Rain Man

(Author's note: Sometimes you just gotta go there.)

As always, exhaustively unedited.

Let's face it. There is one highway the wannabe genealogist must never go down. 

It's that genealogical highway headed way out past Rabbit Hole, South Dakota, or past Rumor, West Virginia, or Gossip, Indiana. You might be thinking you got the Big Time chops to navigate those pot holes out around Burnt Court House, Oklahoma, but trust me, you don't. As the wannabe genealogist you've been warned about all of these places and road signs before. Heck, you've already been to Dead End, Michigan looking for great grandpa a couple of times before. You already know that most of those genealogical maps you picked up along the way likely came out of the Way-Back-Machine or some Rootsweb page that told you Prince Harry shops at the same Wal-Mart you do. 

Yeah, you were warned and you know those warnings to be true.

Still, you like to put the top down and burn some genealogical gas sometimes. 

After all, you gotta look, right? 

All those BIG family trees you passed along the genealogical highway- you figure they can't all just be unpaved dirt roads to Big Lies, Montana. Somebody has had to have posted a sign to Family Truth, Arizona, or stumbled upon it, and maybe just forgotten to tell you (or anybody) that you might just not run out of gas before you actually get there. You know, to get you there to that proverbial Ancestral Bridge over the railroad tracks of your own private Who's Who Highway of Kansas and Idaho!

But hey, indulge me here for a moment. 

Close yours eyes just for a wee bit, and you fire up those genealogical engines - and your wonder of what's out there anyway. Even if we figure out that it turns out to be nothing more than just another map of Bullhooey, Tennessee, or Wrong Way City, Delaware, it's worth taking a chance to see. 

                                                      *************

Now, I've spent way too much of my "genealogical currency," agency, nerve, verve, or gas, looking for the usual b.s.. I mean who doesn't want all those acclaimed willy-nilly things that make one a Swiftie or a relative of Millard Filmore. How could you not? But late last week, after being prompted by Cousin Dan to listen to a series of podcats on the nature of consciousness, and, from there, being directed to or reminded of a certain man by the name of "Kim Peek," I was, well,  "genealogically" hooked again. 

           

Above: Laurence Kim Peek - "Rain Man"

As you might expect, I did not immediately recognize the name "Kim Peek" (or his full name Laurence Kim Peek). However, as I listened to the podcast, and realized that they were discussing the real world attributes of the man who was Rain Man, well, I had to know more. The wannabe genealogist in me began to suck in way too many exhaust fumes from the genealogical highway- and all of a sudden I was genealogically crusin' in a 1948 Buick Roadmaster - because if you're gonna go on a genealogical cruise, well, the cruiser has got to make sense.

You got a better idea? Whatever.

I'm not sure exactly what I was looking for - okay, that's a lie. I wanted that connection.

I wanted that connection to Rain Man. Hell, I wanted it probably more than I wanted to be considered a dang Swiftie by extention. And it was there. It was there, sitting unverified a couple of times over at the railroad tracks of Family Trees City and a not far outside of Incest Forks, Vermont. I was good with that, and well, I probably should have simply moved on. I mean, really, it was (and is) good enough to known that a wee-wee-tiny-tiny bit o' "Rain Man blood" flows through my geriatric and well clogged arteries. 

But you have to know that would never be enough. 

After all, I did work on that Short-Bus for one heck of a lot of years. LOL.

       

Above: Image courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/groups/1689914071397493/user/100076281457960/

Yeah, it wasn't enough. 

As I cruised in the '48 Buick though I saw what I was looking for. 

Yep, there it was - my kinsman - my goal - John Howland of the Mayflower - right there in Rain Man's family tree and with the Old Boat itself tied up at the docs along side the highway at "Just Maybe Baby," Massachusetts. 

Now I have been to the town of "Just Maybe Baby" before. Hell, I think I interned there more than once - but could it be that "Laurence Kim Peek" the actual Rain Man and little old moi shared a common Mayflower ancestor via John Howland? 

    

Winner, winner, chicken dinner - or is it Just Maybe Baby?

I'd already researched my own family lines to Grandpa John and nauseum. Could I prove Rain Man's?

I couldn't help but wonder, why nobody has looked at this before. This lack of attention to a fairly prominent cultural icon didn't make sense. Had Peek's possible Mayflower ancestry slipped through the cracks? At this point, I honestly don't know the answer. So I have decided to set out here what I do know, or what me and a 1948 Buick Roadmaster convertible might discover about any possible connection from MP John Howland to Kim Peek. 

It is significant enough (I feel) that it warrants further study - but a further study that is for me, at least for now, in a place called Outer Limits, Utah. (You get my drift.)

Okay, here goes:

Now I don't wanna bore you with a bunch of unncessary old hand written genealogical road maps on paper napkins. So I figured I'll take a short cut over the new information highway and see if I can't explain what I'm talking about a different way. 

In other words, the first generations from Mayflower passenger John Howland to Laurence Kim "Rain Man" Peek start to shape up like this:

It's all well and good, right? 

Yeah, I know. It usually is until some pesky genealogical road closure in Western New York that causes you to slide right off the pedigree pavement where you land in a swamp of missing records, and baptismal receipts. LOL.

