Saturday, October 4, 2014

Just don't tell me "We're all related anyway"

Tangents! I get off on tangents. And they always pay off. I'm researching the previous residents of my house so this morning I pulled a file out of my file cabinet with clippings that I got from our Local History Center. One particular photo intrigued me, as it was of a man named Charles C. Rittenhouse, who was an architect in Canon City, CO at the turn of the 20th century. As I saw his name "Rittenhouse", my thoughts went to my step-mother's ancestry, as she is related to a Rittenhouse Baird. As a result, I've spent time today on my step-mother's Baird ancestry instead of writing the post I'd planned about the previous residents of my house.  

As a preface to the charts that are posted below, I must say that I adopted my son as an infant. He's the greatest blessing of my life. As the only grandchild my (step)mother Phyllis (Jones) Margheim had, he was also the greatest blessing of her life. When my genealogy research shows me a connection from my son to my step-mom, I'm instantly amazed and very interested.

This chart shows that Phyllis's second cousin 3 times removed was John Bedent Baird. (Click on the charts to make them bigger).
The chart below shows that John Bedent Baird is the 7th cousin 4 times removed of Taylor D. Haining. Taylor is my son's step-daughter by his first wife. 
The chart below shows that John Bedent Baird is the 2nd cousin 4 times removed of Kindall Johnson. Kindall is my son's step-daughter by his current (and last) wife. 
When I share these connections, I sometimes get the response "Well, we're all related anyway!" I don't like hearing that. Yes, we're all part of the human race, but if we're all related, can you show me how John Bedent Baird might be related to my son's daughter? Or to my son? I haven't found those connections yet!

Now back to my research on my house history and possible connection to Charles C. Rittenhouse.

2 comments:

Randy Seaver said...

Hi cousin Becky,

I have Ruth Blodgett and Thomas Kendall in my tree - 9th great-grandparents.

We are probably related with Peirce too.

Cool!

Did we know this before?

Becky Thompson said...

You're right, Randy, this is Cool! IF I already knew it I had forgotten...as I'm more prone to do as my brain is getting overloaded! Thank you for pointing this out. Looking forward to seeing you again at RootsTech 2015!