| One of the common misconceptions about
ancestors is that they are all along a straight
line into the past. This leads to statements like
"My ancestors are from _______ (Ireland,
Italy, etc.)"; made with the absolute
certainty they that only came from that one
country. When I tell some people they also had
many ancestors from other places, they often
stare at me as if I had just told them they had
ancestors from Jupiter, and assume I've been out
in the sun too long.
I have ancestors who came to America from
Hungary only a century ago. Although I know
nothing of their parents, the normal assumption
would be that their ancestors had been in Hungary
for many centuries before then. After all, people
stayed in the same places in the old days, didn't
they?
While my Hungarian ancestors were living their
lives about 1640, supposedly in Hungary, another
one of my ancestors came to America from England
with seven of her younger children (who all
married and left numerous descendants in VA and
MD). Her name is Anne Lovelace (PIN 21293 in
F&P, PIN 29085 in Presidential), and she was
the widow of Rev. John Gorsuch. She was English;
therefore her ancestors were English, right?
A 20 generation ancestor view of Anne in
Presidential (with "Include siblings"
and "Cousin Smart" de-selected) fills
in only 1,060 boxes on her ancestor chart. This
is only one percent of her ancestry during that
time period. But what does this small sliver
reveal?
It does show that Anne did have many English
ancestors. It also shows that at the very same
time many of them were living, she also had
ancestors living in Scotland, Ireland, Wales,
Holland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland,
many places in Spain, and very many places in
France. How many other places would I find if I
knew the other 99% of Anne's ancestry?
Looking at the maps that appear from our
Family Forest project of connecting the dots of
recorded history, it appears impossible for
someone to have ancestors from one part of Europe
without having ancestors from all parts of
Europe.
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