“From These Roots We Came”

For those of you who are as busy as I am, you can’t always check out sites of interest on a regular basis. I am assuming if you are here (my how I hate to assume!!), you at least have some interest in what is being posted here.
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© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

Every ancestor in our pedigree tree was necessary for us to be here today. Whatever their trade, religion, race, language; if they had not existed, neither would we. Whether the ancestors were good or bad is irrelevant. Whether they were rich or poor is irrelevant. Whether they were educated or not is irrelevant. Only one thing is important to our existence. We can say that because they were, we are! How philosophical, Uhh?

When each of these ancestors had children, their children’s children became cousins, and with each succeeding generation; more and more distant cousins were created. So, after a number of generations we find ourselves distantly related to thousands and even millions of persons.

In the past, it was difficult to know who these distant relatives were. There also was no easy way to know if we were related to a famous person unless this person just happened to be in your direct ancestral line, like a 4th or 5th great grandfather or something.

The task is now a little easier. Over the last decade, the internet has filled with genealogy sites where individuals can place their own genealogical trees. These unlinked trees are great for research and have often helped us to find ancestors and their offspring that we did not know about. Their descendants (our distant cousins), like us, have been researching their ancestors, and at some point many of these share a common ancestor with us.

These unlinked trees were good, but that was only the beginning. For research purposes the next step was to start to combine these trees together where they had common ancestral links to form a much larger family tree incorporating all of these individual trees. I’m not going to give a history here of different sites that now do this, but one of these, Ancestry.Com has provided a new tool to help you find our famous relatives which I have tried out several times, JUST FOR FUN.

If you have submitted a genealogical tree with family ancestry data as I have, you may go to specific individuals on your tree and institute a search for famous relatives of that individual. On the right hand side of the site is a box with links under the title Tools. One of these is “Find famous relatives”. It was here that I did the preliminary research on “my” famous relatives. The famous relatives that result and their connections to us are only as accurate as the information on the “One World Tree” links. If there are mistakes in the individual family trees which make up the “One World Tree”, then the connections given to us will also be in error.

I made a copy of the connections to these “famous” relatives and then checked these connections with my own family tree information and the individual links tied to each person in the connection. If my comparison seemed to prove their connections were accurate, I considered them as relatives. So, I am only including those which appear to be legitimate ancestral connections in my postings on this site. [One of the reports said that Geoffrey Chaucer, the famous English author, was my 15th grandfather. When I checked the results, there was a mistake in one genealogical connection of over one hundred years, which made the connection definitely not true.]

All of the famous relatives that I am placing on this site are based on their relationship to me through one of my grandparent’s ancestors.

If you want to see how you fit in, you have to know which person on our lineage you are related to. In my case, I could be related through my dad’s side through his mother ( Owens family) or his father’s (Ross family) ancestors), or my mother’s side through her mother (Lewis family) or father’s (Long family) ancestors. So, all of my brothers and sister have the exact same relationship to these famous persons as I do. All of our children would have the same relationship to the famous person as each of their cousins.

If you are connected directly to any of the ancestors that lead back to the common ancestor that we have with the famous person, then you are related also. The relationship would be different from mine, but you would still be related.

Over the next few weeks (or months), as I develop charts of the connections to these famous ancestors, I will place links to them on a page listing entitled: Our Famous Relatives.

Just a little teaser! Or two!

• President George Walker Bush is my ninth cousin [through Longs] (I am posting this one to a page entitled ‘Our Famous Relatives: PRESIDENT GEORGE WALKER BUSH’ today).
  
• His wife, Laura Welch Bush is my seventh cousin, once removed [through Longs]
  
• President Gerald Ford, is my eighth cousin, one removed [through Rosses]
  
• James “Wild Bill” Hickock is my sixth cousin, four times removed. [Ross Side]
  
• Eleanor Roosevelt, is my half-eighth cousin, twice removed [Long side]
  

Stay tuned to see “step by step” exactly how they are related to me (and you!). I’ll be posting the first one soon.

If you have any questions or comments on this posting or any of “Famous Relative” pages to follow, sign up and enter your comments. I would love to hear from any and all relatives.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

Today I placed a another link on the blogroll to the right which goes directly to the RossTribe.Com Family Web Site. It is a site initiated today to keep in touch with and provide a service to the descendants of James McClellan Ross (Ahn 4) and Esther Lou Owens (Ahn 5), my grandparents.

Those direct descendants of these two individuals are eligible for a FREE email using rosstribe.com as the domain. It is powered by Google and provides several gigabytes of storage for each mail box. If you are one of these direct descendants, contact me at my secondary email: lamar@rosstribe.com. I will add your new email for you.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

This site treats all the direct ancestors of me; my father Elmer M Ross (Ahn 2), his parents, James McClellan Ross (Ahn 4), and Esther Lou Owens (Ahn 5); and my mother Mary Ruth Long (Ahn 3), and her parents John Bertie Long (Ahn 6) and Nannie Grace Lewis (Ahn 7).

