> I was > able to trace my family to Canada's first permanent settlement, Port Royal in > what's now Nova Scotia, and it seems we arrived here around 1630.
Mover-inners! (Just kidding Frank!) > Being able to trace your roots to the Mayflower is wonderful. More than "traced," and as you probably know firsthand, it was a great and guarded badge of honor to certain preceding generations, who imagined that it conferred upon them some sort of specialness for some reason. (Evidently during the Revolution and for a time thereafter it meant you were a sort of American aristocrat, almost.) Now I think it has receded to its proper importance...namely, not much. Still, you're right, it *is* kind of nice to be connected to history personally. At least on Thanksgiving it is. Actually my _last_ immigrant ancestor that we can trace came over in 1750. I still have some of his silver. That fellow came over with the contingent dispatched by Lord Baltimore and helped found the city of that name in Maryland. I think there must have been later immigrant ancestors, but of course the nice thing about genealogy is that you can choose the tributaries you wish to follow backwards, and overlook the ones that tweedle back to nothing. <g> We lay claim to a variety of distinguished ancestors back in Ye Olde England as well, some of whom are commemorated by those peculiar lying-down-dead sculptures our British cousins seem fond of. Enough that my Great-Grandfather felt obliged to go on a tour and see them all. If anyone can think of a way to link this topic back up to anything having to do with Pentax, let me know. I'm coming up blank. <s> --Mike
