I have a confession to make...one that I'm not proud of. But I'll get there in a minute. Let me start with the backstory. My grandmother was a dedicated genealogist. I think it came partly from being adopted. But at any rate, she was die-hard, and I seem to be the one grandchild that has inherited this interest. Perhaps it stems from the same place as the history major, I don't know. But at any rate, I have picked up her mantle (she died in 1999), and have been working on the family history in her stead. (No, that's not the confession :) )
For those interested in genealogy, I have to say what a wonderful tool ancestry.com is, assuming you undertake to do your own research and verification, and you take what it displays with a grain of salt. It offers amazing access to public records, censuses, immigration documents, etc., and I have become quite the addict. I have added several generations in all directions, and made quite a few connections with people researching the same lines I am.
Ancestry also has a feature called the OneWorld Tree, effectively a database trying to link as many people's information together as possible. As a result, it has this nifty little gadget called FamousPeople. Using the OneWorld Tree Data, it searches to find any famous, infamous, or quasi-celebrity people with common ancestors. It doesn't always get it right. For instance, it suggested that Chaucer was the 13th great-grandfather of the ancestor I was searching (that would make him my 20th great-grandfather). Kinda cool, except for the part where it lists someone in the line as being only a year younger than the person who is supposedly his mother. I know people married and had children early, but that's pushing it. The problem stems from the computer not being able to distinguish between people with similar names.
Anyway, it's a fun little gadget, and I was scanning the famous people connected to this particular ancestor, and evaluating the reliability of the data, when I came across a nasty shock. The one line that was incontrovertible. The one that matched all the correct data. The one I could prove. James Sample, my 5th great-grandfather, is descended from a woman named Elizabeth Stoughton. She lived between 1600 and 1647 in England, immigrating, apparently, in the latter years of her life, because she is reported to have died in Massachusetts. I seem to have a number of these really old families-- Anglo-Saxon settlers who came to settle here in the early to mid 17th centuries. But obviously, Elizabeth Stoughton had other children, too. And they spawned many lines, one of which is the subject of my confession to you all here.
Elizabeth Stoughton is the 8th great-grandmother of George Herbert Walker Bush, 9th great-grandmother of George Walker Bush. Yes, THEM. My father, although the same age as our chimp-in-chief, is of the same generation of descent as Jenna and Barbara.
I know it's only a distant relationship, but I have no desire to contaminate this site any more than I already have, and I hope the Kossacks can forgive me. Tell Bill in Portland Maine that I will send the keys to the Lexus back by post, and I am sad that I never got my turn to drive it. I'm keeping the paste, the orange hat, and the files of pootie pictures. And the memories. ***sigh***