52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 6: Surprise!

It is Week 6 of Amy Johnson Crow's wonderful blogging prompt series, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and this week's prompt is to discuss something that has been a genealogical surprise in some way.

I'm on WikiTree, and having some confusion about a lot of it, but I hope help will set me on the right path.  Or paths.  Anyway, WikiTree handed me a little bit of a surprise with a suggestion.

My dear friend Amanda has east Tennessee roots.  Her father's people are from around Carter County, at the very eastern tip of Tennessee.  So is my mother's mother's family.  Amanda is something like the third cousin once or twice removed from A. P. Carter, the famous catcher of traditional songs of the area, and singer with the Carter Family, which included his sister-in-law Maybelle [Addington] Carter.  She was married to A. P.'s brother Ezra Carter.

WikiTree tells me that, through my mother's family, and a few others, I am distantly related to Maybelle Carter.  I have gotten close to making the connections, though some as yet are a tad tenuous.  I'm looking for more documents.  But I would just be over the moon if I turn out to be related to my friend Amanda.

And what is really odd, to me, is that one of those connected families, the Vanderpools, came to Tennessee from the rather patrician niche of old New Amsterdam, remaining one of the upper-crust families of New York.  So how did one branch of that family get to be east Tennessee hillbillies?  That's what Amanda calls herself, and she's proud of it.  Anyway, in another surprise that I haven't checked out yet, I have found some evidence that the Vanderpools were related, in New Amsterdam/New York, to the Delanos, and we know who they were related to.

If it does turn out that I am related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I will be beyond over the moon.  He is one of the presidents I admire most, and Eleanor Roosevelt is one of my role models!

One surprise I found last year on my way to looking at other documents, newspaper articles, and other items in my husband's family is that he is related to one of the finest Governors Florida ever had, Lawton Chiles, who, for his way of getting out and meeting the people of Florida, was known as "Walkin' Lawton."  Newspaper articles about his uncle's wedding in the 1920s got me on to birth certificates, marriage records, censuses, and World War I and World War II draft registrations to prove that relationship  That was a terrific surprise.

What's next?

April 12

I give this post the simple title "April 12" because I am going to talk about several events which took place on that date in the past few hundred years.

We all know that on April 12, 1861, Confederate forces began artillery bombardment of Fort Sumter.  It was the opening salvo of the Civil War.

And we know that on April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, died at his retreat at Warm Springs, Georgia.

What you may or may not know, depending if you have kept up with this blog and given a jellybaby about the fact, is that on April 12, 1947 -- two years to the day after the death of FDR -- I was born in Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California.

And I think many are aware that on April 12, 1961 -- one hundred years to the day after the beginning of the Civil War in the U.S., Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly into space.

I do not know whether it is because of the date of my birth or some other factor, but I have all my life been a "Roosevelt groupie."  I just love reading about both Roosevelt presidents, Theodore and Franklin.  And I think Eleanor Roosevelt was the greatest lady of the Twentieth Century.  She was active, intelligent, wise, and she carried on in the face of awful psychological blows.  She had strength of character and strength of purpose.  Unsure of herself at first during her husband's presidency, she became a strong advocate for the underdog and an ambassador of the best in the American character.

Speaking of Eleanor, the timing was right last night, when I attended the University of North Florida Graduate Students' Organization social.  We played the game where someone writes down the name of  a famous person, living or dead, and tapes it to your back.  You are supposed to find out who it is by asking "yes" or "no" questions.  I asked, "Is the person female?"  Yes. "Is she living?"  No.  "Was she white?"  Yes.  "Twentieth Century?"  Yes.  Then I made what to me was the obvious guess -- Eleanor Roosevelt.  I was right.

I visited Warm Springs many years ago with one of my college roommates.  I was by myself in the part of the house where the President's desk was located.  As I stood facing that desk and contemplating the man and his era, I felt a presence. I felt a touch at my back.  There was nobody there but me.  Nobody there but me -- and FDR. I do not ordinarily believe in "the supernatural" as far as ghostly manifestations and such, but I definitely felt a touch, a warm touch, at my back.

So every year on my birthday, I do spend a little while, if only a few minutes, thinking about FDR, and about Eleanor.  It wouldn't hurt us to have people like them in public life today.
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