If you do an internet search for my name, you will get many results for listings of people who share my name. Some may even be related to me. There is an actor, a writer, a photographer, a painter, an equestrian specialist, a bass player for a jazz quintet, and many others, all sharing my name. I am not any of those people, but I could have done some of the things they have done in their lives. I have done nothing special yet. Well, not special in any way that would have made anyone recognize who I am. If you look deeply enough in a Google search, you might find me; it appears I have at least one promising result returned for the SETI @ Home project. You probably know that they are searching for some indication of non-natural radio signals out in the rest of the cosmos. This was the first use of a project utilizing millions of individual computers connected by the internet to receive small data packets and transmit the findings back for further analysis after running a program to process the data. I also have a few hits on an internet hybrid car group. No cure for a disease. No million-dollar lottery win that was then given to charity, yet anyway. I am no one in particular. But it occurs to me that, even though you do not know me, I still have a story.
I was born towards the end of what has become known as “the baby-boomer” generation. It was the Cold War. The words “Under God” had just been added to the Pledge of Allegiance. There was a Communist under every bed. No doubt Soviet Nukes were targeting every major city in the United States, perhaps even where I now live. And we, no doubt, had just as many – or more- targeting them: I know there was a ballistic missile silo near here, but it was decommissioned before coming online. Of course, at that point, I knew nothing about any of those things that were a part of what would become my early life.
There were some in my family long ago who were of note. Evidently, my genealogy goes back to the first Plantagenet King, Henry II, and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and, before that, to William the Conqueror. Hey, I do not know for sure. It is in the book of my family roots, researched by my great-aunt, who had done similar projects before. She sounds very convinced that the evidence found in her research on this link is real, and I do not think that she would have stretched anything just to make it a better read for the few people who have the book. But, even if this part is not true, I am directly related to settlers in the New England area around 15 years after the Mayflower landed. The head of the family at that time was a minister (although not ordained). The early settlers needed a minister, and ordained ones were scarce, so they accepted him. He was granted some acreage in what is now Hingham, Massachusetts. A part of that land bears his name and is still shown in local history books. He was a mover and shaker in early American life. He went on to be an early settler in the community of Marblehead, Mass., served as a minister at the Old North Church there, and was involved in community affairs.
That same book shows that I am related to one of the original Mayflower passengers, Thomas Rogers, a signer of the Mayflower Compact. Although this is interesting if you are in my family, I am not sure what real value there is in this fact. At the time, any of these facts could have done me some good in early school years; things like “Show and Tell,” or, just as likely, report topics for school projects. I did not know anything about it then. All it is good for now is acceptance into the Mayflower Society, which charges an annual membership fee to maintain that status. I am not sure what else it is good for. They do give you an official plaque showing you are the real thing, after they verify the lineage that you researched and sent to them. Maybe they have a secret handshake, too. The information on the internet about the reasons you might want to join is a bit sketchy. Knowing it is true is good enough for me.
My father’s namesake was the first of the early New England ancestors to leave the area. Because he had a bad leg from polio, as the story goes, his family knew he would not make it as a farmer, so they encouraged him to cultivate his mind and attend high school, something that very few in those days could afford. He became a teacher and moved to the Illinois area, where he met his future wife, my link to the Mayflower. She was an older daughter in the family he was staying with. The family had invited him in, hoping that having a teacher living in the house would be a good influence on the children. He married the daughter and moved to Iowa, being among the first settlers to take advantage of President Lincoln’s loosening of the homestead laws. They went by covered wagon. I mention this for a couple of reasons. He is the ancestor that my father was named after. And he is the one I most resemble in the few pictures that exist of my early ancestors.
Memory is the Key 