never thought there was much value in knowing one’s ancestry, but now I feel like I don’t want to disappoint them. Now it is clear that such knowledge can help one find the path and stay on the path.