I am the 11th great grandson of William Bradford, Gov of Plymouth, who took a ride on a little boat called “Mayflower” back in the day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bradford_(Plymouth_governor)
Tag Archives: Ancestry
Feb 28, 2009
Learned a bit about my dad’s side of the family. Turns out that Swope and Swopes are, surprisingly, related… (Also Schwab, Swab… same name, which came from the region – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabia ) So, this is a chunk of my family history…
http://books.google.com/books?id=NkEVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA494&lpg=PA494#v=onepage&q&f=false
Not sure where I branch off from, but we do know that we’re among the original settlers of pennsylvania, we settled lancaster county where the amish now live, then moved on to monroe county, west virginia, where there’s a smallish mountain named swope’s knob…
my dad’s mom’s side has a convicted witch, which is kinda neat. She was executed, so that kinda sucks for her.
http://members.tripod.com/rfox52/LydiaGilbert.htm
According to this artist’s conception, apparently she could shoot lighting out of her hands… how badass is that?
http://womenhistory.blogspot.com/2008/02/lydia-gilbert.html
Feb 18, 2009
Mom has been digging into the family history…
Seems my great-great-great-grandmother Kate Keller was 5th or 6th cousin to a woman named Kate Keller whose daughter was Helen… Well, actually Kate Keller also had a daughter named Helen… But not THE Helen… That was the other one. You follow that right?
Cool… It seems Kate also had a daughter named Beula who married a guy named Thomas Luther Watkins and then another guy named Luther Thomas about four years later…
Did they only have like five names available back then, or what?
So, Beula was a stuntwoman (no record of what she did) for Hal Roach (Think “Our Gang” or “Laurel and Hardy”) and Warner Bros whose stage name was Dolly… Which is also my grandma’s name. She wasn’t a stuntwoman, though.
Of course, I think the duplicate Helens and coincidentally named husbands are a paperwork mixup. The duplicate Kate’s seem to be legit.
[EDIT: Nope, the Thomas Luther / Luther Thomas thing is accurate. ]