The history which I have added tonight of Luke Owens

The Family of Luke Owens (Ahn 20), 1824 to 1972

was written by my grandmother’s brother’s son (Herman Owens), i.e. the first cousin of my dad. It was written about 1972 and a typed copy of the report was later given to me after Herman’s death by his wife Annie Belle Cranford Owens. It makes reference also to Luke’s brother Jack, whose family is being researched by many of his descendents.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

A friend recently sent me an email with a link to a poem that is so appropriate for a family genealogy blog. The written poem is set to music and beautiful landscapes. It refers to the “dash” between the birth date and the death date seen on gravestones and other sources relating to a person’s life.

Recently, I placed on this site a copy of the eulogy I read at my dad’s funeral last year. That little bit of remembrance can never reflect all of the memories, not only mine, but every friend and relative has of those days of his life. “1915 - 2007″ only tells us of a span of time in which dad (Elmer Melvin Ross) lived. It is that time in between represented by the “dash”, that is the most significant. To each of us, that “dash” means something different.

As you read and listen to this poem, think of the wonderful remembrances of loved ones already deceased and what that “dash” means to you. Also, think of what you can do while still living to to improve the quality of your “dash” when you are gone, and what you can do to help those who have not placed the final date after their “dash”…. May your “dash” be significant in many lives!!

It is set up to open in a separate window so you can easily return to this site after reading and listening to it. Many thanks to www.walkthetalk.com for making this available on the internet.

Click on this Link (The Dash, by Linda Ellis) to Watch and Hear this presentation.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

One of the goals I have had for many years was to have a website which specialized in the provision of help for “amateur” genealogists, who make up the majority of the world’s genealogical researchers. All you have to do to see the need for this is to get on some of the genealogical surname forums and look at the kinds of questions that are posed. The “newbe’s” many times are completely lost and do not know how to even properly ask for the information they need. This is not to put them down. They are amateurs and must learn the genealogical “ropes”, so to speak.

Two years I formed a legal entity ” The International Association of Amateur Genealogists, LLC” (IAAGEN) in Florida for the purpose of providing a site specifically for “amateur” genealogists. Due to the complexity of life, I have not completed the website yet but have begun a blog as a first step toward implementing my “dream”.
Check out the link to the site on the right and check it regularly. I will be developing the blog as a test for many of the ideas I want to incorporate into the website. I’ll be saying more soon on that blog about what I intend to do with the association and the website to be developed. It should be fun for me and informative to amateur genealogists. I state the following as part of the first posting on this blog.

This site is designed to provide support for the AMATEUR Genealogist, whom I believe to make up the majority of the those pursuing the hobby of genealogy and family history. It has been estimated that there are more than seventy five million (75,000,000) people throughout the world interested in this hobby. We hope to make this site “the site” for amateur genealogists and will attempt to provide support both for the “why” and the “how” to make your research journey a little more productive and enjoyable.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

Today I added a page with the will of Moses Washington Kennedy (Ahnentafel # 34). I tried to format it as close to the original as possible, but the limitations of doing this short of a PDF file made an exact representation impossible. However, it is formatted as close to the original as possible. The original was hard to read in some places but I believe that everything I transcribed is exactly as was worded (and spelled) in the original document.

The typed copy of the original will was typed by Lamar Ross on 17 June 1994 and a copy of the original is still in his possession.

I hope this adds a little insight into another segment of our ancestry.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

When James Ross (Ahnentafel # 16) married Esther Kennedy (Ahnentafel # 17) on 12 Sep 1850 in Guernsey County, Ohio we gained a new and in many cases, illustrious branch to our ancestral tree. Under this category, “The Ross and Kennedy Connection”, A new page will be started on the right side page links. I will be placing numerous bits of information on the Kennedy branch as sub categories of this Ross-Kennedy Connection Page. I hope you find it interesting and informative. I would especially like to hear from collateral Kennedy relatives who at any point in the Kennedy past, share a common ancestor with our Ross family branch. I have corresponded with many of these in the past and look forward to having them sign up and participate on our site.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

Well, you know how it is when the holidays roll around each year. You seem to get busy and don’t do the routine things (like post a blog). I went out of town to visit my daughter in Georgia and the grandkids, and went over to Alabama one day to see my mom. It was definitely colder than I like to see. I guess that is why I still live in Florida.

My daughter and son introduced me to FaceBook, an online social contact site over the holidays. It has a lot to offer that a this blog doesn’t so I am going to give the site URL (http://www.facebook.com) and invite all my friends and relatives to join me there also. Once you join up, you can invite me to be a member of your network of friends and our sites will be linked. Of course, I put a link to this site there also.

Happy New Year to all and may all your resolutions for this year be accomplished. I’ll be adding to the Ross ancestry data soon.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

Since this site emphasizes the ancestry of Elmer Melvin Ross and Mary Ruth Long (my parents), I have today included a link to a ten generation pedigree with the known ancestors of these individuals. I am the initial person since in order to have both parents, one of their offspring must start the pedigree. It could have just as easily been one of my brothers, or my sister, but since I’m the writer, I chose me. This pedigree with help to understand the relationship of some of the ancestors I will discuss from time to time. You can use the blogroll link on the home page (to the right) to reach it. After you look at the pedigree, you can either hit the back button or click on the rossancestor.com link on the pedigree home page to return to the blog.

© 2007 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.