Gengealogy

Bob Spare

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Been the last couple of months working on my Gengealogy for the family.

Ended up with 35 pages.
Everything from
1.) Coat of arms
2.) How name changed from Spear to Spare
4.) How found out my mothers name was changed didnt find out until a week ago??
5.) My stories in the service.

You got the picture..........speaking of pictures there are over 120 pictures along with each short story.

Just one example of many things that I witnessed in my life time.

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Genealogy is very interesting, my Mom is a big time Genealogists, having searched our family back as far as we could, it always turns up some surprises! :thumb:
 
Genology is really interesting. I found out my Great Grandfather ten times removed came over on the Mayflower, while a few Generations later another Great Grandfather fought in the French and Indian War and his decedent in the Revolutionary War.

A few weeks ago I wrote this blog regarding my family and why the Fourth of July is so special to us. I will post it here in case people are interested:

To tell you the truth I was hoping to post this earlier as the Fourth of July is the best way to tell you about my place and the very unique way my family inherited our property here in Maine. In fact we inherited it before this state was even a state, or a country for that matter, or heck even a colony...Still I think my great-grandfather ten times removed would be very pleased with what has transpired over the last several hundred years.

You see my family literally came over on the Mayflower, landing with Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. While it is pretty neat to think my Great-Grandfather was having a meal with the Indians that first Thanksgiving, it was perhaps the little know French and Indian War that really meant the most to my family.

My Great-Grandfather a dozen times removed fought extremely hard for the King of England, rising in the ranks enough so that the Kind of England granted my family a parcel of land in what is nowadays Waldo County Maine when the war was over. Unfortunately when the Revolutionary War broke out, that man's son had a hard choice...stay a loyalist for the British, or side with the American's and try for a better way of life.

Turning his back on the King of England, my Great-Grandfather made a hard choice. Only 1% of the population back then decided to try for a better life, but my Great-Grandfather worked his way up through the ranks in the continental army. Family history said he was a high ranking General in the army, but I have yet to substantiate that. Still he must have been pretty high because he was allowed to keep the land that the king of england granted him in the French and Indian War after the american's won the revolutionary war. Today my home resides on that same parcel of land given to our family so many, many years ago.

Today those thousand and thousands of acres have dwindled down to less than a thousand. Still I think my Great Grandfather would understand that a lot of acres would be meaningless without freedom. Our friends and neighbors own property, raise children and enjoy "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" thanks to the land that he once owned.

This may be bragging, but I know my Great-Grandfather endured a lot during those 8 years of battle to win OUR independence. He saw friends die from musket balls, he saw soldiers die from bar shot being fired mercilessly from cannons at the battle of Long Island, and most likely froze his feet off at Valley Forge. Still he never quit, never ran from battle and toed the line with our forefather's that had grit and determination and somehow knew democracy would prosper and spread to the other parts of the world even 230 years later.

The great thing is, that grit and determination is still here in the United States. It is within every american GI, no matter what war they served in, where they served, how long they served or what nation their family originally came from. That is what makes this country great, and what keeps this country free. I am just very proud that my Great-Grandfather made the choice to serve this country the very first time the call was made some 230 years ago.
 
Looks like you've had some interesting experiences, Bob. And cool stories from you, Travis.

My mom was into geneology and traced one branch of her family tree back into the 1700's and the various members that came over from England. She eventually discovered that my sister and her husband share a common great-great-great-etc. grandfather about 8 generations ago. As it turns out, my sister and her husband are something like first cousins eight times removed. In fact, my mom was more closely related to my sister's husband (seven times removed) than my sister was.

And none of us live in a trailer park. :rofl:
 
.... She eventually discovered that my sister and her husband share a common great-great-great-etc. grandfather about 8 generations ago. ....

Vaughn - This is probably not that difficult an event to pull off. If you take that each person has two parents, 4 grandparents, 8 greatgrandparents etc. you only have to go back 35 generations (conservatively not much more than 1000 years) to get a number of antecedents that exceeds the total number of all humans who have ever lived on the planet (34billion odd). Its an interesting thought to play with and helps me to keep in mind that we are all more similar than any of us are different.
 
Well since you guys are sharing some interesting stories, I'll share a couple of mine :D

Unfortunately my father's side of the family is not traced back so far, the blame can be placed squarely on some Nazi bombs dropped on London during the Blitz in the battle for Brittan. The family church was lost to the bombing, and so did the majority of the records for my family in the UK. Some of my now distant relatives still live in the same house that they lived in several hundred years ago, hard for this guy from Canada to imagine.

One of my relatives is a Victoria Cross recipient Alfred Ablett

My Mother's side of the family has had a very interesting history. The story I've heard is that they were Germanic immigrants to what is now Canada, when the revolutionary war broke out between Britain and what became the USA, my distant relatives joined up with the King's army. I understand that there were four brothers, when they went to sign up, they did not speak much English, so when asked who there were, they thought they were being asked what they were, they stated "Loyalists" and the clerk in charge wrote their names down as "Loyst". After the war, they returned to Canada to get their reward, a chunk of land. One brother sold his chunk to his other brothers and headed for the US, where his family still live on. The other three farmed in Ontario, then one brother sold his lot and moved to the city (I'm not sure which city it was) and there he opened a saloon and house of ill repute. Eventually the city fathers got tired of the troubles from his house and, according to family history, was tarred and feathered and run out of town, not to be heard of again. The other two brothers decedents still farm land in Ontario. My mother did find out the original name of the family and has researched it back fairly far, 1400s, I think, not sure.

There you go, now you know a little more about me and my family! :wave:
 
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