| One of the last people I entered as I was
finalizing the Odyssey Edition for manufacture
was Sir Nicholas Wotton. Almost six hundred years
ago, in 1407, he was sheriff of London. As I'm
keying in the digital pathways to real people
from the past, from my present day perspective, I
often wonder about many of the individuals. What
did life look like to them? Did they stop to
marvel at sunsets? Did they wonder about how
their life would fit into the overall unfolding
of history? What did they daydream about? Did
they imagine that centuries into the future they
would have millions of descendants, and that some
of those descendants would be famous and do
things that would be known by all for many more
centuries?
On a slow day at the sheriff's office, could
Sir Nicholas have been leaning back in his
sheriff's chair with his feet on the desk,
daydreaming about what his descendants might be
doing centuries into the future? I'll bet that no
matter how well developed his imagination skills
were, it would have seemed way too far fetched
for him to imagine what would actually happen.
Maybe he might have daydreamed that some of
his descendants would become kings and queens of
Great Britain (even though Great Britain did not
exist then). Amazing things do happen (and in his
case, did happen), and this would have been
within the realm of possibility. But he would
have probably have kept this one to himself, as
most people would have ridiculed him for such
preposterous thoughts.
Fifteen years before Sir Nicholas became
sheriff, Christopher Columbus
"discovered" the New World. How could
Sir Nicholas have possibly imagined that four
centuries into the future one of his descendants
would lead the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition
across the entire wilderness of this New World to
the Pacific Ocean?
Although I do not know if I am one of Sir
Nicholas' descendants, considering my number of
ancestral dead ends and the general patterns of
ancestral connections, it is quite possible that
I am. In either case, how could he have possibly
imagined that in 2001 I would be writing about
him from an island in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean, and a few minutes later others at various
points on the planet would be reading about him?
What about Sir Nicholas' counterparts today?
Do you ever daydream about what your descendants
might be doing centuries into the future?
Governor of Mars? Returning from a five-year away
mission exploring the Delta Quadrant?
If the history of human genetic migration
continues as it has for many centuries, anyone
leaving grandchildren today will quite likely
have many millions of living descendants
somewhere six centuries from now. The law of
averages says that some will be famous, some will
be infamous, and most will be somewhere in
between. What amazing things might some of your
famous descendants accomplish?
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