It's your intrepid family history blogger back with part two of "Don't get carried away."
You guessed it. Our Thomas ancestors just don't match up with the Jamestown guys no matter how hard I try to make the shoe fit. That line gets within one generation of ours and veers off to Kentucky. Mint julep, anyone? Our line started, I believe, about 150 miles to the north of Jamestown and a few years afterward.
I think that our true line is going to prove quite interesting, but....they were not in a shipwreck that influenced Shakespeare and saved the Jamestown colony, sad to say. And yes, we have some DNA matches to help, but only in the later generations. Sigh.
What now? I have contemplated giving up. Lying and pretending it all works out. Disappearing on our upcoming trip to Yellowstone.
I think the only thing I can do is stay out of sight longer, until I've got the whole line completely figured out, before posting one iota of what I am working on. It's the deeper research that's getting me in trouble, that not taking others' trees at face value, so I look for some proof, but wanting to post something before I have done all the dirty work. Getting carried away.
I feel awful letting down my hearty band of relations again, but there you have it. When I am back, I promise that the work will be watertight (unlike the Sea Venture). Yes, I realize I said that last time.
As a high school teacher I must have been asked a thousand times, "So why do we have to learn this?" And my reply might be poor comfort for your having slogged through the Jamestown summary--remember, though, I read two whole books and countless other sources in the past few weeks--but I would tell them that I had never been sorry for anything I had learned, only for things I had not learned.
And another thing I have said over and over in my life, is that I have never learned anything except the hard way. Like learning not to get carts before horses. Don't get carried away.
No comments:
Post a Comment