Of Rabbits and Dragons

...or Flying Monkeys, or simply just another Game of Thrones 

(Author's note: Sometimes genealogy should come with a good roast.)

As always, royally unedited.

I.

Anyone subject to my genealogical storytelling and often rants will tell you that I blabber on about what (for me) are questionably important goals or benchmarks to achieve in ancestral research. NONE of these goals or benchmarks are important. They are just that, something to aim for, something to achieve. They're rather whimsical and pretty WASPY in terms of origin stories, but hey, call it like it is. I am an old white guy living dangerously on the edge of my golden years. It sorta makes sense that those would be my proverbial rabbits or dragons to chase.

For any of you who haven't been paying attention, and simply because nobody would blame you for not doing so, I thought I'd bring up the subject of Gateway Ancestors again. (Wake up. There will be a quiz.) Now, nobody really likes Gateways; they're kind of a pain, kind of rare, and ever so snooty in pretty much any context. Nevertheless, for me and my WASP-ish Anglo-Saxon ways, they're also one of those benchmarks or goals I aim for. What can I say? If you have no interest in a bona fide albeit distant connection to "Uropeanne Royalty" (lol), you should bail out of this blog post tout de suite.

This week, I thought I'd take another look at a possible Gateway Ancestor. Whatever...

I thought I'd take another look at a possible Gateway Ancestor for my cousin Dan Wells. In general, Dan's family tree reads modestly more like a Who's Who or  immodesty like Society's Blue Book Page, but as of late, there's one thing I haven't seen in his family pedigree to prove out, and that is a connection to European royals. Now I'm pretty sure that Old Dan probably couldn't care less about any lineal connection to Henry II's bastard or that he's a fifth cousin twelve times removed to Joan of Arc. Nevertheless, it's my avocation to subject poor Old Cousin Dan to his ancestry, and to dig out the rabbits or dragons wherever I might find them. All of this is my short way of saying that I wanted to look at Dan's lines again to see if we couldn't tie his ancestry beyond the Mayflower, beyond William Penn, and beyond his plethora of Revolutionary War patriots, to say, the Tudors and Lancasters.

Ah, come on, it'll be fun. Here goes...

II.

So I took a gander back through Dan's tree. Lots of (excuse me) boring ass stellar people with major accomplishments in their lives. (I am being unnecessarily glib at Cousin Dan's expense) And while I think you folks might believe I have memorized all the Gateway Ancestors there ever were, in a word, not. I look through the lines and pick and choose which ones might lead me somewhere. For example, I'm pretty good with Mayflower family names, so I sorta know which left or right turn to take in looking for one of those. Not so much with Gateway Ancestors. I have to pull the pin on multiple entries, and much of like aiming a slot machine, sometimes I get lucky.

This time, I came up with a name, Alice Freeman Thompson Parke. 

The name doesn't exactly sound like, "Hey, I'm Anne Boleyn's lost great granddaughter," or look at me if you want to know more about your kinship with Bonnie Prince Charles. Still, something about her name rang true for me. It was like I had heard it before, and seeing as it was in Dan's tree, I decided, WTF, that I would take a quick look.

And, as they say, before I knew it,

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

I had found a bona fide Gateway Ancestor to European Royalty for Cousin Dan. Wake up, Dan! This is cool shit. And, in my opinion, it gets better. Again, whatever.

Now to prove it out.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time here showing the proofs. I had recently worked on Dan's Mayflower lines that would prove him (Old Dan) back to Wealthy Palmer Church. I just needed to get from Wealthy Palmer Church to Alice Freeman Thompson Parke and back again. You know, I would need to take a couple of "genealogical laps" around the track as it were. Well, I'm hoping it will be easy peasy - but, like they say, check back in a week to see if I have come up for air or not.

 Anyway, here goes with my best evidentiary support linking Wealthy Palmer Church to Alice Thompson Parke - and thus to a bona fide proven Gateway Royal ancestor, and this to Old Cousin Dan.

Dan Wells, you really are quite spoiled.

Okay, a pedigree chart to follow this little missive:        

And  now on down to Dan:

Okay, well, don't believe me about old Alice. How about now?

                 

Yes, I know there's some duplication here for emphasis. 
                   

   

               

Yeah, I'm gonna stop about here. Nobody's gonna read this anyway, or check the refs or citations. Besides, this is SUCH a supported line it seems kind of redundant to keep going. I'm sure that Dan will recognize the name of his Church ancestors in the last image shown above, and that anyone should be able to see how the images all connect one on top of the other. Kinda easy-peasy right?

So Alice was quite the gal, huh?

         

Well, there's a monkey flying in every world, but still:

               

 Okay, okay - so Alice is still the real deal. I know, I know. Wake up. All this stuff is pretty boring - and Dan's pedigree is, well, let's face it, not all that challenging in the old royalty department. 

I know, shocker, right?

But since this was all kinda ho-hum, I thought I'd see who else Dan might be "royally related" via Alice Freeman Thompson Parke. That's when I discovered the man behind the curtain. Yep, Dan is related to the Scarecrow, Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and Toto, too.

All because he (Dan) and L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz, are both cousins of Alice. 

Well, I thought it was cool. I mean that's like having your own connection to Glinda the Good Witch of the North - who when I was ten I thought was kinda hot, and her evil sis? Awesome. It also means Dan would be able to have his own trove of genealogical flying monkeys too. Doesn't it just figure?

 

Okay, so it's not exactly a close relationship, but it's more than I've got. I can't even get an Airbnb in the Emerald City, and all Dan has to do is make a phone call.

  

And it's not the typical "I'm related to Joe Blow" kinda stuff. Ah, besides, the little winged monkey guy in the picture is kinda cute. Reminds me of Dan. OMG, I did not just say that. 

III.

So I guess I have found Old Dan his valid Gateway Ancestor. He can mark it along with the Mayor of Munchkin town off the list of genealogical benchmarks and to-dos. But I gotta tell you too, that as I was finishing all this up I saw another peculiar connection for Dan and the very royally inclined Alice Freeman Thompson Parke. 

It's a very ancient one, and frankly less close than The Wizard of Oz. Still, when I saw it I thought, Well of course he's (Dan's) related to that guy. 

And no, I'm not gonna bore you with a bunch of pedigree charts or more shit excerpts from books or citations you'll never look at.

But I am going to wager though, that Old Dan's never heard of Winterfell, or The Wall, or the Night's Watch, nor has he ever had a clue about anything Targaryen. I'm sure he's never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones. I'm not baggin' on Dan - only to say that he's probably not paying attention to all that drama in Westeros.

But really, knowing Dan as little as I do, is anyone surprised to find out that Dan is at least in this "faux genealogical hyperbole of a distant world" a cousin of this guy:

Yeah, that guy, Jon Snow. Legit. One of the heir claimants etc to the Iron Throne. (Or at least to actor Kit Harrington who portrays the royal one.)

Does it get any more "Gateway Ancestor" than that? Hell, does it get more royal than that?

Yeah, no.

I mean, who doesn't want to be able to rattle off that old adage, "I drink and I know things," and hang out with the Lannisters?

                          

Dude, count me in. 

So yes, while Dan isn't technically from the Narrow Sea, or technically one of Ned Stark's bastards, he definitely does have a way of drawing it all into his ephemeral pedigree chart. 

Doesn't it just figure that Dan would have a distant claim to the Iron Throne?

Yeah, that does it. I'm out.

    

What's an unexpected relation like me supposed to think? Lol.

Anyway, hope you all got a small chuckle. If not, well, take heed. I know a guy with a flying monkey and a couple of nasty dragons.

PEACE!