But if all that's true, what about you?

[sovay]

Rabbit, rabbit! I hope everyone who bore with me through the genealogical disclosures of 2019 will have the same patience with my assimilation of the history that the grandmother of my father's father is supposed to have been the first child of American parents born in what was six years off from being the state of California on account of being a department of Mexico at the time. Technically on a wagon train, near the top of the Sierra Nevada. Parents Irish immigrants, like her future husband's family who would move to San Francisco in time to make a killing in dry goods in the gold rush. Her own family had gotten into wheat to the tune of millions. At one point there was a three-thousand-acre ranch. Now it's part of Silicon Valley. America gonif! Half your family is a primer on American colonialism and not two centuries later you're a rootless cosmopolitan. Tell Wittgenstein to call me when the fish people turn up.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

What a story!

Looking forward to the winding ways.

[sovay]

What a story!

I just wasn't expecting the wagon train.

[thisbluespirit]

Tell Wittgenstein to call me when the fish people turn up.

It's got to happen sooner or later, right? ♥

Oh, ooh, interesting, and, lol, oh dear, it looks as if that branch may be out to get a Great American Bingo Card or something, and you'll just have to cope somehow, I suppose. There is not much else you can do to stop them at this late date. (I have a London branch that has gone for a Dickensian Bingo full card, and pretty much the only thing they've avoided is spontaneous human combustion and, frankly, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them had set themselves on fire just to complete the set. Well, if it wasn't a very distant cousin I would be surprised, because I've had sufficient newspaper access to render anything else unlikely, but you never know!)

Seriously, that does look interesting at any rate - how did you come to find it?

[moon_custafer]

Tell Wittgenstein to call me when the fish people turn up.

It's got to happen sooner or later, right? ♥

Somebody needs to make a fandom t-shirt that says MY MOTHER WENT TO INNSMOUTH AND ALL I GOT WERE THESE GILLS

[sovay]

Somebody needs to make a fandom t-shirt that says MY MOTHER WENT TO INNSMOUTH AND ALL I GOT WERE THESE GILLS

I'll take one.

[minoanmiss]

Vistaprint will put almost anything on a T-shirt for a reasonable price. What font should we use?

[moon_custafer]

It would be funnier if it weren’t a “horror” font. Cooper Black?

[minoanmiss]

ahahahahahahahahah omg that's beautiful.

[sovay]

It's got to happen sooner or later, right?

I live in hope!

Oh, ooh, interesting, and, lol, oh dear, it looks as if that branch may be out to get a Great American Bingo Card or something, and you'll just have to cope somehow, I suppose. There is not much else you can do to stop them at this late date.

Fortunately I have known about the pioneering aviator on my father's side since childhood, so I guess it's just a matter of figuring out where everybody was in the Civil War.

(I have a London branch that has gone for a Dickensian Bingo full card, and pretty much the only thing they've avoided is spontaneous human combustion and, frankly, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them had set themselves on fire just to complete the set. Well, if it wasn't a very distant cousin I would be surprised, because I've had sufficient newspaper access to render anything else unlikely, but you never know!)

I feel confident that a spontaneous combustion would be weird enough to get into the papers, so I trust that eventually, however distantly, you will find it.

Seriously, that does look interesting at any rate - how did you come to find it?

My father passed it on to me, building on his brother's research. My uncle actually went out to California at one point and was shown around a museum with his relatives figuring prominently. Somehow I feel less strange about the ex-factory in Łódź with my mother's maiden name on it.

[thistleingrey]

on account of being a department of Mexico at the time

This is sensible, however, the whole thing. It'd only be weird if they'd been in Fort Ross.

[sovay]

This is sensible, however, the whole thing. It'd only be weird if they'd been in Fort Ross.

Eh, it would have matched the Russian theme on the other side!

The amount of continental criss-crossing on both sides of my family stories has really hit home, too. New York and San Francisco are like ping-pong pivots in one generation or another. If I'd been able to go to Berkeley for grad school, I would almost have continued the tradition.

[thistleingrey]

Eh, it would have matched the Russian theme on the other side!

True--for me as reader, that would've been a lot of seeming coincidences :) even though all of it is just how events unfolded.

are like ping-pong pivots

It's lovely that it was possible to do, I think.