But things really do look pretty good between Rain Man and John Howland until you get here:

As you can see, you have just pulled that '48 Buick Roadmaster up to the "Tilt-a-whirl" at the traveling genealogical carnival of clowns. Couldn't nobody write this sh*t down?

"Rain Main" Kim Peek's Mayflower line to John Howland is pretty much fine up until this point. But when we get here, that is to Generation 7 we see that for Rain Man's ancestor, the lovely and talented Aseneth (Hurlbut) Dustin, that the record of who her parents were is, well, long overdue for a Smog Certificate. 

Yeah, the records get slim here. 

In fact, the "go to" book, The Hurlbut Genealogy finds out dear Aseneth (Hurlbut) Dustin not listed among the children of the people reputed to be her parents at all. Aseneth is supposed to be the daughter of Jesse Hurlbut and Polly Taft/Teft. 

But she "ain't there." In fact, our dear gal Aseneth isn't in the Hurbut genealogy at all.

Now we know she "was there" - we know Aseneth Hurlbut was married to Bechias Dustin. Indeed, the genealogy on down from Aseneth and Bechias to Rain Man is pretty easy peasy. Not to get ahead of myself, but it sort of looks like this:

The trouble with all of this, is that (for the most part) ALL we have to go on for Rain Man's Generation 7 is this:

Yep, this is an LDS family group sheet from the 1950s - but it is based off one from the 1890s.

It was put together by a cousin of Rain Man's, a lady by the name of Vilda (Dustin) Kunz. 

While there is quite a bit of information about the Dustin family itself, notably Aseneth's husband Bechias Dustin, there's not much else for Aseneth herself.

  

Above: The Hurlbut Genealogy (1888) - where Aseneth is missing from this geneartion's children on the next page (pages 157-158)

As you can see from this FGS, (created just a few short years after that 1948 Buick Roadmaster), the genealogically inclined Vilda (Dustin) Kunz listed Aseneth's parents shown as Jesse Hurlbut and Polly Taft - the same people and family listed in the Hurbut genealogy - where Aseneth is not listed as their daughter at all.

Above: The Duston-Dustin Genealogy (1953)

So what gives? At this point it's hard to tell.

We end up in a tug-o-war. 

With no original vital records found thus far, The (1888) Hurbut Genealogy takes on the look of "the authority" for the family and all things on "Hurlbut Drive."  Vilda's family sheets become "an interesting aside;" they don't carry the weight that one might think they should. Vilda's information from the 1950s becomes immediately suspect. Where did Vilda get the information from? Did she copy it from a previously false record? 

   

                                        Above: Vilda (Dustin) Kunz (1891-1986)

I'm not here to malign Vilda. 

In fact, I think she was probably ensconced someplace in some pre-cursor of a 1960s Granite Mountain in Salt Lake when she wrote all the information about Aseneth's family down on the Family Group Sheet, and that likely, The (1888)  Hurlbut Genealogy, well, that they just missed Aseneth when they turned that genealogical corner too fast and skidded off the genealogical highway.

Still, as I researched this portion of Rain Man's lines I could see that there is yet a GREAT DEAL hidden away in that Granite Mountain in SLC that could lead to more information about Rain Man's ancestor Aseneth (Hurlbut) Dustin. (I only hope that if some of you LDS folks read this you'll take pity on me and tell your Grand Pubas to release more records.)

                   

Really, what the heck are they hiding them for?

In the mean time, the discussion of Rain Man's family tree and that of any possible ties to the Mayflower may seem suspect - but are they?

Some may argue that Rain Man's connection to MP John Howland was a "copy and paste" moment in someone's family tree trying to link people that don't truly connect- inserting an "unrelated" Aseneth (Hurlbut) Dustin into Jesse Hurlbut and Polly (Taft) Hurlbut's family so as to "procure" that Mayflower connection. Some will say that folks may have seen it to as an opportunity to link Rain Man to the Mayflower. 

Hey, I'm all for it - arguging the evil ways of bad genealogy as the root carburator driving the Ghost in the Machine. BUT there are a couple of issues with that argument.

Vilda's family group sheets were made circa 1955 - and off of 1890s LDS worksheets.

Laurence Kim "Rain Man" Peek was 4 years old in '55.

Actor Dustin Hoffman would not make the name of "Rain Man" a household name until 1988. In 1955, Vilda (Dustin) Kunz had no way of knowing anything about either of them - and Vilda died in 1986 two years before anyone ever parked their antique Roadmasters at the Drive-In movies.

Did Vilda have some other motivation for linking her own family lines to the Mayflower? 

Was she part of some nefarious LDS 1950s sewing circle motor club that wanted to make sure her line was preserved? I'd say yes - but with a reservation. I believe Vilda used the information she had at the time. It was good information to Vilda. It was true to her. I don't believe she falsely portrayed her ancestors "Aseneth Hurbut" and "Bechias Dustin" or their ancestoes as anything but hers.

I think that like "Rain Man" she knew what she was talking about.

And while we may not see it just now, it seems for me, it's time to park the Roadmaster at the corner of "Truth and Vine Streets."

The line, at least for now, anecdotally, holds.

☮