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2011-12-16

I'm back in Carrollton, visiting my family. Yay.

Virgin America is cool. Also they're in a price war with American for SFO -> DFW, so customers get great prices.

Upon arriving home, my dad pulled out some papers from a box he had recently opened, and we found out that I'm a descendant of Pocahontas. Really:

  1. Pocahontas married John Rolfe and had one son, Thomas (Jan. 30, 1615)
  2. Thomas Rolfe married Jane Poythress and had a single daughter, Jane (1655)
  3. Jane Rolfe married Robert Bolling, and had one son, John (Jan. 27, 1676). She died shortly thereafter.
  4. John Bolling married Mary Kennon, and had six children, the first of which they named John Bolling Jr. (1700)
  5. John Bolling Jr. married Elizabeth Bland Blair and had seven children, including Thomas Bolling (1735)
  6. Thomas Bolling married Elizabeth Gay. Their children included a daughter, also named Elizabeth
  7. Elizabeth Bolling married William Robertson, and their children included a daughter, Sarah Ann
  8. Sarah Ann Robertson married Isaac Mills Robertson (from a different Robertson line) and their children included a son, Archibald (Jan. 29, 1780).
  9. Archibald Robertson married Mary Proctor and begat John Proctor Robertson (Oct. 18, 1806)
  10. John Proctor Robertson married Catherine Fry, and begat George William Robertson (Mar. 1, 1837)
  11. George William Robertson married Margaret Brown ("Aunt Dump"), and had seven children, the third of which was Annie Berry (1866)
  12. Annie B. Robertson married Napoleon Bonaparte Waugh and they begat a daughter Mattie (1906), the youngest of 7 children (5 girls, 2 boys in total)
  13. Mattie Waugh married Vivian Ezra Fisher (June 15, 1926), and they begat an only child, Vernon (1929)
  14. Vernon Fisher married and begat three children, Adrienne, Valerie, and Howard
  15. Howard Fisher married Melissa Marsh, and I am one of their children.

So Pocahontas is my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.

Comments:

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judy | 2011-12-23T21:42:02.239003

Wow! That's awesome. I can't believe you know who you're descended from for that many generations. I don't even really know the names of my grandparents (and even some of my aunts) because they're in Chinese, and we call them by their number and relationship to us. I don't know how many siblings any of my grandparents have and only sort of generally know where they're from.

I have a bridge (or something) on my nose, which makes my profile look like a ski jump. I share that with my dad and siblings, and it's kinda weird for Han Chinese people, so my mom once joked that maybe my dad's ancestors were from a place in China with a French port a long time ago.

Have you ever been interested in the DNA-testing genealogy services? I have one friend who mailed in a swab of the inside of his cheek, and that's how I found out that such services existed a few years ago. Recently at TEDxBAW I saw a talk from a principal person at 23andme.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNl9Ig1iXnM

I think technology is pretty cool. As long as we don't get all Gattaca up in here, I guess.