My Life
... the logical end product
resulting from years of inbreeding
Not too long ago, I embarked on a genealogical project to see if I could construct an impressive looking, if not at all accurate genealogy without leaving the squalid comfort of my home. I had three reasons for doing this:
To prove a suspicion that if I go back far enough, and trace everything back down, I'll ultimately be related to everyone.
To overcome a sense of eternal loneliness, not knowing (or liking) most of my living relatives. (Obviously, if you're a living relative and you're reading this, you must be one of the few that I like. If you're not a living relative and you're reading this, then you have nothing to worry about.)
It seemed like something superficially useful sounding to do with all this expensive computer hardware I keep spending so much money on.
I'll have to admit that I have not quite satisfied my first goal. In fact, so far, my genealogy has been an intergenerational study in self-hatred and a retrospective documentation of the apple never really falling from the tree. In short, my family tree doesn't branch that much, as I come from a long line of jerks who all resemble each other a little bit too much for anyone's comfort.
In a way, my family tree is a history of our species in microcosm. When you consider any theory of creation or evolution, you'll soon realize that we're a species that was inbred from the start, with the single-minded genetic goal of proving just how stupid it is to base life on such a limited selection of genes.
This realization provides me with the sense of connectedness that has otherwise been missing all through the earlier years of my life.
Not that it's particularly important to anyone other than people who I don't like, I'd like to share my family tree here. Unfortunately, using a really cool shareware utility to convert my genealogy to HTML results in a batch of HTML that's probably too big for a mere mortal to wade through. Still, if you want to try, start with me and get lost. Failing that, try the consolation prize, a Java craplet offered by the Family Tree Maker site, which contains a stripped down version of my family tree. Such as it is, which is very innaccurate, but almost impressive looking. Of course, it requires you to have a browser with a working Java, which is both doubtful and of dubious value.
Then again, few people outside my family would really care, and few inside my family can read.
Notes for real genealogists:
You may find my genealogy a bit short on references and other supportive
documentation that would prove its authenticity. Well, that's mostly because I don't
have enough time to do this properly. What I have done is take the genealogy of the
Banks family (by Jim Eakins in Nova Scotia) that is well supported, and merge it with
genealogies passed down within my family. I have augmented all of this by merging
family trees from the Family Tree Maker World Family Tree CD-ROM collection. These
are obviously of dubious reliability. On the other hand, I have found that most of
the lines seem to pop up in several such trees, so if they're wrong, they're also a
popular mistake.
See my place at the
root of the great tree of life!
Or, if you want to find a particular person, start
with the surnames list
If you want some GEDCOMs, try the
alternate tree
Comments? Feel free to discuss this page in our online forum