Am I a northern redneck?

[AustinBoston]

...or, know thine ancestors before marrying...

Jeff Foxworthy's original "You May be a Redneck" routine had this:

"If your family tree does not fork, you may be a Redneck."

I'm sad to say, my family tree does not fork.  Or, at least one branch of it does not.   :mad:

In what follows, all the women's names are their maiden names unless I say otherwise, and everyone I mention by name is dead today.

I had known that my grandmother on my father's side, SB Richmond, was, on her mother's side, a product of the Howes family tradition of only marrying relatives.  The tradition started in the early 1600's, and continued into the early 20th century.

Now if you trace all of your ancestors back to the 1600's, you will find people you are descended from multiple ways.  Even an occasional first cousin marriage won't do that much harm.  But the Howes family just couldn't seem to find people outside the family to marry.

I can find situations where a couple married, and both had the same last name of Howes (this should have been a clue) and the wife's parents were both Howes.  I have found them marrying first cousins, second cousins, and third cousins.  In one case, the couple was both second cousins and third cousins once removed!

They even carried the tradition on when they moved hundreds of miles away.  The family lived in the Dennis/Yarmouth, Mass. area for about 200 years, but in the late 1700's or early 1800's, some of them moved to the other end of the state, to Ashfield, Mass and vicinity, where they carried on the tradition for a few more generations.

I don't know if the Howes's didn't want to marry outside the family, or if, after generations of inbreeding, other families didn't want to marry into it.   :yikes:

In any case, SB Richmond's mother, Alice Howes, had mixed in some Clark/Williams genes, a very well bred family with a lot of outside genetic material at nearly every marriage.

I felt confident that her husband, Charles A. Richmond, also brought fresh DNA into the family, diluting that Howes gene soup some more.  But I wasn't 100% certain.  See, try as I might, I could not figure out who he was (or more correctly, who his parents were).  It was a complicated thing to search for.  There was another Charles A Richmond who lived within 50 miles and was born in the same year.  He was the president of a college in upstate New York, and so he shows up everywhere.  I tried all kinds of things to find out who his parents were, and was even starting to think he was an escaped convict using an alias.

This suspicion was made worse by two things.  The first was an article in an old newspaper from extreme northern New York.  These newspapers had dozens of articles that mentioned the college president, and I waded through them on the off chance I would find a clue about my own ancestor.  What I found was a true, genuine horse thief!  A young man going by the name of Charles Richmond wanted to hire a team of horses, but only had "large bills" and could he pay when he got back?  After several reassurances, the stable let him do it.  But when they checked the boarding house where he claimed he was staying, they had been told the same thing...he hadn't paid because he only had "large bills."  They eventually caught up with him, but not before he had sold the horses.  Charles Richmond turned out to be an alias.  Interesting, but nothing to prove this was the Charles Richmond I was looking for.

Then I got access to most of the US Census data (the LDS site has all of the 1880 census, but it has some errors, is only a transcript, and does not include all columns).  This data is searchable, and links to scans of the microfilm so you can find transcription errors.  I found Charles Richmond with his wife, Alice Howes, but could not find him before they were married, when I could have connected him to his parents.  Eventually, I just searched for every Charles Richmond in the 1870 census.  There was a lot to wade through, but there was one who was the right age.  He was a prisoner in a Philadelphia prison.  It was not looking good...

It was not him.  I was able to positively exclude the prisoner (though the prisoner may be the horse thief).  I found my ancestors with his parents in the 1860 census, so now I knew he was the son of Austin L. Richmond and Sarah F. (maiden name unknown) Richmond.  Austin is a good name,  like it.  My middle name is Austin, and it comes from my father's side of the family but from his father, not his mother.  My great grandmother's maiden name was Austin, my grandfather's middle name was Austin (he went by Austin instead of Walter), my uncle's middle name is Austin, several cousins have middle names of Austin, and a nephew has a middle name of Austin.  So it's always a good day to find another Austin in the family tree.

So who was Sarah F.?  That required a bit of detective work and a bit of luck.  The luck was finding Austin L. Richmond and Sarah F (?) Richmond in the same house as an elderly couple.  My face got red. :banghead: Charles A. Richmond was supposed to bring fresh genes to the gene pool.  but could his grandfather really be Heman Howes (his wife's great uncle)? :swear:

Suddenly, my elation from finding an Austin was snuffed out at finding another Howes.  One quarter of his "fresh genes" were the same stale old, inbred Howes genes. :eyecrazy: I'd rather have the horse thief.  Suddenly a bunch of things came together.

This is definitely the case...I now have both him and his ancestor's and her census records from every U.S. census from 1860 to 1920 (except 1890, which were nearly all burned in a fire).  I have connections that used good source material from both LDS and Rootsweb (a notoriously bad source of information).

