My maternal grandmother Olive was born in San Francisco in 1904 to a schoolteacher named Arvilla. She in turn had come west with her mother and sisters to join her father. Hazen Bartlett left Lamoine, Maine, in the 1880s after all his attempts at mining, fishing and farming failed. His father and grandfather before him hadn’t done much better.
His grandfather, David Bartlett, was born on Bartlett Island, off the coast of Maine, in 1788, the result of his father's affair with a young woman named Esther des Champs. They never married and the child moved to the mainland. Esther's mother Marguerite was of the family de la Mothe Cadillac. Her family held title to two leagues of the Maine coast that had been granted by King Louis XIV to her Acadian grandfather Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in 1688. It was he who founded Detroit in 1701.
So for those keeping score at home, the founder of Detroit (and namesake for a line of fine automobiles) is my great great great great great great great great grandfather.
10 comments:
Gawd, mate. Well, color me impressed!Fascinating info, Don.
I think I have a second cousin whose name is Kia Rio...
Can you get me a deal on an Escalade??
How awesomely cool to 1) be able to go back that far in your history and 2)have an interesting connection like that.
My aunt has a book that traces the main ancestral lines back a bit, and she tried to explain it all to me, but while it was interesting while we talked, I never could keep it all straight. Names, places, events, all slipped away from memory. I should get her to get copies of the book made. All I know is that my family originates in the Carolinas.
Mine too. My father's father's father was born in NC, and his father before him, and my last name is relatively common back there.
I'm all into genealogy and after I retire I could fill the remaining years traveling about doing research. Some lines peter out in the mid 1800s and some go back to the 1500s. Lots of blanks to fill in if possible.
I wonder if any of our ancestors married each other. I'll have to talk to my aunt again.
[aka brother Steve]
Fascinating. I'm glad you pinned down this stuff, as it's fun to know. I suppose Dad helped.
When we were kids, on the bookshelf were some collections of pieces by James Thurber. In one, he riffed on the idea of a fusion of childrens' stories with hard boiled detective yarns, and what would that be like? The detective, a fox named Franz I believe, grills a young weeping rabbit who says that the murder victim was her great-great-great-grandmother. Not unreasonable, considering rabbits.
Someone sneers, "Nobody's that great."
Sorry. Don't know why I did that.
[BTW, the great-great-great-granddaughter did it.]
I wonder if any of our ancestors married each other.
I would hope at least some of them did, for decorum's sake.
This all reminds me of one of my favorite Norman Rockwells: the family tree with all the exotic, swarthy people on it, and one apple-cheeked, freckled redheaded kid at the bottom.
Antoine Laumet, who invented his fancy name and noble lineage when he went to the New World, was certainly a swarthy character whatever his complexion. And his great-granddaughter (I'm thinking maybe she really was great) never bothered to marry my ancestor, at least. It's funny that the pseudo-science of genealogy got popular in the Victorian era so people could prove how fine they were, but the opposite, by their lights, is eventually revealed.
Dad had nothing to do with any of this, 'twas a combo of data I got years ago from Grandma (Olive as mentioned) and poking about on the internet. Now I've got a couple of researchers wanting more info from me, but I really haven't much.
I'm with Paula. You should get a free car.
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