01/12/01

Percy researched my family’s genealogy pretty thoroughly and put it all on a computer disk. I’m pretty sure he would have made a big fuss if he found we were descendants of someone like Joseph Smith.

Genealogy for me is hard to take, so I haven’t studied Percy’s work but lightly.

Mom and Dad were second cousins to one another through the Roosa family and more distant cousins through more than a dozen other local Dutch and Huguenot families tracing back to the days of New Amsterdam and the early days of the New Paltz patent. If you ever brought that shit out in conversation with Dad he’d all but take a stick to you to get you to shut up about it. It was the truth. There was no way around it really, but he didn’t want that kind of stink getting out in the world. I guess if you’re not prepared to abide by a taboo, you better be prepared to stay forever quiet about it’s violation.

I remember Mom saying once: Franklin and Eleanor were cousins to one another. They even grew up with the same last name. No one seemed to fuss much. That kind of thing happens all the time in high society and Royalty doesn’t it?

I remember Dad grumbling in response: We’re not Roosevelts. . . and I don’t want to utter that filthy name again in my house.

In fact, according to Percy’s research, both Mom and Dad’s Roosa ancestors descend from the children of Heyman Aldertse Roosa (1643-1708) and Anna Margariet Roosevelt (1654-1706). We are indeed Roosevelts as true as they come. . . with Roosevelt lineages to spare it seems. . .

If the hay baler hadn’t thrashed Dad to a bloody pulp I’m quite sure internet genealogy would have eventually gone on to do the same had he been able to hang around that long.