Low Energy Week

It is hot again and promises to continue the rest of the week.  Therefore, I am doing things that expend the least amount of energy possible.  It is too hot and humid to work with yarn.  Can't even scrape up enough energy to sew.  I have been neglecting my genealogy research, so this seems like a good time to put in some serious computer time where my only exercise is fingers on keyboard.

I love reading other folks blogs about their searches for ancestors.  Most times they give me new ideas about where to look online.  Sometimes their family stories are inspiring or courageous or amusing.  I am surprised at how many will go to great lengths to try to prove royalty or celebrity in their family lines.

Me...I like the black sheep.  The ones that other researchers in my family have glorified, ignoring  their sins.  Like one of my great grandfathers.  He served in the Civil War and was wounded in battle.  I will give him credit for that.  But nobody else mentioned the fact that he was court-martialed for being drunk on guard duty. He remained in the army as it was wartime and every man was needed to fight, but he forfeited most of his pay for three months. I once asked my Dad about him and Dad's reply was that his grandpa 'sure did love his booze.'  He was the reason my grandmother, his daughter, made my grandfather sign a paper stating that Grandpa would stay away from liquor.  Grandma wouldn't marry Grandpa until he signed on the dotted line.

Another ancestor has been praised by other researchers as the hero who was the first of that family line to reach the shores of America - the New World.  And that much is true.  However, while combing through old court records I found that this ancestor was a real bugger.  He harassed his neighbors to the point of being involved in several lawsuits.  He was put into stocks in the village square for leaving his wife alone long enough for her to become pregnant with another man's child.  Eventually the local citizenry had had enough of him and he and his wife were banished from the town.

Now here's the rub.  This boy child born to the wife is the ancestor from whom my family line descends.  If all of this is true and even though he carries the family surname, he may not be blood related.  So I am off to see what I can find out concerning this dilemma.

I love a good mystery, especially when it is within my own family.  :)