Some family members think I'm crazy for the way I react to inbreeding (I may be...and the inbreeding may be the cause :p ), but consider this:

My brother has a daughter (a very cute redhead girl who is now about 16).  She has a condition that has never been identified (they spent about $100,000 trying before just accepting it).  The condition is very similar to Downs but without the extra chromosome.  She was also born with a cleft palet and significant leg deformities.  Among SB Richmond's descendants, there is this Downs-like child, a severely retarted child, one blind person, six cleft palets, and very many people (close to 60% that I know of) who have been treated for depression, Attention Deficit Disorder, and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

On the positive side, all of the girls except two (my brother's daughter mentioned above and one of my daughters) have either been in advanced placement courses, accelerated learning courses, or taken college credit while in high school.  But there is a difference between intelligence and being able to function in society...

I was not looking for this, but I found a great Aunt of SB Richmond, Eunice Howes, who was reported in the census as being unable to read or write, and listed as "idiotic."  This term covered a wide range of things, including Downs Syndrome, other forms of mental retardation, and Autism.  It sometimes included various forms of age-related senility, and the results of some types of strokes.  It did not include insanity (or forms of senility that resembled insanity) because there was a separate category for insanity.  I think these categories stopped being used in 1890 or 1900.

SB Richmond herself has been described by a number of people who knew her as a very sickly woman.  She was 52 when she died.  Two of her children did not live to be 60 (the other two are close to 80, but one of those is totally blind).  

People, I know this is an extreme case, and I know that with the high degree of mobility in today's society the risks are far less.  But there is real misery to be made by not mixing the gene pool.  Make sure your children know who their biological ancestors were, at least to the great grandparent level.  (The breeding of dogs and horses typically requires diligently tracking ancestors to the great-great-grandparent level) Don't rely on chance.  You don't want your grandchildren to be biological rednecks.

Austin

[EuroVanMan]

I grew up in central Florida. Since, I have traveled, lived and worked across this great land and a dozen countries abroad. I have found that rednecks exisit everywhere! Now I live in Ohio and have found that Ohioians are just southerners in denial.  At first glance, everone comes from different backgrounds, but after getting to know them, we find we are all part of the same family. We are all rednecks in some way or another. Welcome home brother, hope to run into you sometime.

[AustinBoston]

I grew up in central Florida. Since, I have traveled, lived and worked across this great land and a dozen countries abroad. I have found that rednecks exisit everywhere! Now I live in Ohio and have found that Ohioians are just southerners in denial.  At first glance, everone comes from different backgrounds, but after getting to know them, we find we are all part of the same family. We are all rednecks in some way or another. Welcome home brother, hope to run into you sometime.

I have both Austin and Davis lines in my tree.  It becomes a problem when everyone assumes Austin means the Austins of Texas and Davis means the Jefferson Davis family.  No, these are Yankee Austins..."Well I'll be, I didn't know thar wuz such a thing."

Austin

[Acts 2:38 girl]

DH and I were at our wedding shower when my Great-Aunt (who does all our family history) was tracking down my-soon-to-be FIL.  She then announced to us that our Great-Great Grandmothers were sisters!  Me being 17, sort of freaked out and wanted to know if it was still OK to get married!!  She assured me all was fine, and so far all four of the kids seen fine!  I've had quite a few comments that DH and I look more like brother and sister, though!  Unnerving!

[tlhdoc]

DH and I were at our wedding shower when my Great-Aunt (who does all our family history) was tracking down my-soon-to-be FIL. She then announced to us that our Great-Great Grandmothers were sisters! Me being 17, sort of freaked out and wanted to know if it was still OK to get married!! She assured me all was fine, and so far all four of the kids seen fine! I've had quite a few comments that DH and I look more like brother and sister, though! Unnerving!

LOL, how are you guys doing?  Haven't heard from you in a long time.  Do you still go camping?

[AustinBoston]

DH and I were at our wedding shower when my Great-Aunt (who does all our family history) was tracking down my-soon-to-be FIL.  She then announced to us that our Great-Great Grandmothers were sisters!  Me being 17, sort of freaked out and wanted to know if it was still OK to get married!!  She assured me all was fine, and so far all four of the kids seen fine!  I've had quite a few comments that DH and I look more like brother and sister, though!  Unnerving!

Two areas where I have done NO reasearch is PJay's step parents and DD#1's (a.k.a. HrH PrincessLeia) in-laws.

BTW, did you notice the addition in the signature?  We have a granddaughter. :S  :M

Austin

[Acts 2:38 girl]

We have a granddaughter

I know it, Grandpa!  Your DW sent me pictures! WHAT a cutie! Your DD will make a GREAT Mom, she is so sweet!  
 
We are fine, life is crazy!  Still home school the three boys, so it is busy!  Our daughter is a lot of fun too.  Saturday I took her ice skating for the first time and she was skating great by the end of the day!  It's to expensive to rent skates for all the kids and me, so until we buy them we will have to pack ourselves!  
 
We haven't been camping in so long it makes me want to cry!  We sold the old camper on e-bay, and just got a great tax return back, so I'm not sure if we should have a good nest egg (we really need one of those) or get a camper and start up again.  I really want to go to Prince Edward Island this summer, so I was thinking about renting a cottage up there.  We will see!