Week 7: Favorite Discovery

Week 7:  Favorite Discovery.  Well.  I have learned a lot about my ancestors since starting to semi-seriously explore my family history.  And I have also learned a lot of mostly American history at the same time.  Maybe my favorite discovery is that there is so much more to be learned!  I never knew that I had Dutch Reform ancestors who had originally been banished to Brazil, then ousted from Brazil by the (Catholic) Portugese, then ejected again from the Netherlands to what was then New Amsterdam (OK, for sheer number of miles travelled, this may be my favorite). I didn't know about the couple who settled in Ohio on the future site of the Cincinnati Reds parking lot, or the Mayflower ancestors (there are apparently about 37 million descendants, literally, so not that unusual).

So the thing that makes me smile is not a particular discovery about a particular person.  It's more about figuring out how the ancestors all fit into history and maybe drawing some conclusions about why they made the decisions they did, to cross the ocean or move to the next state or take up farming (or leave it behind).  I'm enjoying the journey, probably more than they did!

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