Shaking the Family Tree (standard:non fiction, 1243 words)
Author: Lou Hill	Added: Apr 22 2002	Views/Reads: 3299/2365	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Searching for ancestors unearths some interesting stories.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

compared to as recently as ten years ago when everything was pretty 
much done by on-site research or through the mail, it is still a 
"detective job" to piece together information, to be able to go to the 
right source to follow up on a clue garnered from a census record or 
information chiseled on a gravestone in an old cemetery.  Perhaps I am 
a frustrated Sherlock Holmes.  I certainly get a big kick out of 
rooting an elusive ancestor out of the mists of time by using my 
deductive powers. 

I suppose that, like most people, I would love to find a famous ancestor
in my family tree.  So far, no such luck.  I	 have found a four times 
great-grandfather who was a Minuteman in the Revolutionary war.  My 
twenty five times great grandfather, Guido de Janes, was given an 
estate in Essex, England by King Henry II.  His grandson, Geoffry de 
Janes traveled to the Holy Land on three separate crusades.  I have 
several relatives who served in various local and state offices here in 
Vermont.  There are no well-known names but I am still looking. 

I sometimes find information that amuses me and often find things that
sadden me as well.  There have been several hastily arranged marriages; 
this based on the wedding date and the birth date of the first child.  
I have one relative who was described in "The History of South Hero" as 
"an eccentric genius, but more, he was a rough, untamed backwoodsman." 
Another distant cousin, born on the 4th of July 1776, was named 
Liberty.  My Great-Great Grandfather Austin was the only one of five 
children to live beyond the age of three.  Only one of my 
Great-grandmother Austin's five siblings lived to maturity. 

The indomitable spirit of some of my early ancestors	 amazes me.  One of
my French-Canadian ancestors, Antoine Emery, had eleven children by his 
first wife.  All of them died at birth or shortly thereafter.  When his 
wife died, he remarried, choosing a woman half his age.  She produced 
nine children, all of whom lived.  One of them was my six times 
great-grandmother, Catherine Emery. 

Perhaps most amazing is the story of my six times Great-Grandparents,
Benjamin and Hannah Janes.  On May 13, 1704, Indians attacked Hannah 
and her three children at their home in Northfield, Mass.  The three 
children were killed.  Hannah was scalped and left for dead.  
Fortunately she recovered from her wounds and bore Benjamin six more 
children, including my direct ancestor, Seth Janes. 

As I consider the question of why I search through old records and books
trying to put another twig on the tree, I find myself coming to this 
conclusion.  History tells me who I am and it also tells me why I am 
what I am as well. 

Enosburg VT July, 1994 


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