A GIFT FROM OUR ANCESTORS

I love this picture of Daddy and his siblings! The old Model T Ford with chains on the tires, the work clothes, the mud, and the bunkhouse behind them say life is  hard work; yet, judging by the grins on their faces, they know how to take the good with the bad and enjoy life as it comes. Is that what the French call joie de vivre? Is it a trait in our family? If it is, where did it come from? What ancestors blessed some of us with that ‘enjoyment of life’?

I’ve been working my way through my DNA matches in Ancestry — 37,969 matches at the moment, and more being added all the time! All people that are related to me! I haven’t made much progress compared to the number of matches, but here are just a few interesting things  I’ve observed:

· First of all, thanks to the fact that Edith and Gary have a different mother than I do, it’s fairly easy to differentiate between my maternal and paternal DNA matches. I have jillions of close matches on my mother’s side; but on Daddy’s side, there’s Jo and Robyn, Edith, then some of Edith and Gary’s children and grandchildren. It's only when I get to distant cousins that I start seeing more relatives on Daddy’s line.

· As of this date, I have marked 559 DNA matches on my paternal side.

· Not counting Daddy’s descendants, twenty-one of these matches can be traced to a common ancestor — I know how they’re related. The rest of the 559 either have no tree or I can’t make the connection. It’s not easy to find a common ancestor beyond four generations back!

· So far, 71 of my matches share with me the ethnic community of “Scottish Lowlands, Northern England and Northern Ireland”. Hello, Scotts, Riddells, Elliotts, and Armstrongs . . . .

· A whopping 275 matches share with me the ethnic community of “Southwestern Quebec, New York and Vermont French Settlers”! And these matches and their ancestors are all over the map of North America — from the St. Lawrence River area down into New England and on south — clear down to the Gulf States! Anyone familiar with Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline” and the story of the Acadians? Those French people really got around!

Several years ago, I bought, for my library, a set of books about different cultures in America. One of them was titled French Americans. I think one of the reasons I got it was because of the picture on the front of the book. It reminded me, somehow, of Daddy and his brothers. I see the same look in some of Grandma Scott’s brothers, the Elliotts. There is something about their bearing and the twinkle in their eyes that I don’t see in the Scott-Riddell relatives. And I started wondering — that twinkle in the eye, the cheery smile, the rakish tilt of the hat — the look of joie de vivre  — is that a gift from Great-grandma Jane Laprade and her French forebears?

The Elliott Brothers