Unspeakable Things

A few months ago I was doing some research on the Mayas, and reading an article about their amazing genealogical records, I came upon this image. And when I first saw it, I thought, "I know exactly how he feels." Yes, that man's family history is doing unspeakable things to him, so badly he's had to go to the local Medicine Woman and get a salve. I don't care for family history. My grandmother and my mother-in-law both are quite keen on it, but I don't get it. My interest in my family goes only so far to the people I know or their immediate relations. But I don't care to know if I'm distantly related to the president (gosh, I hope not!) or anything like that. I don't care for name-dropping of the living or of the dead. Until last week.

Last week, it was my birthday, so I received the obligatory birthday phone calls all day long, often from members of my family from whom I don't hear very often, like my mother. So my mother mentioned proudly that my grandmother (the family history hobbyist) had discovered that we are direct descendants of Geoffry Chaucer. There was talk of divine birthright and the such, and I have to admit that there was a welling up of familial pride in my heart. I was tickled pink, and when I was off the phone, my grandmother sent me a guest pass to Ancestry.com so I could see for myself. Sure enough, there was a direct line of parent to child all the way down to me.

This in turn stirred up in me a longing for my oft-derided ancestral name-dropping, so I set about to learn of these famous people to maximize my bragging, starting with ol' Papa Geoff. G. Chaucer begat Thomas Chaucer who begat Alice Chaucer (m. 1430 to William de la Pole) who begat Jane de la Pole who be-- wait. Here's the problem. Because all of these people are famous, especially William de la Pole, there is a lot known and written about them. Like how William fought in the Hundred Years War, and on June 12th 1429 he surrendered to Joan of Arc at the Battle of Jargeau, and how 9 months later was born his daughter Jane -- to the nun he slept with the night before he surrendered. Only 8 months later did he then marry Alice Chaucer with whom he had only one child of note -- John. Which would mean that Geoffry Chaucer is my 21st great step-grandfather. Which basically counts for naught.

As I work my way down the line, the known history gets fuzzier and fuzzier as each person gets more and more mundane, so there may be other breaks in the line (but that won't be recorded by Henry VI's war historians), so I may not even be related to William de la Pole.

There are lots of contemporary descendants of Jane de la Pole who have found themselves no longer the distant progeny of the great bawdy poet from London (he never lived in Canterbury). And like them, I too feel like genealogy has violated me in some unspeakable way.

And now, I'm going to go get some salve cake.