My Family Tree

Like Allie’s mother, my mother told me many family stories about my ancestors. Even now she calls me every day with a news flash from her latest visit to Ancestry.com, her favorite genealogy* website.
MOM: Okay, today I tracked down seven of our crossover* relatives.
ME: Think that’ll help me get a car loan?
MOM: (her keyboard clicking wildly) Oh, there’s another crossover. That makes eight. Gotta go.

*Genealogy is the study of family history.
*Crossover is genealogical lingo for those ancestors who came over from England on the Mayflower.

So far my mother has traced our ancestors to
twelve passengers on the Mayflower.
Click here for an example of the kinds of pages
she sends me.

In The Ghost in Allie’s Pool, Allie
is descended from
William Bradford, the first governor
of the Plymouth Colony,
and Alice Carpenter.

My own family tree is slightly different. Although my ancestor is
Alice Carpenter, I am related to her through her son, Constant,
who she had with her first husband, Edward Southworth.
Click here for a part of my family tree, which shows how I am descended from
Alice Carpenter.

My daughter Ming wrote this for a class assignment in fourth grade about primary sources.*
“This is a photograph that was taken of my great grandmother Ruth Sears. When she
was a teenager, she was in a club called the Octagon Club with seven of her friends.
In this picture, they are having a party and they are dressing up as little girls. This is a
primary source because it was taken in 1910 at the time of the party.
My great grandmother is third from the right.”

*Primary sources come from someone who had firsthand knowledge of an event in the past.

Clip Art: courtesy of http://etc.usf.edu/clipart

MY FAMILY TREE

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