Could the success of the hugely popular Cheers television show be due to genes?

 

Could Ted Danson’s excellence in the role of Sam Malone be due to his own ancestry?

 

While I was adding Ted Danson’s family and their ancestral history into the Family Forest® I came across an interesting story about one of his 5^th great-grandfathers, Thomas Allen.

 

During the American Revolution and afterwards, Thomas Allen was the proprietor of a popular establishment in New London, CT “where everybody knows your name.”

 

On page 218 of the July 1920 edition of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, one paragraph says:

 

Caulkin’s History of New London, pp. 578-9, states: “Allen’s Marine List was esteemed a valuable appendage to Greene’s newspaper. He enlivened the dull record of entries and clearances with maxims, witticisms and sudden insertions of extraneous matter which were often grotesque and amusing. The list commenced in 1770. During the Revolutionary War, he [Thomas Allen] kept a public house on Main Street, and the marine list renewed Jan. 1, 1785. This house was regarded as the center of good living and convivial brotherhood. Here was to be heard the latest news, the freshest anecdote, the keenest repartee: here was served up the earliest and best game of the season, the January salmon, the eighteen pound black fish, trout, woodcock and wild duck, in advance of every other table. It was then much then in vogue for gentlemen of the town to dine together in clubs. The following advertisement from Greene’s Gazette gives notice of the re-opening of the City Coffee House: ‘City Coffee House reopened by Thomas Allen, next door to Captain Joseph Packwood’s, where can be had drink for the thirsty, food for the hungry, lodging for the weary, good stabling for horses. Said Allen has also in supply of choice Madeira Lisbon and Port wines for the benefit of the sick and weakly, and good horses to let to merciful riders.’ ”

 

Which of your own ancestors might have lived lives very parallel to yours, and in some meaningful way might have prepared you for excellence in a particular endeavor?

 

Bruce Harrison
Ancestral History Tour Guide and Cartographer
http://www.familyforest.com
A People-Centered Approach To History®
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