Sitting in my third floor office, listening to music, and writing about my enjoyment of the genealogical work others have done is self indulgent. I should be finding another job.
My cousin Eddie, from North Baltimore, told me a story about stopping in Murfreesboro to search for the grave of our mutual great grandfather, Freeman Ellsworth. He stopped in the administration building to ask for a cemetery map. The man at the desk told him there was no listing for Freeman Ellsworth. He then pointed out to a large field across from the parking lot. "There are thousands of unknown soldiers buried out in that field," he said. "He's probably out there."
That story made me curious to see if I could find any more information online. Searching for only "Freeman Ellsworth" in Google led me to a long list of Ellsworth documents created by Dorothy Geisert on software called Family Tree Maker. These documents culminated in Cambridgeshire England in the sixteenth century with a man named Lord John Ellsworth, a man who could possibly be my tenth great grandfather. His grandson, Josiah Ellsworth, came to the Colonies about 1646, settled in Windsor Connecticut, and married a woman named Elizabeth Holcomb. Her father Thomas, came to Massachusetts as one of those folks who are remembered as Puritans, about 1633.
Josiah and Elizabeth had a son John, whose wife had a son named Jonathan. Jonathan grew up, married, and had a son named Oliver. Oliver grew up and became a lawyer in the late eighteen century in Connecticut. Being a brilliant thinker and writer, he was one of five men asked to write a draft of the U.S. Constitution in 1787. He was later appointed to the Supreme Court, where he later became Chief Justice.
I am grateful to all of the people whose hard work and research revealed these facts to me. I share a great grandfather and an unknown quantity of genetic material with a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who helped to write the Constitution. There is no real benefit to be gained from this tenuous relation. The pleasure is purely selfish, particularly when I should be concentrating of getting a job. Nevertheless, it is a pleasure having this knowledge.
What is the value of genealogy? The extensive work of others has revealed a broad swath of relatives: fighters in the Revolution, Civil War soldiers, farmers, coopers, slave owners, but mostly ordinary persons like myself. We are all connected as human beings. Is it not better to explore these connections than proclaim how we are so different from those over whom we claim superiority. Perhaps that this the answer to the genealogy question.
