Yesterday, I read an article about how “researchers at Emory did a study showing how kids who know their family history have a greater belief that they could control their world and a higher degree of self-confidence. It was the number one predictor of a child’s emotional well-being.” My initial thought was that my daughter would be the one who would remember family history. Boy was I wrong!

Her fiance has traced his ancestors back to Thomas Jefferson. Then my daughter said she didn’t even know anything beyond her grandparents. What!?

So today, assuming that my son had ignored me all the time we’ve ever talked about family, I asked him the same question and WHOA! He knew more than me. He’s apparently done some research on my husband’s family…he knew his grandparent’s names and how many children and where they originated from (England) and that they were Quakers who left England because of persecution. I didn’t know that!

I think I’ll get him a membership to ancestry.com.

I’m fascinated by that kind of stuff. Little vingettes of life. History. So maybe it’s a hobby we can share together. And maybe someday, we’ll figure out if we have more than just English ancestry. (My daughter would like to be Irish and could probably pass for an Irish lass. But that’s another story for later.)

What about you? Where did you come from? Any skeletons in your ancestrial closets? Crazy Aunt Marthas?