17th Century Prose
I can't stop myself from all this genealogy research! It is SO addictive! Must. Fill. In. Spaces!

I found this cool fan-style family tree chart today (see below) and started filling it in. Although I have some lines going all the way back to 1642, there are some lines that only go back to about the turn of the century. I mean, the 1900 one. So, the gaps are suddenly glaring and I am compelled to track down every last ancestor!

The truth is, I never will. James' mother was Japanese and, though I know her parent's names I have little chance of doing effective genealogical research in the Japanese language. I suspect there will remain a large gap for a very long time. I have asked James' cousins for the information, but I haven't heard anything which leads me to believe they do not possess my addictive personality and are not driven to fill in the blanks.

It has been fun to see that James' great great great....grandfather came to America on the Pink Plaisance in 1732 and my great greats came on the Patience in 1750. Both came from Rotterdam by way of Cowes and landed in Philadelphia. I wonder if they ever saw each other on the street? Probably not in Philadelphia since they headed for different sections of the country and came 18 years apart, but maybe in Germany? Who knows. I have a friend who discovered his great great great great grandfather came on the same ship as his wife's great great great great grandfather and found out they definitely knew each other! Isn't it romantic?

So, I don't have time for all this research and I certainly don't have time to be writing about doing all the research, so I'm off now to do something that will earn some money. Happy Sunday!