Now I'M the Infamous One?

           You know how it’s fun to discover that an ancestor of yours was a notorious bank robber or a gun-slinging madame?

          Well, now I've got to do ALL our genealogy so our kids won’t, because now I’M the one I don’t want them to read about!  Here’s how it happened:

I signed up for a family history webinar and guess who was running it? The granddaughter of (let’s rename her) Ethel Smick! Ethel was on my committee when I was a Relief Society President back in the 1990s. And it just so happened I was on the phone with her when St. Bob (See? This is really HIS fault) called with a very racy, flirtatious phone call. Husbands do this.

I thought I had put Ethel on hold, but no! She was only on conference, so she’d heard the entire thing, finally interrupting with, “Uh, I’m still here. I thought I’d better speak up before this went any further.”

Well, of course I died inside, made a flustered apology, hung up, and vowed to move away in the Witness Protection Program. It is truly one of my most embarrassing moments.

          And now, here was her granddaughter, saying, “My grandmother always shared such amazing stories with me…” at which point Bob, watching along with me, muttered, “There was once this Relief Society President…”

I even included the story (with fake names) in one of my novels. But here it was again, popping up to haunt me. I held my breath, waiting for the granddaughter to relay the story, to show the entertaining sorts of details you might uncover about your ancestors.

Finally, the segment ended without this humiliating detail, and I breathed a sigh of Relief. Not Relief Society, just relief.

You can find my novels and my Youtube Mom videos right here.

Talk About Your Famous Relatives

          Quick—name the fastest growing hobby in the world.  If you said, “Genealogy,” you’d be right.  There is something deliciously addictive in putting together the puzzle of our ancestry.  

         And now, with so many free online search sites, you can unearth both hooligans and heroes, filling your family tree with the most colorful characters you can imagine. 

Helen Keller once said, "There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his." Coolest of all is that everyone can claim Adam and Eve as common ancestors, which makes us all related in the biggest, most dysfunctional, hilarious, and often loving family. 

I wrote about the rival revolutionary war generals I found in my family and in St. Bob's here.  Even more interesting is that my tree contains a madam, for whom neighbors actually burned an effigy, in 19th Century England.  I can only imagine her contributions to the community.

But you’ll never believe what happened this week.  I was poking around on Family Tree, looking for Bob's connections to Norse kings, to show Nicole that she actually has heritage from Norway, where she just spent 18 months on a mission.  I was pretty sure I could remember a Beldeg, an Odin, and a Borg or somebody, King of the Norse. 

Only this time I took a new turn on Bob’s tree, and ended up with King Louis IV of France, a Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, and Julius Caesar.  I kept clicking on new branches and found Saxons and Goths, and eventually people with nicknames such as “the Bald,” and “the Fat.”  Soon I saw the king of Troy in 1500 BC, then Solomon and David.

And I then I realized what was happening.  This line was headed straight for Abraham, Noah and Methusaleh.  That could only mean one thing—I had traced my husband’s line all the way back to Adam!  Sure enough, just a few clicks later I saw, “Adam, the First Man and Eve, the First Woman, 4000 BC.”  Holy history chart! 

The incredible thing is that we could all do this, if we had complete records.  But it’s possible I’m the only person who has gone back to both Adam and Madam.  And somehow, in light of my latest book, I think it’s appropriate that these two discoveries rhyme.

Check out my LDS Nursery Rhymes book here—and give them as gifts to all your Mormon friends.  If you don’t have any, make some—they’ll probably help you with your family tree and get you all the way back to Adam!