2,048 = me

image courtesy of http://www.jonathans.me.uk/

I mentioned in one of my posts (things you probably didn’t want to know) that I am a 12th generation American.  We have two fully documented lineages that go back to the 1600s, one from England, the other from Germany.  The English line got here earlier, 1647, the German line, 1728.  Actually, there is a third lineage (possibly German as well) that goes back even earlier to the 1500s but there is a gap of nearly 200 years in documentation...from a 1561 patent of 400 acres in Northunberland Co, VA to a 1720 birth in VA.  Family legend has it that it is the same line but we don’t have the documentation to back it up.  If true, that would make me 15th or 16th gen.  My grandkids, possibly 17th generation.

I can go back to the early 1600s on the Storm linage. From Hardin to Oder, possibly mid 1500s.  Posey as far as the 1700s, same for Abbott to Pulliam.  Sims and others to mid 1800s.  These are the names the farthest back I know them on the Hall lineage (mid 1600s).  

Thomas Hall and Margery Claxton - arrived Virginia 1647

  John Hall (I) and Elizabeth

    John Hall (II) (wife unknown)

      John Hall (III) and Sarah (last name unknown)

        Nathan Hall and Anne Rowe

          Nancy Hall and Coonrod Storms - moved to Kentucky

            Randolph Storms and Catherine Hardin

             Jonathon Storms and Mary Ellen Posey - moved to Texas

               Sarah Storms and Wilson Sims

                Edith Sims and John De Bace

                  Johnnie Lou Bace and Jack Abbott

                    Ellen Abbott 

11 generations counting backward is 2,048 people to make me, the 12th generation.  2 to make me.  4 to make them.  8 to make them...

I am a little awed by that.  Not that I have so many generations under my belt.  Everyone living has lineages that go back to, well, emergence.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be here, right?  But I have at least a few ancestors that came over to the new world early on.  The earliest known, Thomas Hall, born 1625 in England received a grant of land in Norfolk county VA on the southern branch of the Elizabeth river for transporting six persons to that colony.  My people traveled from Virginia and Pennsylvania to Kentucky and then to Texas.  My line, down to my grandkids, has been in Texas for 7 generations.  I have ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.  We have provided the army with sustenance.  We have been slave owners.  We have been preachers and built churches.  We have been kidnapped by Native Americans and had children because of it.  We have been involved in feuds and kicked to death by horses.  We have bought and sold land.  We built railroads and made dresses.  We were an engineer and a doctor and finally to me, an artist and I have seen the line extend two more generations.   I like to think that whatever genetic material I have will continue to march on to the very end.